Need some listening skills practice that is authentic and fun for students? Pick an interesting podcast episode and create exercises around that!
I've previously used documentary style podcasts, like BBC's The Documentary Podcast, as well as narrative style ones, like Noble Blood. Another good one is Dear Hank & John (John is John Green, the author of The Fault in our Stars, and Hank is his brother), which answers questions from listeners, and Part-Time Genius does the same, but with absurd questions, like 'will we ever live without sleep?'
Now, just listening to these podcasts is going to help your students practice their listening skills. But if you teach teenagers, you know they need exercises in order to keep paying attention. Below I will share some of the ideas I use for these exercises:
1. Listening comprehension: multiple choice, true/false and open questions
Ask students to answer questions to which they can find the answer in the podcast. You can even have them come up with questions themselves for another student.
2. Summarizing
Ask students to summarize the episode. Is it a story, what happened? Did it answer questions, what were the answers? Is it a documentary, what point was it trying to make?
3. Creating their own podcast
What were the characteristics of the podcast you provided? Was was the style? If it was an interview, point out that it had questions and answers, that the interviewer and interviewee responded to each other, and that it had a clear introduction and conclusion. Then have students create their own episode in the same style!
4. Teach about text type
This is an extension of #3, since you'll want to go into more detail about conventions of the type of podcasts that exist. Teach students about the rules of interviews, documentaries and narratives. You can provide examples of the various types of podcasts over the course of a few lessons to get them to understand the differences. And then maybe get students to create all these different types as well!
5. Podcast Pandemonium
Now here is a really fun activity for you: Podcast Pandemonium. If you really want students to find the podcast they're listening to interesting, you have to get them to choose it themselves! This activity is all about students finding a podcast for their classmates to listen to and create exercises about it. I usually have 2 students pair up to find a good episode, or part of it, about 10 minutes in length. This pair then also creates an exercise about the content (true/false, multiple choice or open question) and prepare a discussion question.
I created a lesson plan to lead up to doing this activity, since students need to be prepared for it before they can run off and do it. Check it out below!
I hope you try using podcasts in your lessons! Have fun!
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