Quick fix: listening skills

This week I stumbled upon one way to address a couple of my weak areas as a teacher--building listening skills and "teaching" vocabulary. I say "teaching" because I don't really believe in teaching vocabulary, but rather, providing opportunities for it to be acquired. My students always say that they need more vocab and I struggle to meet their needs while keeping a constructivist and communicative environment. This seemed to work for both of us, though! Here's how it went:

1. I played a one-minute video clip with the sound only, no video. I asked my students to write the words that they heard/recognized as I played it twice.  We used this clip: 

2. I asked them to share what they heard and wrote their words on the board, pausing to clarify what each word meant by circumlocuting in Spanish.

3. Next, we listened to it again (still no video) and numbered the words to show their sequence in the clip. 

4. After numbering, we talked through the words in sequence building our own summary of what they thought the clip was about. They picked up that a woman was rapping, that she was part of a religious community, and that she used music in her efforts to help others, including the poor. Not bad!

5. Finally, I showed them the video (they loved it and wanted to watch it twice!) so they could see what they got and what they missed. We added the word "monja" (nun) to our list.

And that was it! The students really liked the activity and I see it becoming a regular part of our routines. Some tweaks that I plan to make are:

• they have vocab notebooks that I'm honestly not great about leveraging. Next time I will ask them to copy the vocab (old & new) into their notebooks, and hopefully we'll see a transition from words to phrases to sentences.

• I will also ask them to do a quick write, either in vocab notebooks or on an exit ticket, or digital platform like Padlet. The quick write will be a summary (in their own words) of what the story was about, along with a personal connection,opinion, or reflection.

What are some of your favorite "quick fixes" for listening or other skills? Feel free to share in the comments below!