Put the Transcript in Order: Post Listening Task

(TESOL Ideas--Using the Transcript after Listening)

Example activity: docs, pub

This is another oldie but a goodie.

As a post listening activity, give the students the transcript to the listening, but it's all cut-up and mixed up out of order.

In groups, students have to work together to put the transcript in order.  

Then, the teacher plays the audio again, and the students listen and check their answers.

Where possible, it's good if the transcript is cut up in such a way that students can reconstruct the order uses cohesion and coherence clues 

This is, of course, similar to the reading activity Scrambled Paragraphs.

The example is from: Reflect Listening & Speaking 5: The Facts about Fast Fashion p.22-27.

H: Yuan, I’d like to start with you. Exactly how big is the fashion industry?

YX: It’s huge. Fashion is a $1.4 trillion industry, employing hundreds of millions of people around the world. It’s enormous. H: And, Yuan, can you explain what fast fashion is?

YX: I’ll try! Fast fashion is the business of manufacturing and selling huge quantities of cheap clothing in response to the latest fashion trends. It’s an idea that’s been around—for the last 30 years or so—and just to give you an idea of how big the fashion business is, 20 years ago we manufactured about 20 million items of clothing a year globally. Now it’s around 100 billion items a year. That’s many more items than twenty years ago.

H: For sure. Those are huge numbers. Sara, let me turn to you. What, for you, is the biggest cost of fast fashion?

SF: It’s the environmental destruction caused by fast fashion. Let me give you an example: there is a lake in central Asia called the Aral Sea. It used to be 26,000 square miles. It was the fourth biggest lake in the world. Now, 90% of the water is gone. In fact, much of what used to be the bottom of the lake is now desert. Why? Because for the last 50 or 60 years, the water that used to flow into the lake has been used to grow cotton. Most of the water has completely disappeared. H: Megan, would you agree that fast fashion causes huge environmental problems?

MT: Obviously, fast fashion is a huge business, so it comes with a cost, but it also has a lot of benefits . . .

YX: Benefits? Sorry to interrupt, but could I just say something?

MT: Sure. Just let me finish this one point. Fast fashion has benefits. For example, cotton farming gives work to 100 million farmers around the world. H: Yuan? YX: Fast fashion is bad for the planet. If it’s bad for the planet, it’s bad for all of us. To grow the cotton for just one pair of jeans takes almost 2000 gallons of water. 2,000 gallons! H: What other environmental costs does fast fashion have, Yuan?

YX: Well, the newest problem that we’re facing is caused by the microfibers from synthetic fabrics. Use of fabrics like polyester and nylon is accelerating—and in fact polyester makes up over half of all fabric used by the fashion industry now. That’s around 50 million tons.

H: And what makes microfibers in those fabrics a problem, Yuan?

YX: Ah, good question. Those fabrics are made of plastic and when we wash those synthetic fabrics, the plastic begins to break down into tiny pieces called microfibers. Those microfibers end up polluting the environment. They end up in our rivers and oceans where they’re getting eaten by fish and eventually, they’re going to end up back in our own bodies. We’re literally eating fast fashion! H: Thank you, Yuan. Megan, what would you say is the biggest benefit of fast fashion?

MT: Well, I’ve already mentioned the millions of jobs that fashion creates. And you also have to remember that fashion brands are giving us what we want, which is more and cheaper clothes. SF: Sorry to interrupt but could I just add something? MT: Sure, Sara. Go ahead. SF: You say that fast fashion is giving us cheaper clothes . . .

MT: Yes, that’s right. SF: The problem is that people know the price of their clothes, but they don’t know the costs. A tenth of all greenhouse gas emissions are due to the fashion industry! Do people know about that? Most people don’t know the environmental costs. We use 40 million tons of insect-killing chemicals on cotton every year! How many people, I wonder, would buy fast fashion if they knew the real environmental cost? H: Megan, do fashion brands worry about the cost to the environment?

MT: I would say that some of them do. But look, the reality is that these companies, like most companies, are trying to make money. They’re not being paid to take care of the environment. H: Yuan?

YX: Yes, I just wanted to add something about the future. It’s estimated that in about 30 years, by 2050, we will be manufacturing three times as many items of clothing as now. That’s about 300 billion items every year. Imagine the environmental impact. So, Sara is absolutely right: fast fashion has a huge environmental cost which is going to become much bigger, and we’re all going to have to pay that cost. H: OK. I’d like to move the discussion on to solutions to the problem. Yuan, what solutions are there to the problems that we’ve been talking about . . .