Level: Intermediate
Students: All ages
Purpose: Develop inferencing ability; develop use of background knowledge to fill in missing information or imagine scenes
Text type: Audio file of sound effects or live produced sound effects
In this activity…
Students listen to a sequence of two to four sounds (e.g. sound of footsteps, a package falling to the ground, someone singing a tune), only one of which has words in it. The students try to imagine a setting and characters that fit the sounds. This activity helps the students build up visualization skills for listening to English.
Preparation
1. Prepare a dubbed tape of various sequences of sound effects (e.g. footsteps, door opening, tap water running ).
2. Prepare some empty cartoon strips, with one square for each step in each sequence. Provide a few visual cues in the squares.
Sample tape segment
1. Elevator door opening. “Oh, it’s you.” (with surprise or with disappointment)
2. Cat meowing, vase breaking. “I’m so sorry.” ( sincerely or sarcastically)
…
In class
1. Distribute the cartoon strips. Explain the purpose of the activity: to make a possible story from the sounds. Play the tape and have the students, individually or in pairs, complete each sequence, using simple line drawings.
2. After playing several sequences, and noting the differences among the students’ drawings, go back to the first one. Replay the sequence. Ask questions to bring out the different interpretations: Is the speaker a man or a woman? About how old is she or he? What is the setting? Is this at an office building? at an apartment house? What did she see when the elevator doors opened? Emphasize that the different interpretations are valid if they are based on the actual cues.
VARIATION 2.1: SOUND SKIT. Ask two or three students to prepare a “sound skit” (with voices and sound effects) that they can perform in the classroom. Other students close their eyes (put their heads down or face the back of the room) while the skit is performed. Which of the listeners can reconstruct the scene (including remembering whose voice said which lines)?
VARIATION 2.2: SOUND BINGO. If you have compiled a large number of sound effects, you can play a game (usually popular among children) in which learners have grids with differing patterns of pictures representing different sounds (e.g. shoes representing the sound of footsteps). As they hear a sound, they cover the picture on their grid with a marker. The first person to cover all of the pictures or a line of them wins.
VARIATION 2.3: SOUND TRACK. Play a recording of the sound track from a scene in a film. Ask the students to list the sights that will be in the picture: characters (age, physical appearance, posture, clothing, distance between characters) and setting (surrounding view, visible objects). Compile the lists by having the students write their guesses on the blackboard. Now watch the video portion of the scene (with or without the sound). What parts of the scene were easy to predict? What parts of the scene was no one able to predict?
Follow-up options
1. Let students prepare their own recordings of sound sequences. For each sequence, they must prepare a cartoon strip which is the “correct” answer. The other students try to put the pictures in order as they listen.
2. Ask the students to write short stories, using one of the sound sequences as the initial setting for the story.
3. Have members of the class go on expeditions to specific sites to record sounds: train stations, supermarkets, restaurants. What sounds can be heard?
Teacher’s Diary
Which of the variations and follow-up options did you try? Which did you avoid? Why?
