8.6.2. Preparatory exercises: Non-isolated listening skill

There are 8 kinds of preparatory exercises. Performing exercises of this group, students are being prepared to listening to texts. Habits of oral perception of speech items are formed with these exercises. The level of items varies from a sentence to a super-phrasal unit. Exercises are aimed at overcoming the following difficulties, which may be caused by listening as a skill:

1. finding grammatical cues in sentence structures;

2. guessing the meaning of unknown words;

3. understanding sentences containing unfamiliar words which do not interfere with comprehension of the whole utterance;

4. anticipation of what the speaker is going to say and readjusting the predictions;

5. eliciting different categories of meaningful information (time, space, cause, effect);

6. estimating different kinds of cohesion between sentences;

7. telling the main idea in a group of sentences;

8. concentrating attention and retaining information in memory.

8.6.2.1. Exercises in finding grammatical cues

An ability to define syntactical functions of words in a sentence is very useful. It helps understand a text as a single whole. Subjects, predicates and objects of sentences are generally most informative in this respect. That’s why it’s significant to teach students to find these parts/members in a sentence. No less important is an ability to recognise other kinds of grammatical cues automatically.

Exercise 1. Listen to 3 sentences and put a tick against a sentence with a verb used in the 3^rd person singular: 1. There are many books on the table. 2. He works at a big plant. 3. They read interesting books.

Exercises 2-5. Listen to the sentences and say:

2) if there is a noun in plural; 1) There are many trees in the garden.

2) She studies English at school.

3) I like apples.

3) what word is a predicate 1) Suddenly she sees a bear.

in each sentence; 2) An old man came to a small town to visit his

son.

4) in which sentence the word 1) He dresses very quickly.

‘dress’ is a noun; 2) I like all her dresses.

5) what action is related to the 1) I shall go to club at 5.

past. 2) In the morning I saw a boat on the river.

8.6.2.2. Exercises in guessing the meaning of unfamiliar words

Exercise 1. Listen to the sentences. The last word in every sentence is unfamiliar to you. But you can guess what it is very easy. Write down the translation of the word: 1) When you want to take a new book you go to the library.

2) If you want to buy a book you go to a bookshop.

Exercise 2. Listen to the sentences and guess the meaning of unknown words

• by their pronunciation: 1) The inspector in the class: ‘Come, my little friends, tell me how much five and one make?’ 2) At the examination the professor asks the student, ‘Is the question difficult for you to answer?’

• by the content and the familiar word-building element: 1) When you come to the library you always see Anna there. She finds interesting books and gives them to you. She is a librarian.

• by their constituent parts (components): 1) Boris was at a scout camp in summer. He swam in the sea, went to the forest with his friends. He had a good time there.

• by the context: 1) 10,000 people live in this town. The population of the town is 10,000. 2) The teacher said that the book was very interesting. She advised me to read it.

Exercise 3. Listen to the sentences. The last word of the second sentence is unknown to you. Try to guess what it means:

1. My father has a sister. She is my aunt.

2. My mother has a brother. He is my uncle.