5 top listening activities for young ESL students

Listening activities are essential for a young learner’s development in speech and language skills. It’s important to make the activities exciting for your students, but to also keep them focused on listening to key details.

1.     Whiteboard race

You’ll need to divide your class into two teams for this one, but be warned! It can get a little lively.

 Dictate a basic English word for the young learners to write on the white board. One student from each team needs to run towards the white board and write down the word they remember. The first student to get to the board and gets it correct, scores a point for their team! You can even let them circle the vowels in the words to make it more challenging.

2.     Listen and draw me a story

 A great listening activity for young ESL students is to tell them a story and let them draw what they are hearing. You can choose a book or short narrative ahead of time, or keep it simple and stick to phrases only, like:

“Draw a big dog”

or

“The boy with brown hair kicked the red ball”

 This is perfect for young students who’re still developing; it’s a fun activity in which they won’t feel pressured by answering questions and the teacher can also draw to compare their work with the student.


3.     Blindfold walk

Teach your students coordination skills and the ability to follow detailed instructions with this fun activity. Start by blindfolding a student to direct them around the room.

“Go forward”
“Turn right”
“Now go backwards 3 steps”

Now have your students work in pairs (One blindfolded and one giving instructions)


4.     Secret message

Same-same as whiteboard race, but different.

Once again divide your class into two groups. Have the two groups each form a line parallel to each other and take one student from the back of each line out of the class. Those two students are the “leaders” and will get the “secret message” (One word for low level learners, or a sentence for more experienced learners).  From the back of the line starting with the leader, they’ll need to whisper the message from one student to another to get the message to the “runner” (The student in the front of the line near the white board). Award points for the team who gets it right and finishes first and exchange the runners and leaders regularly.

5.     Put in order

You can use flashcards or objects for this activity.

Put your students in teams and give each team around 5-10 objects or flash cards (all teams should have the exact same objects or flash cards). Now the teacher has to list the 5-10 objects while the students listen carefully to the order. Only once the teacher is done the groups can start organizing the objects in the correct order as specified by the teacher. Remember to write down as you list the objects, otherwise you might forget the order!

 

6.     Simon says

This one is an old classic activity, perfect for making young learners listen and pay attention to instructions.

Any instructions called out by the teacher starting with “Simon says” need to be acted out by the students.

For example:
“Simon says touch your nose”

Any Instructions that don’t begin with Simon says your students should not do.

For example:

“Jump three times”.

Whatever the activity or age, the most important thing is to keep your students engaged by being challenged and they should have fun while doing so.

Which ESL listening activity are you trying first?