(Sáng kiến kinh nghiệm) SUGGESTED WARM UP ACTIVITIES FOR LISTENING LESSONS IN ’’TIENG ANH 11”

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
PART 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
1.2. Aims of the Study
PART 2: CONTENT
2.1. Theoretical background

* Stages of Teaching Listening Skills
a) Pre-listening
b) While-listening
c) Post-listening
* Warm-up activities
a) What are warm-up activities
b) Why do you use warm-up activities
2.2. Practical background
2.3. Solutions to the problems
2.4. Effectiveness of the Teaching Experience
PART 3: CONCLUSION
REFERENCES

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PART 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
Of four language skills, listening has long been considered the most
challenging and difficult one by both foreign language teachers and students. In
reality, in many high schools in Vietnam in general and in Nghe An in
particular, teaching English listening skills has not been paid much attention to.
As a result, the qualities and effectiveness of teaching and learning this skill are
not really as good and high as expected. From the fact that most EFL teachers at
high schools in Thanh Hoa have faced a lot of problems in teaching listening.
It has been found that although teaching and learning English listening
skills was significant, it was not taken carefully considerations by higher
administrators, educators, teachers and students. In addition, lack of wellequipped facilities, teachers’ unsuitable teaching listening methods, poor
listening methodology and approaches and students’ low level of proficiency,
boredom, indifference as well as de-motivation are obstacles in most high
schools in Thanh Hoa. Many students claimed that they felt tired of listening to
the tape from beginning to the end with controlled exercises in the textbook.
Without interest, motivation and variation in teaching and learning students
found it hard to study in listening class. So it is necessary for teachers to realize
the importance of how to make listening classes more interesting and to know
how to motivate students so that they can make progress in listening

comprehension.
Using effective warm-up activities can stimulate students’ spirit in
learning. Sometimes, a picture or a humor story can do great deal towards
arousing interest among students. However, many teachers seem to neglect or
donot pay much attention to the pre-listening stage or warm-up exercise which
can be a good step for the next stage of the listening lessons. It is believed that
how well students had done in class depends much on how well they had been
warmed up. From this point of view, teachers should take into consideration the
methodology they can apply in their listening courses and try to improve their
teaching of listening lessons. Some techniques should be employed in prelistening stage with appropriate warm-up activities.
Within this background, the author would like to conduct a study dealing
with the problems of creating a good lead-in during the listening teaching
process in “Tieng Anh 11” at high schools in Thanh Hoa in order to propose
appropriate warm-up activities that can motivate students before the new lesson
and facilitate the English listening teaching and learning.
1.2. Aims of the Study
The aims of the study are as follows:
- To investigate EFL teachers' problems in creating a good lead-in of a
listening lesson in "Tieng Anh 11".
- To suggest warm-up activities for some listening lessons in “Tieng Anh 11”.

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PART 2: CONTENT
2.1. Theoretical background
Stages of Teaching Listening Skills
Teaching listening text can be divided into three main stages: prelistening, while-listening and post-listening. Each stage has its own aims and
activities.
a) Pre-listening

Pre-listening stage aims at preparing students with everything necessary
for listening and understanding the listening text. This stage is of great
importance since it leads students to the listening passage that they are going to
listen, arouses their interests and provides students with the purposes of listening
as well as the input before they listen.
Some activities at this stage are:
 Warming up the class:
The teacher may motivate the class, gradually set up a context for
listening text to be presented by asking questions to elicit students’
experience, or ideas concerning the coming text or by using some sort of
visual aids or their imagination.
 Introducing the topic of listening text:
The teacher briefly introduces the topic of listening text so that the
students may get their mind already for it.
 Presenting key words:
The teacher only presents any word that is necessary for students to
understand the text.
 Giving guiding questions:
These guiding questions will help focus the students’ attention on the
main points of the text. They will guide the students to the better
understanding of the text. Students should be allowed to make guesses at
the answer to the questions before listening.
These activities may give students a chance to get some knowledge which
helps them to follow the listening text. Therefore, when choosing an activity, the
teacher should consider factors that Underwood (1989) states: The time, the
material is available or not, the interests of the class and the teacher, the place
where the work is being carried out, the nature and the content of the listening
text itself. If one of these factors is ignored, the whole process of the activity can
be failed.
b) While-listening

The aim of this stage is to facilitate students’ listening and check their
comprehension. While the students are listening to the text for the first time,
they can check their guess and give the correct answer to the guiding questions.
Then the teacher gives the students some tasks to do while they are listening for
the second time. They can do some of the activities such as: gap-filling, true or
false statements, answering comprehension questions, matching, multiple
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choice, reordering, etc. While-listening stage gives students a guide to practice
listening because they need a reason to listen which helps them to focus their
attention. As Rixon (1986) mentions, the purpose of while-listening stage is to
challenge and guide students to master the information and the message from the
passage. To facilitate students’ comprehension, the teacher should provide
useful techniques such as clear instructions, playing tapes on purposes,
classifying levels of difficulty of task from easier to more difficult, and so on.
It is advisable that while-listening activities should meet students’
different levels and needs so that they are encouraged to listen better.
c) Post-listening
At this stage, students can have opportunities to practice using what they
have got from the listening text. Post-listening activities are performed after the
listening is finished. According to Underwood (1989), the first purpose of those
activities is to check how well the students understood and whether they have
finished the listening task. The second one is to reflect on why some students
have failed to understand or miss parts of the passage. Moreover, post-listening
activities aims at expanding the topic or the language of the listening text.
Students are also given an opportunity to consider the attitude of the speaker in
the listening text because they can realize the purpose of the speaker based on
his/her attitude.
Students can do some following activities:

 Summarizing the text orally or in written form
 Re-telling the content of the listening text
 Role-play:
Students play the roles of the characters in the text.
 Discussion:
The teacher should make up and vary the activities for students to do at
this stage depending on their level of English. In addition, the teacher should
pay more attention to the following factors in selecting post-listening activities:
 The amount of language work the teacher desires to do related to the
listening text
 The time limitation
 Speaking, reading and listening skills should be integrated in postlistening activities
 Pair work and group work should be encouraged
 The designed activity should be motivating to students
Warm-up activities
Teachers of English may use many different activities to promote students’
engagement. Among these, warm-up activities can be used flexibly before
students jump into learning. It is true that proper warm-up activities ensure that
your students are ready to move into the next tasks of the lesson.
a) What are warm-up activities

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It is said that warm-up activities, which are also called icebreakers or
motivator activities, are structured activities that are designed to relax learners,
introduce them to each other, and energize them in what is normally an unduly
formal atmosphere or situation.
Warm-up activities should be designed to get students’ attention and prepare
them the right mood before focusing on whatever activities follow. They usually

last in 5 or 10 minutes which create a sense of excitement in classroom. It has
been found that students were usually drawn into the activity, finding the
questions and listening to the answer when they discover solutions to the puzzles
or questions which were set by teachers in warm-up activities.
b) Why do you use warm-up activities
It is believed that warm ups set the tone of the lesson, get students to begin
thinking and focusing on English, provide a transition into the topic, allow
teacher important opportunities to assess character and ability
The aim of these activities is various which depend on teacher’s purpose
before the lesson. Teachers may try to connect students’ prior learning, review a
lesson from the previous day, assess skill level or lead students into the topic of
the lesson. With effective warm-up activities, students come into the classroom
and immediately begin their job for the day-learning. For these reasons, warmup activities require more consideration from teachers with careful planning before
class.
2.2. Practical background
The reasons affecting the effectiveness of a listening period in EFL
classrooms lie in the teachers and the students themselves. Besides, the listening
section in the book “Tieng Anh 11” also causes difficulties for both teachers and
students in teaching and learning process.
As for the teachers, although they are aware of the fact that teaching
listening skill is not easy and the listening section in the textbook is sometimes
not appropriate for students’ levels, they do not often adapt given tasks. Many of
the teachers just follow the requirements of the textbook without making any
changes to any of the tasks. In addition, there are many problems the teachers
often encounter when designing and carrying out activities for a listening lesson
such as limitation of time for preparation and for curriculum, students’ levels,
students’ background knowledge or lack of teaching facilities and teaching aids,
etc. Especially, lack of the teachers' background knowledge and suitable ways to
lead their students into the new lesson is one of the important factors that can
make students bored and ignore the listening lesson.

Many teachers may fail to meet their students' needs and interests before
they start the listening lesson. That is because they do not create an exciting
classroom atmosphere and provide their students with background knowledge
related to the listening content so that they can feel easier to understand the new
lesson. It is crucial for students to bare something related to the listening
contents in their mind before listening.
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In one word, it is undeniable that there still exist the problems originated
from omitted or confused warm-up activities in a listening lesson. However,
these problems can be solved to make the listening section more simple and
interesting for both teachers and students by applying the techniques of
adaptation made by the teachers’ flexibility.
2.3. Solutions to the problems
In this part, I would like to suggest some warm-up activities for some
listening lessons in different units in the textbook “Tieng Anh 11” from my
practical teaching as solutions to the difficulties that are often encountered in
teaching listening. Most of these activities are used at pre-listening stage.
WARM-UP ACTIVITIES
 Unit 1: Friendship (Tieng Anh 11, 2006, p.17)
Game: Song Guessing
- Divide the class into 2 groups: Group A and group B
- Let Ss listen to 5 pieces of popular songs relating to friendship (e.g. Ngồi lại
bên nhau, Mong ước kỷ niệm xưa, Season in the summer, You and I, Tiễn bạn
lên đường)
- The group that can name more songs will win the game.
- Check Ss’ understanding of the instructions and let them start the game.
- Play the game and score the points
- Declare the winner.

 Unit 2: Personal Experiences (Tieng Anh 11, 2006, p. 27)
Game: Guessing Game: "What is it?"
- Divide the class into two groups A and B and ask Ss to guess.
- Read aloud some cues one by one. If students can give out the correct answer
for the first cue, they will get 30 points, 20 points for the second one and 10
points for the last one.
+ It can destroy buildings, houses, forests and even kill people.
+ It makes a lot of smoke.
+ You need water to put it out.
- The group giving the correct answer and get the most points first wins
Expected answer: A fire
 Unit 3: A Party (Tieng Anh 11, 2006, p. 36)
Game: Drawing
- Divide the class into two groups: group A and group B.
- Invite one student from each group who is good at drawing to join the game.
- Tell Ss the rule: "I will write down the words about items on the paper one by
one so that only two students from each group can see. The two students have
to draw a picture of the item as quickly as possible for their group to guess
what it is. The first group that gives the correct answer will get one mark. If
they are wrong, the other group will take a turn to answer. At the end, the
group with more marks will win the game".
- Check Ss’ understanding of the instructions and let them start the game.
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- Play the game and score the points
- Declare the winner.
Keys: cake, candle, gift/ present, candy, flower.
* Alternative:
Kim’s Game

- Divide the class into 2 teams.

- Let the two teams look at the pictures in 30 seconds and then T puts away the
pictures and asks them to write down as many items as possible on the board. At
the end, the group with more correct items will be the winner.
- Show the pictures:
- Control the activity
Answer keys:
+ Cards
+ Gift/ Present
+ Chocolate
+ Candles
+ Flowers
+ A cake
 Unit 4: Volunteer Work (Tieng Anh 11, 2006, p.51)
Game: Finding One’s Other Half
- Divide the class into 2 teams: team A and team B
- Hang on 2 posters on the board
- Stick pieces of paper with different shapes and colors on each poster
- Ask Ss in each team to combine pieces of paper with the same shape or color
together
- The team who first finishes will win the game.
- Check Ss’ understanding of the instructions.

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Supporting

Keys: supporting charities/ raising money / helping the poor / helping the

elderly / making donations
(Collected from Thiết kế bài giảng Tiếng Anh 11, 2007, p. 64)
 Unit 6: Competitions (Tieng Anh 11, 2006, p.70)
Game: Picture Guessing (Picture of a marathon race)
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3

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- Divide the class into 2 groups and let students guess the picture behind the
numbers.
- In order guess the picture, students have to choose the number they want. If
they have a lucky number, they will get 1 point without answering any question
and one piece of picture will be opened. If they choose an unlucky number, they
have to answer the question of the teacher. One point will be for them if they
answer correctly and they can open one more piece of picture. If not, they will
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have no marks. The group guesses the picture correctly will get 3 points. At the
end the group with more marks will be the winner.
- Declare the winner.
- Keys:
+ Number 1: (unlucky number): "She is an athlete champion who lives in Hue
and got a lot of gold medals. Who is she?" (Do Thi Bong)
+ Number 2: (unlucky number): "Who is the Vietnamese champion in
body- building at the 14th Asian Games?" (Ly Duc)

+ Number 3: Lucky number
+ Number 4: (unlucky number): "What do you call an athlete who
practices gymnastic exercises?" (Gymnast)
* Alternative:
- Ask Ss to watch a video clip about sport news and name the competition in it.
(The Boston Marathon)
 Unit 7: World Population (Tieng Anh 11, 2006, p.84)
Game: Bingo
- Have students list the populous countries in the world.
- Note down their names on the board (about 10 or more).
- Ask students to take out a piece of paper and copy down 3 countries from the
list on the board.
- Read out 3 countries which were chosen randomly by teacher.
- Right after the T says the last country, any students who have all the same
choices as the teacher will say “Bingo” and they win the game.
 Unit 8: Celebrations (Tieng Anh 11, 2006, p.94)
Competition Game — Guessing Game
- Divide Ss into 4 groups.
- Tell Ss the rule of the game: Each group give a word related to holidays, the
other groups will guess what holiday is. The group with the quickest and correct
answer will get one point for their group. After some turns, the group with more
points will be the winner.
E.g: Tet holiday: lucky money/ peach blossom, sticky rice cake…
Mid-autumn festival: masks, moon cake…
Valentine’s Day: chocolate/red rose…
* Alternative: Song Guessing
- Divide the class into 2 groups.
- Play the first part of the song "Happy New Year" and ask Ss to guess the name
of the song. The first group answers correctly will be the winner.
 Unit 9: The Post Office (Tieng Anh 11, 2006, p.105)

Game: Stop the Bus!
Question: Find 4 things that you use to contact with your friends.
- Divide the class into four groups.
- Each group tries to find words as quickly as possible after T’s question.

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The group that finishes firstly will shout: “Stop the bus!” and go to the board to
write down the answers.
If the group gives the right answer, they will get one mark.
The group that gets more marks will be the winner.
Keys: Cell phone, telephone, letters, the Internet, email.
 Unit 10: Nature in Danger (Tieng Anh 11, 2006, p.119)
Game: Animal Guessing
- Prepare an audio-tape with various sounds of animals such as monkey, lion,
snake, pig, etc.
- Divide the class into 2 groups: Group A and group B
- Play the tape for Ss to listen to the sound one by one. The group that gives the
correct answer first will get 1 mark. If not, they have no marks and the other group
will take the turn to answer. At the end, the group with more points will be the
winner.
- Organize the game and score the marks of each group.
- Declare the winner.
 Unit 11: Sources of Energy (Tieng Anh 11, 2006, p.128)
Game: Lucky Stars (For high-leveled students)

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- Divide class into 2 groups: group A and Group B.
- Tell Ss the rule of the game: Choose the star you like. If you choose a lucky
star, you can get the mark behind the star without answering any questions. If
not, you have to answer the question corresponding to the star within 15
seconds. The mark behind the star will belong to you if you answer correctly. In
contrast, you will have no marks and the other group will be allowed to answer

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your question to get the mark. At the end, the group with more marks will win
the game.
- Organize the game and score each group’s points.
- Declare the winner.
Star 1: What are they?

Star 2: Jumbled Word
Recorder the letters into a meaningful word related to “Energy”: Fossil fuels
Star 3: Can you list 3 names of things in which you use energy at home?
Star 4: Double the points (x 2)
Star 5: Listening to the song, and then tell the name of the song
Star 6: Subtract half of the points. (: 2)

Keys: 1. Windmill - Solar panelue
2. Fossil fuels
3. Gas stove, cooker, television, electric fan
5. Earth song
* Alternative: (For lower-leveled students)
Game: Right or Wrong Chair
- Ask Ss to work in two groups. Five people from each group stand in two lines.
- Put two chairs in front of the class. Stick the word: limited or unlimited on each
chair.
- Tell Ss the rule: "I will say out some sources of energy randomly (water, oil,
wind power, natural gas, nuclear power, solar energy, coal), each group has to
listen and decide which energy is limited and which is unlimited quickly. The
first group which runs to the right chair and sits down will get one point. If you
sit down the wrong chair, you will have no points. At the end, the group that
scores more points will win the game".
- Check Ss’ understanding of the instruction.
Keys:
Limited
Unlimited
Oil
wind power
Coal
nuclear power
Natural gas
solar energy
Water power
 Unit 12: The Asian Games (Tieng Anh 11, 2006, p.141)
Game: Miming
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- Divide class into 2 groups: group A and Group B.
- Tell Ss the rule of the game: "I will mime some kinds of sports. Each group has
to guess the names of the sports. The first group which answers correctly will
get one point. If not, you will have no points and the other group will take turn
to answer. At the end, the group that scores more points will win the game".
- Organize the game and score each group’s points.
- Declare the winner.
* Alternative:
Game: Remembering
- Divide the class into two teams: team A and team B.
- Give instructions: "I will read many kinds of sports at the same time. You must
listen and try to remember them. When I finish reading, each team will come to
the board and write down as many sports as possible in one minute. The team
with more correct answers will win the game".
- Play the game and score the points.
- Declare the winner.
Keys: long jump, swimming, tennis, fencing, weight lifting, volleyball, football,
cycling, body-building.
 Unit 13: Hobbies (Tieng Anh 11, 2006, p.150)
Game: Let's Decode
- Ask Ss if they remember the order of the letters in the English alphabet.
- Tell Ss that "Supposed that we have 26 numbers, from number 1 to number 26,
number 1 is relevant to letter A, 2 to B, 3 to C,… and 26 to Z. I will give you
ranges of numbers and you have to find out the hidden words behind the given
numbers corresponding to the order of the letters in the English alphabet."
- Check Ss' understanding of the instructions by giving an example:
2.5.5: bee
- Write down the numbers (the words should be related to the topic “hobbies”)
and play the game with the whole class.

1) 18- 5- 1- 4- 9- 14- 7
2) 2- 15- 15- 11
………………………
Key: 1) Reading
2) Book
 Unit 15: Space Conquest (Tieng Anh 11, 2006, p.169)
Game: Who am I?
- Divide the class into two groups A and B and ask Ss to guess.
- Read aloud some cues one by one. If students can give out the correct answer
for the first cue, they will get mark 10, mark 9 for the second one and mark 8 for
the last one.
1. + I am an American astronaut.
+ I am a spacecraft commander for Apollo 11.

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+ I made history on July 20th 1969 when I was the first human to set
foot on the moon.
2. + I was born on February 14th 1947.
+ I am now the chairman of the General Department for Defense
Industry.
+ I am the first Vietnamese cosmonaut in space.
3. + April 12th was a huge day in my life.
+ On that day I made a 108-minute orbital flight in Vostok 1
spacecraft.
+ I was named the first human in space.
Key: 1) Neil Armstrong
2) Pham Tuan
3) Yuri Gagarin

 Unit 16: The Wonders of the World (Tieng Anh 11, 2006, p.182)
Game: Quiz
- Divide the class into 2 groups: group A and group B
- Prepare a video clip about the Great Wall before class.
- Give instructions: "You are going to watch a video clip and name the wonder
of the world in it. The group that gives the correct answer first will be the
winner".
- Play the video clip for Ss to watch.
- Organize the game and declare the winner.
* Alternative:
Guessing game: Do you know what wonder of the world it is?
- Divide the class into 2 groups: group A and group B
- Prepare some pictures of some wonders in the world before class.
- Give instructions: "You are going to see each part of the picture and name the
wonder of the world in it. The group that gives the correct answer first will be
the winner".
- Show each part the pictures slowly for Ss to observe.
- Organize the game and declare the winner.
Key:

- Ha long Bay
- The Great Wall
- Taj Mahal
- Colosseum

2.4. Effectiveness of the Teaching Experience
These suggested activities have been applied in my listening teaching to
th
11 students at Quang Xuong II upper secondary school and they seem to be
useful to students. In order to make a comparison to figure out the effectiveness,

these activities were employed at class 11B4 in school year 2017-2018.
Meanwhile, no warm-up activities were used at class 11B5. Instead, teacher only
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used some guiding questions to lead students into new lessons. It is interesting
that most of the students of the two classes showed different reactions to the new
lessons. Most of the students at class 11B4 with total of 45 students found it
eager and more comfortable before the listening lessons. This was shown
through their high motivation and interest in learning listening, their active
participation in activities and then many students at low levels could carry out
listening tasks by themselves. Asked about the warm-up activities, 95% of
students enjoyed participating in these activities enthusiastically. Moreover, a
considerable number of the students found lead-in activity helpful for them to
have something related to the listening topic in their mind before going to listen
to. As a result, students’ listening skills, to some extent, have been improved
during the school years. That also proved that students always wanted their
teacher to motivate them by organizing interesting activities and creating
comfortable learning atmosphere.
In contrast, students in class 11B5 seem to give a negative feedback. They
said that they felt hard to start the listening lessons because their teacher only
guided them to use listening strategies before listening and doing the tasks.
Besides, the students gave different views on the level of listening tasks in the
lesson. 50% of 40 students in class said that listening tasks were difficult. They
also claimed that sometimes they were not in the right mood to do the listening
tasks because of the learning atmosphere and their bad health.
From the results above, it might be said that warm-up activities can bring
students out of boredom and support them energy to start the tasks. Warm-up
activities enable students to learn from each other and make them feel more
confident to give out their answers for the next steps.

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PART 3: CONCLUSION
In conclusion, after trying to apply the adaptation techniques to design
warm-up activities for listening lessons at Quang Xuong II upper-secondary
school with the participants of 11th grader, it has been revealed that students are
more eager to study listening skill. The adaptation and creation of warm-up
listening activities in an easier and more familiar with their real life makes the
students more confident in carrying out listening requirements followed because,
to some extent, they have background knowledge to listen about. The fact is that
the presented activities have worked well in my classroom. However, you can
adapt them in order to fit your teaching style and your students. Many of these
activities can be modified and used as regular classroom activities. It can be
easily prepared and enhance the students’ motivation before class.
In this paper, I share my experiences with you, the teachers of English,
with the hope that we can help the students improve skills in learning English in
general and listening skills in particular.

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REFERENCES
A. English Authors:
1. Anderson, A. & T. Lynch (1988), Listening, Oxford University Press.
2. Brown, H. D. (1994), Teaching by Principles, New Jersey: Prentice Hall
Regents.
3. Brown, H. D. (2001), Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to
Language Pedagogy (2nd .Ed.), Longman.

4. Rixon, S. (1986), Developing Listening Skills, London and Basingstoke:
Macmillan.
5. Underwood, M. (1989), Teaching Listening, London and New York:
Longman.
B. Vietnamese Authors:
6. Nguyễn Thùy Minh
Lương Quỳnh Trang. (2008), Thiết kế bài giảng Tiếng Anh 11, Ha Noi
Publisher.
7. Hoàng Văn Vân et al. (2006), Tiếng Anh 11, Giao Duc Publisher.
C. Additional Reference:
Website:
Website:
XÁC NHẬN CỦA THỦ TRƯỞNG ĐƠN Thanh Hóa, ngày 28 tháng 4 năm 2018
VỊ
Tôi xin cam đoan đây là SKKN của mình
viết, khơng sao chép nội dung của người
khác.
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