Make the Questions for Your Partner: Listening Text

(TESOL Ideas--Activities that can be used with any listening text)

Google: docs, pub

This is basically the same idea as an activity I previously posted for reading texts: Students Design the Reading Comprehension Questions.  The only difference is that this time it's for listening texts.

This is also very similar to an IELTS activity I posted previously: Write Your Own IELTS Listening Part 1 Dialogue and Questions

As I mentioned  in my previous post, this is a TESOL classic.  It's a very common activity, and it's been around for a long time.  

It can work quite well for certain classes.  After spending so long simply being told to answer questions, they enjoy the chance to make the questions.  They also enjoy the fun of trying to stump their partner.  And, in theory, it gets them to listen to the text in detail to pick out the interesting details.  (It could also help to get them to understand exam question techniques with a little bit of extra training.)

With less motivated classes, however, this doesn't work as well.  Students sometimes balk at the idea of doing the extra work of picking out details and making questions, and they don't always find it engaging.

So, it's one of those activities that when it works, it works very well, but when it flops, it's a disaster.  Use your own judgement when deciding if its right for your class.

The set-up is basically the same as  Students Design the Reading Comprehension Questions, except that because it's a listening text, students don't have the luxury of going back and forth through the test to find questions.  Instead, I have them take notes when they listen, and then use those notes to create questions after the listening.

In my class, I had students work in pairs to create the questions (using their notes) and then change their questions with another pair.

To aid in scaffolding the activity, I had them use this worksheet.  I've found that it helps to get students to write the answer clearly when they are creating the questions.  (Otherwise students may write questions that they themselves don't know the answer to, or that have no clear answer in the text.)   Some teacher monitoring is also useful to make sure the students' answers are actually correct.

Then, once they have the questions and answers written, I give them a scissors to cut the answer sheet off, and they only give the question sheet to the other pair.

Once the students have all created questions, I have the class swap questions with another pair.  (There are always a few pairs who are behind, so I sometimes tell them that they can swap with another pair even if they are only partially finished.)

We then play the listening text again.  Students try to answer the questions from the other pair.  Then I have them check their answers with the other pair.

This is a listening for detail activity, so I do it after a gist listening is done first.

Write questions for your partner.  Make sure that the questions have clear answers in the text.

1. Write a “true” or “false” question

2. Write a multiple choice question

3. Write a short answer question

4. Write a gap-fill question.

Write the answers here:

Answer for question 1:

Answer for question 2:

Answer for question 3:

Answer for question 4: