ESL Listening Skills Lesson Plan for Beginners

Want to help your beginning ESL students with listening skills? Games and activities are great methods for
improving listening skills for vocabulary meaning and understanding.

Learning Objectives
After this lesson, students will be able to:

Determine and identify the meaning between similar-sounding words.

Listen for details in a story.

Follow directions in the correct sequence.

Length
45 minute to one-hour lessons

Materials
Knowledge of or copies of short stories for you to read aloud, such as 'The Three Little Pigs'

Blindfolds

Sticky notes

Key Vocabulary
Understand

Comprehension

Sequence

Directions

Curriculum Standards
How useful is this lesson?
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.1

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Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing
or speaking.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.3
Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.3.6
Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate conversational, general academic, and domain-
specific words and phrases, including those that signal spatial and temporal relationships (e.g.,
After dinner that night we went looking for them).

Direct Instruction
Gather students together and ask them to stand up.

Give them simple verbal commands, such as 'clap your hands three times' and 'blink your eyes quickly.'

After several activities, have students take turns giving commands to their classmates.

Ask students what sense they're using to follow these directions, and explain that they're using their
ears to hear the sounds but are using listening skills to understand the words and their meaning.

Activities

Telephone Vocabulary

1. Make a set of vocabulary cards for often and easily-confused words, such as sit/set and hard/heart.

2. Review all cards with students as a whole group, then divide them into small groups.

3. Have groups line up and show the first person in line one of the vocabulary cards.

4. Instruct students to whisper that word to the next person in line, passing the word down the line as in the
game 'Telephone.'

5. Have the last student in each group say their word, checking to see if it is the correct one.

6. Challenge students by having them use the word in a sentence, such as 'It is hard to hear people when they
whisper.'

Hear Me Now

1. Choose a short story to read or tell to students, such as 'The Three Little Pigs.'

2. Before reading, think of several items you can have students listen for, such as what the second pig uses to
make his house
How and where
useful thelesson?
is this first pig goes when his house blows down.

3. Tell students you'll be reading/telling a story and ask the first question.

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4. Have students raise their hands when they hear the answer, sharing with the class.

5. Play competitively by dividing students into small teams and keeping score, if desired.
Listen and Go

1. Review directional words with your students, such as right, left, forward, backwards, etc.

2. Hang sticky notes marked with different point values around the room.

3. Divide students into partners and give each pair a blindfold.

4. Tell partners that on your go, one partner will be blindfolded and the other will lead them around the room
by giving them directions, attempting to collect as many sticky notes as possible.

5. Allow students to choose roles, then begin.

6. Play again and have partners trade roles.

Listening Chairs

1. Set up chairs in your room as if playing Musical Chairs.

2. Tell students you will be reading or telling them a story and have them listen for key words, chosen as
needed for your students' development. For example, if you're working on color words, choose these.

3. Have students begin walking around the chairs as you read, sitting down when they hear you say the code
word.

4. Eliminate students as in musical chairs.

5. Consider playing with lyrical music, having students listen for words in the song.

How useful is this lesson?

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