As teachers we do a LOT of talking. Unfortunately, our students don’t always do a lot of listening! Luckily there are some fun speaking and listening activities to let your students practice these very important skills. See this post to use storytelling to help students become better writers.
Practice Speaking and listening
Luckily, these are skills that can be practiced even if the focus of the lesson isn’t specifically on these skills. For example, when you’re reading a story you can ask your students very specific questions. But ask them ahead of the point in the story where they’ll hear the answer. That way they have to pay close attention in order to hear the answer.
Morning meetings are also a time when students can practice these skills. A fun thing to do is to ask students what they did over the weekend. They’ll need to speak loudly enough and slowly enough so that everyone else can listen and understand. At first you might want to have students volunteer for this, but as the year goes on all students should be encouraged to add their own voices.
specific listening and speaking activities
- Give students some specific oral instructions to do something fun. They’ll have to listen carefully in order to carry out the directions correctly.
One idea for this is to give students a blank piece of paper and some crayons or colored pencils. Then give them step-by-step instructions on how to draw a simple picture. For example, tell them to “draw a yellow circle in the top corner of their paper. Across the bottom draw a green line. Somewhere on the green line draw a red square. On top of the red square draw a blue triangle that goes from corner to corner.” If this is done correctly they should have a simple drawing of a house with a sun in the corner.
- The old game of Telephone is really useful! Start one student with a simple message. Each student whispers or says it quietly to the next student till it’s gone all the way around the room. It’s really fun to hear how the message gets changed by the time it reaches the last student. However, challenge them to repeat it back to you correctly at the end.
- Try a guessing game. The idea here is for students to listen closely to the hints and formulate good hints for the other listeners.
For example, if you want students to guess a farm animal, start by saying “This animal lives on a farm.” Then the students can ask 3 yes or no questions, with you giving another hint if they don’t guess correctly. Keep repeating until they guess correctly.
Then have the students try it with each other! They’ll need to think of what to say as their hints so that they don’t give their animal (or whatever they’re using) away too quickly.
try using discussion wheels
I’ve created a fun resource that contains all sorts of topics that you can get your students listening and speaking about.
These Speaking and Listening Activities using Discussion Wheels were created to provide opportunities for discussion and to encourage students to practice both speaking and listening skills. I designed them to act as an ‘add on’ to a wide range of topics which you may be teaching in your classroom. They can be used in circle time, as a ‘lead in’ to a new topic, as an assessment of knowledge, as a speaking and listening center – the possibilities are endless! Sample questions and discussion starters are also included.
There are all sorts of topics: animals, cars, bugs, jobs, and buildings just to name a few!
You might also like these Spin a Story Storytelling activities:
Spin-a-Story Creative and Funny Storytelling! Sets 1 to 4
Do you have some fun ways to practice listening and speaking? Please share!
