Listening Activity Unit 3

For #TESL0120

Listening Activity: Cannabis Questions

Objective: Students will use cognitive and socio-affective strategies to gather personally relevant information about a current topic.

Level: Canadian Language Benchmark Listening Level 8 (see below)*

Context: This activity could be used either in a class for newcomers to Canada or in an intensive English class for university students.

Pre-listening Activity: (3 – 4 min) Using a computer, projector and video screen, project the web page containing the video: https://www.cbc.ca/learning-english/cannabis-questions-level-2-1.4829660  so that the students can see the title and the still photo of the officer. It will be necessary to scroll down to see the two girls during the discussion.

Ask the following questions for discussion:

1.   1.    What do you know about the effects of cannabis? (personal experience not required)
2.    Is cannabis used in your country?
3.    What are some other names people call it?
4.    What is a School Resource Officer?
5.    (scroll down)How old do you think the two girls are? Are they old enough to try cannabis? To drive?

Listening Activity (1): (3 min) Before playing the video, instruct the students to pay attention to the following: (cognitive strategy)

1.   1.      What other names are given for cannabis;
2.    can you determine the ages of the girls (written on screen or guess);
3.    at least one thing you learn from the video that you didn’t know;
4.    one question or answer that you don’t understand.

Play the video through once. Warn the students that an ad will play at the beginning. (Stop the video before it resets so you can scroll back to just after the ad for the second playing.)

Post-Listening Discussion (1): (5 min.) Lead the discussion with the following questions:(socio-affective strategy)
1.    What are some of the other names for cannabis given in the video?
2.    Did they omit any that you know?
3.    Why do you think girls this young were interviewed?
4.    Why are they giggling?
5.    Did they ask the same question you would have asked?
6.    Did they ask a question you would not have thought of or bothered with?
7.    What didn’t you understand? Was it because of language or because it was not well explained? Or another reason?

Listening Activity (2): (3 min) Play the video again and instruct the students to listen for answers or confirmation of what we discussed.

Post-Listening Activity (2) and Extraclass Assignment: (1 min) Ask the class if they still have unanswered questions (e.g. What do THC and CBD stand for?). Clarify any vocabulary difficulties. Instruct them to research one of the answers given by the officer (impairment, over-dose, harm to child, effects of THS and CBD, disease risks, origin of name ‘marijuana’). Relating their findings to the class will be a future speaking assignment.

*Listening Level 8 relevance and competencies:

·         (when communication is spoken clearly at a normal rate, with multiple speakers, related to general knowledge and specialized matters, moderate in length)

·         Competency I (identifies implied meanings and stated and unspecified details, identifies speakers’ purpose and intent, identifies nuances in emotional tone and register

·          Competency III (understands communication intended to persuade, interprets warnings, suggestions, recommendations, evaluates the validity of suggestions)

·         Competency IV (interprets factual information, explanations and opinions, identifies facts, opinions and attitudes).

Resources:

Learning English with CBC (2018), Cannibis Questions: Level 2, [interactive web page], retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/learning-english/cannabis-questions-level-2-1.4829660 .

Wilson, J. J. (2008). Chapter 2: Listening Texts and Listening Strategies. In Wilson, J. J. (Ed.). How to teach listening (pp.25 -39). Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education Ltd.

This work is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Activity in PDF form.