Listen and Draw

(TESOL Ideas--Reading, Listening)

This isn't my idea.  It came from a colleague who presented it at a workshop.  But I've used it successfully in my classrooms, so I wanted to pass it along.

Basically, it's an idea to turn any reading activity into a listening activity.  (This works assuming you consider the goal of the reading lesson is not the physical act of reading, but rather using the text as a means to give the student input.  If you want to study actually reading fluency, then this activity won't work).

The students close their textbook.  The teacher reads aloud the reading passage slowly, in small chunks.  The teacher stops frequently, and instructs the students to draw what they hear.

Afterwards, the student drawings are posted around the room, and the students have a chance to see what their classmates have drawn.  Only then are the textbooks opened, and then the students read the text that they have previously listened to.

My colleague demonstrated this activity with just a blank sheet of paper.  But in my experience, I've found it works best if you find some comic book panel style paper on the Internet, and print that off.  Example HERE.  I read a small part of the reading passage, and instruct the students to draw what they hear in the first panel.  Then I read a small part of the next passage, and instruct the students to draw that in panel number 2.

This kind of activity probably lends itself best to narratives, but with a bit of creativity I've used it for a wide variety of reading texts.  (Almost any text can be represented visually somehow).

Most recently I used this for the reading lesson in English World 6 Unit 4.