Levels 1 and 2

Achievement Objectives

Oral language: Listening

	Students should:
Level 1	listen and respond to others	Interpersonal Listening
Level 2	listen to and interact with others in a group or class discussion
Level 1	listen and respond to texts and relate them to personal experience	Listening to Texts
Level 2	listen and respond to texts, recall the main ideas, and relate them to personal experience
	In achieving the objectives of understanding and using oral language, students should:
Levels 1 and 2	identify, describe, and use some commonly used verbal and non-verbal features in a range of texts, and begin to adapt spoken language to an audience	Exploring Language
Levels 1 and 2	identify, clarify, and question meanings in spoken texts, drawing on personal background, knowledge, and experience	Thinking Critically
Levels 1 and 2	ask questions, and listen to, interpret, and present information using appropriate technology	Processing Information

Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Examples

Example 1

Achievement Objectives
Listening to texts: thinking critically; exploring language

Teaching and Learning
Context: responding to a character in a favourite story

Students listen to a story read by the teacher and brainstorm what they know and how they feel about the main character, and how they gained knowledge about her or him. All responses are encouraged and recorded.
Students discuss the results of the brainstorming session, and teacher and students make up a wall chart of interesting or important words and phrases used by the author to describe the main character.
Students listen to the text again to work out how each impression might have been gained.

Assessment

The teacher observes and records students' ability to recall the text and the main features of the character, and to identify language features.

Links With Other Strands
Speaking, Reading, Presenting
Related examples in other strands at the same level: Reading, Example 2; Presenting, Example 2.

Example 2

Achievement Objectives
Interpersonal listening: processing information

Teaching and Learning
Context: a social studies unit on 'Ourselves'

Students bring photographs of themselves as babies or toddlers, or of a place where they lived.
In pairs, they share the photographs and talk about an incident which took place when they were small children.
Each student retells something they have learned about their partner from their discussion.

Assessment

The teacher records observations of individual listening and responses during the discussions between pairs and during the retelling.

Links With Other Strands
Speaking, Viewing

Example 3

Achievement Objectives
Interpersonal listening: processing information; exploring language

Teaching and Learning
Context: making a class newspaper as part of a newspaper study

Students are introduced to interviews through examples from video or radio.
Students view and listen to the teacher interviewing a visiting speaker, another teacher, an older student, or a parent.
A class discussion, which includes the person interviewed by the teacher, establishes agreed criteria for listening and speaking in an interview. Verbal and non-verbal features are discussed, such as open and closed questions, body language which conveys interest, and different ways of responding to answers.
In small groups, two students interview each other on agreed topics, while the rest of the group watches and listens. Groups share what they have learned from the interview and what they would still like to find out. Students share their understanding of questioning and answering techniques as they assess the good aspects of the interview and suggest ways in which it could have been improved.
Students carry out interviews, individually or in pairs, in the course of gathering information for their own newspaper. The interviewer prepares a question outline and uses writing or a tape recorder to record the answers of those being interviewed.
Students write a short item based on their interviews.

Assessment

The teacher assesses how well individuals have listened by questioning students during group work and recording observations of students' listening, and their skills of processing information and exploring language, during various stages of the unit.

Links With Other Strands
Speaking, Writing, Viewing