LISTENING

The listening is very important to learn a new language. But the listening is done not only with audios of talks, is hearing the teacher, listening to songs...I think that a good way of working the listening with children through stories, because they like it so much and would learn much vocabulary.

The listening process involves five stages: receiving, understanding, evaluating, remembering, and responding. You can use for a better understanding in the listenings is:
Active listening is a particular communication technique that requires the listener to provide feedback on what he or she hears to the speaker, by way of restating or paraphrasing what they have heard in their own words. The goal of this repetition is to confirm what the listener has heard and to confirm the understanding of both parties. The ability to actively listen demonstrates sincerity, and that nothing is being assumed or taken for granted. Active listening is most often used to improve personal relationships, reduce misunderstanding and conflicts, strengthen cooperation, and foster understanding.
It should leave aside the conventional activities and put up new activities that are more motivating for children, do not be afraid to make mistakes and learn so much more.

There are many activities to put all this into practice:http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/listen-and-watch

http://childtopia.com/index.php?module=home&func=coce&idphpx=comprensi%EF%BF%BDn-oral-escrita

GAMES

Simon Says – at 3 and 5 they are pitifully bad at this game but they have loads of fun trying to discern when they are to follow instructions and when they are not to.

Name that Sound – Using this basket of instruments play an instrument without the child seeing – either stand behind them, just outside the room, or blindfold them. Ask them to identify the instrument played. Add several instruments as they become familiar with the sounds and have them lay out the instruments in the order you played them.

What Time Is It Captain Midnight? –  It is identical to What Time is it Mr. Wolf if you are familiar with that game. One person, Captain Midnight, stands on the other side of the room, with his back to the other players. The other players call out; “What time is it Captain Midnight?” Captain Midnight calls out a time between 1 and 11 and the players need to take that many steps. This repeats until Captain Midnight says it is midnight, at which point he chases the children back to the start line trying to tag them. Those that are tagged are out.

Marco Polo – One child is blindfolded and calls out “Marco” and the other players respond with “Polo”. The blindfolded child tries to tag the others by following their voice. {Usually a pool game, but the boys enjoy playing it in our living room}

Blindfolded Obstacle Course – Blindfold the children and give them verbal instructions to get through a series of obstacles set up in the room.

Find the Object – Set up a random assortment of items on a table in one room and take the children to another room. Give them details about which object you’d like them to go and find from the table, for example; “Please bring me the smallest yellow item on the table.” or “Please bring me the book that talks about a little girl and a bear eating blueberries.”

This game has been the boys favorite and we’ve played it about 4 times so far!

Get Across the Room – So similar to Marco Polo and the Obstacle Course, however slightly different.  Put the blindfolded children on one side of the room and have a partner for each child on the other side of the room. As the partner we direct our own {blindfolded} partner across the room to us, so they need to know and listen to the voice of the parent they are partnered up with.