Category Archives: Listening

Listening Comprehension: Columbus Day

American Cultural aspects, Listening, , ,

Introduction: Many countries in the New World and elsewhere officially celebrate as a holiday the anniversary of Christopher Columbus‘ arrival in the Americas, which happened on October 12, 1492. The landing is celebrated as Columbus Day in the United States, as Discovery Day in the Bahamas, as Día de la Raza (“Day of the Race”) in many countries in Latin America, as Día de las Américas(Day of the Americas) in Belize and Uruguay, as Día del Respeto a la Diversidad Cultural (Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity) in Argentina, as Día de la Hispanidad and Fiesta Nacional in Spain, and as Giornata Nazionale di Cristopher Columbus or Festa Nazionale di Cristoforo Colombo in Italy and in the Little Italys around the world. These holidays have been celebrated unofficially since the late 18th century and officially in various areas since the early 20th century. (source Wikipedia)

THE TASK: LISTENING 

Level: B2

Watch the video from newsy.com  about Columbus’ Day and answer the questions below:

Unfortunately,newsy.com doesn’t allow embedding so you’ll probably need to open a new window to listen and see the exercises at the same time.

♥Click on the picture to listen

♥Answer the questions. Download questions

♥Click here to see the answers and the transcript

 

True or False? Correct the False Sentences

  1. The idea of renaming Columbus Day has been going on for a while. True or False?
  2. So far, only Seattle has been able to change the name of the day . True or False?
  3. The American Indians want to rename the day so that nobody forgets the difficulties they have had to endure . True or  False?
  4.  The USA government is considering renaming the day next year.  True or False?
  1. Name four things, Columbus is blamed for

a.

b.

c.

d.

 

 

Some Priceless Topic-Based Videos to Help Students Prepare for the Speaking Test

Listening, Speaking, Vocabulary, , , ,

Hi, hey! How are things?
Have you read my last post?? It’s all about first-day activities to get to know my new students. Are you going to be one of them? I hope so!
Lessons start on  5 October  and I am totally in teaching mode. In September ,some  of my students will need to take the oral exam again and I thought it might be a good idea to share with you some priceless videos that I found on youtube  this summer.  I wish I had shared them with you before exams in June, but I didn’t know about them just then. Anyway, I hope you can still make good use of them.
What I am going to show you in this post is the website of an English teacher, Marek Connell ,and his awesome videos on how to answer the questions in the Escuela Oficial de idiomas Intermediate (B1) and Advanced (B2)speaking exams. I have to say here that in my region (Asturias) EOI exams  don’t  follow exactly the same procedure Marek explains in his videos, ie, students cannot take notes and they do not have 10 minutes to organise their speech, but what I like about his videos is that he shows how a fluent speaker would answer the questions related to a given topic.

For each topic I will show you:
• From my own website: some questions you could be asked
• From Marek Connell ‘s website, his own videos showing how  a native speaker (himself) would answer  some of these questions. Click to visit Marek’s website

So, pen and paper at the ready? Here we go.

1. FAMILY, FRIENDS, RELATIONSHIPS

♥Questions about Friendship,

♥Questions about your dream partner

2. WORK

♥ Vocabulary and Questions

3. CLIMATE AND THE ENVIRONMENT

♥ Questions about the weather

♥Questions about the environment

4. EDUCATION

♥Vocabulary and Questions about Education

5. SHOPPING AND CONSUMERISM

♥Questions about Fashion and Trends

♥Questions about Going Shopping

♥Questions about Money 1

♥Questions about Money 2

6. ANIMALS AND PETS

♥ Questions about Pets

7. SPORTS

♥Questions about Sports

♥Questions about Violent Sports

8. STEREOTYPES

♥ Lesson Plan about National  Stereotypes with Vocabulary and Questions
 

9. CRIME  

10.PROGRESS AND SCIENCE

You’ll find more  topic -based questions  on my website Blog de Cristina. Click here,please . 

Hints on Blank Filling Listening Comprehensions+ 2 Listening Activities

Listening, , , ,

In this kind of listenings  you don’t need to write  a full sentence to give the correct answer.
Normally there is a maximum of three  words to complete notes, statements or questions.

In these exercises it is very helpful to:

And don’t forget to read the completed sentences to make sure the words fit grammatically  🙂

PRACTICE 1

 

Source: Cambridge FC Practice Tests
PRACTICE 2
Source: Cambridge Complete First Certificate

Blog de Cristina is also on Facebook. Follow it! 🙂

Two Wonderful Sites to Practise Listening and other skills

Audio, Grammar, Listening, Resources, Speaking, Vocabulary, Writing skill, , , , , , ,

So, you’ve done all the listening exercises in your textbook, workbook and on my website 😉  but still, you feel you really need to go the extra mile?

Here you are two wonderful websites where you can find tons of Listening exercises to practise before the exam.

1. ESOL COURSES. Choose your level and then choose the skill you want to practise; they are all great!

2. ESL Lounge Students: on this site, you can also practise all skills. Scroll down the page and on the right sidebar, choose the skill you want to practise and your level.

 

Blog de Cristina is also on Facebook. Follow me! 🙂

Preparing for Listening: Focus on Distractors.

Listening, ,

In a Multiple Choice Listening  you need a bit of attention. In this kind of listening exercises there are always words and expressions which are designed to distract students from the correct answer. If you don’t know about these distractors, you are likely to be misled by them and choose the wrong answer.

The most important thing in this kind of listening exercises is to read the questions carefully. You are always given some time to read  through questions and answers, use that time. Listen very carefully to the details and make sure the answer you choose really matches what the question has asked you. It’s important to concentrate on understanding in detail .

♥Let’s look at an example

How long has Liz been snowboarding?

a. One year          b. five years            c. every year since she was a child.

The underlined words in the transcript  all appear in the possible answers a, b or c, but only one answer is correct. The other words are distractors.

♥Read the transcript, choose the right answer and say why the other are not correct

I first did it when I was on holiday with my parents- When I was younger I used to go skiing every year with them and then one year I tried snowboarding and I haven’t skied since then. That was 5 years ago.

These extracts have been taken from Listening Comprehensions. The distractors are in bold. Read them and then answer the questions

A. My brother was so scared he couldn’t watch the film whereas I didn’t find it at all frightening. ♥Is the speaker frightened by the film?

B. Although most critics agreed that the film was her best ever , I was rather disappointed by her performance.  ♥ Did the speaker love the film?

C. Although snow is now unlikely, we can expect a certain amount of rain later on.   ♥ Does the speaker think it will rain or snow?

D. My daughter wanted me to help her with her homework but I told her to ask her mother.   ♥ Did the speaker help his daughter?

E. Whereas in most of her other film she plays the “baddie”  in this one he’s definitely the good guy. ♥ Does the speaker say the actor is the villain or the hero in the film?

Answers: A. no   B. no   C. rain   D.no   E. the hero

Now, let’s do some practice.

You will hear  people talking in 8 different situations. For each question, choose the best answer.

 

 

Source: Ready for First Certificate and Cambridge FC Practice Tests 1