Listening: fun note-taking- honest!

Ask Ss to prepare to make a presentation for 2 minutes to their partner. They will be speaking from notes, but those notes can only consist of 20 words. Suggest a topic tied in with recent/ future lessons. Now students present to their partner. The partner makes notes. Switch roles and repeat. Now each person cuts the notes they just made whilst listening down to 20 words. Finally, students compare the original 20 words with the listener's 20 words, prompting a lot of interest.

To continue, you can discuss what types of words they found useful (content/ vocabulary words), then set them a book/ exam note taking task to use their new techniques in.

Alex Case
Central School of English, London