Monday 26 December 2016

TEDx Oral Presentations Listening and Speaking Skills Lesson

A listening activity on a TEDx speech to practise oral presentation skills and learn useful expressions.

TEDx conferences are a great way for students to hear authentic (often American or Canadian) English. They touch upon a variety of different topics. 


See below for worksheet, transcript and follow-up lesson on pronunciation and intonation.

1. Listening exercise


I chose this particular video for its first minute and a half, which is a perfect example of how to start a presentation. Moreover, the man speaks with a Canadian accent but the vocabulary is quite simple, so it is a good way for students to get familiar with hearing this type of accent without being overwhelmed with the vocabulary.

The BTS final exam has a listening part. Students listen to an audio extract 3 times, take notes and then report what they have understood in French. So in order to train them to this exercise, I always start by listening 3 times and I ask the students to take notes of any word they grasp even if they are unsure of how they are spelt or how they fit in the context.

These are the pieces of advice I usually give them:

  1. Start taking notes from the first listening (the sooner you start the better).
  2. Write down every word even if you are unsure of or didn't understand the context.
  3. Write down every word even if you don't know how to spell it.
  4. Take your notes directly in English (you will translate later).

The difficult thing is to get them to write down absolutely everything they hear from the first time they listen. Often they will tell me that they need to listen a first time to grasp the general meaning of the extract. And they will also object that there is no point in writing down words if they didn't understand the whole sentence. So it is essential to teach them how to bring out every piece of information they manage to grasp, as well as to be able to grasp the maximum amount of information.

I like to ask as many students as possible (starting with the weaker) what notes they have taken. You can write their notes on the board to pool them as you go around the class. That will usually put some pressure on them and they will make the effort to write down notes. 

Once we have been through the general meaning and the vocabulary of the extract (in English to practice speaking), I would ask them to prepare an explanation in French and in writing of what they have understood as a homework. Then during the next lesson, I would give them a transcript and do a last listening for them to complete the document. (You will also find it at the bottom of this article)


2. Meaning


Then you can ask students to analyse the type of information that is given on every stage of the listening. The first paragraph contains typical elements like greeting the public, saying he is happy to be there, stating his name and some additional information like his job, the name of his company, number of employees and geographical areas.

When I did the transcript I divided the text into paragraphs so you can ask the students to come up with a title for each paragraph or, if you give them the text as one block, to divide the text into different parts and come up with a title for each of them. That will force them to get into the details of the text up to the final questions that can be used as a 'teaser' for follow up activities on GMOs, controversial or state of the art agricultural techniques... As a matter of fact, in the rest of the video, R. Saik advocates for the widespread use of GMOs as the sole way of feeding the ever growing world population and fiercely criticizes organic cultures.  


3. Pronunciation and intonation

As I said the vocabulary is fairly simple, the unknown words should not prevent them from understanding. The real barrier here is the accent. Students are not used to hearing North American accents so words like "internationally" or "scientific integration" may not be understood because of the way they are pronounced.

This audio extract is an excellent occasion to study intonation. Since they had to take notes, it is a good idea to show them that the most clearly pronounced words are also the most important of the sentence. The demonstration can be carried out with the first sentence of the second paragraph. Students should be able to say that the stress falls on (or the man insists on) the words help, coaching and scientific integration because they are the most important elements of the sentence in terms of meaning. They are also the expressions they would have been able to write down. 

The last paragraph also has its fair share of sentences to work on. For instance, the first one with words like question, picture and metaphor, or the last set of questions with believe, agriculture, feed 9 billion people. This is also the opportunity to study the 'discreet' pronunciation of do and can when they are not stressed.

Then you can get the students to repeat after you or the man in the video, or if you are lucky enough to have a language 'labo' - which is usually nothing more than a dozen of computers with headphones and microphones- you can have them repeat and record themselves - which they tend to love, particularly if you tell them that you will be playing their recordings to the class for feedback ;)


You can check the post Listening and Pronunciation Skills Practice with a TEDx talk: How to Introduce Yourself  for a full lesson on pronunciation and intonation, with exercises based on the first minute and a half of this TEDx talk.

Click on the link below to watch the video

Pushing the Boundaries in Agriculture



The worksheet and transcript are available below

Pushing the Boundaries in Agriculture worksheet

Pushing the Boundaries in Agriculture transcript
A listening exercise on a speech to teach oral presentations skills and useful expressions.
A listening exercise on a speech to teach oral presentations skills and useful expressions.
Cécile Sohier 

Friday 16 December 2016

Tractor Troubleshooting English for Mechanics Listening Lesson

Students learn English vocabulary for mechanics and practise their listening and speaking skills.



Another Rachel Gingell video on mechanics! Students are already familiar with her because we have worked on 'how to easily fix tractor hydraulics'. 

1. Listening

This time the video is a little long (15 minutes) but I have asked the students to watch it entirely anyway. However, instead of a detailed comprehension, the exercise focuses on a global understanding of the different elements of the tractor she troubleshoots. Among these are the coil, the distributor, the rotor, the gas level, the starter button, the spark plugs, the 12-volt testing tool, the ignition switch, and she also explains how to replace the starter button.

2. Speaking

After doing the feedback, you can ask students what they thought of the video or if they picked up any additional information.

You can also get the students to explain whether they would have done anything differently.


Here is the worksheet and the link to the video:

Why won't my tractor start worksheet 

Why won't my tractor start video

As you will see, it is exercise 1 for it is followed by an extensive vocabulary exercise and a speaking task:

why won't my tractor start vocabulary and speaking

Related post: Tractor Troubleshooting Vocabulary Speaking Lesson
A listening exercise to teach general mechanical vocabulary.
More articles on English for Mechanics:

Fixing Tractor Hydraulics: Listening Activity to Learn English for Mechanics

Tractor Transmission: Mechanics Vocabulary Quiz

Tractor Troubleshooting Vocabulary Speaking Lesson

Tractor Buying Facts: Reading Activity and Oral Presentation Skills Practice

Tractor Warranty Issue / English for Mechanics: Listening and Speaking Exercises - BTS Final Exam (CCF)

Cécile Sohier 

Monday 12 December 2016

Understanding the News: Dakota Access Pipeline Listening Activity.

Listening activity on 2 news reports about the Dakota Access Pipeline conflict.



Students learnt about the Sioux through the webquest. Now, in this listening exercise,they have to understand what is currently happening in North Dakota and the reasons why so many people are supporting the Sioux in their fight against a big oil pipeline company. 


Listening activity on 2 news reports about the Dakota Access Pipeline conflict. Exercice de compréhension orale.
Pour accéder aux vidéos concernées par l'exercice il suffit de cliquer sur les liens suivants :



Cécile Sohier 

Saturday 10 December 2016

Web quest: Native Americans in North Dakota

Teaching General English : webquest. Activité de recherche sur internet pour enseigner le vocabulaire et apprendre à connaitre les Indiens d'Amérique et l'actualité du Dakota du Nord et du Sud.

This summer I found out about this both surprising and dramatic conflict going on between Native Americans (particularly the Sioux) and an oil pipeline company.




A David vs Goliath fight over the construction of a pipeline... it just makes so much sense to study it with my students since it perfectly fits into the 'STI2D' syllabus! Plus it's a crude oil pipeline so it's also good to trigger a debate on sustainability. 

By way of introduction, I started with a webquest on the Sioux (where they live, how they used to live, what reservations are , what happened to the 1868 Great Reservation, what is Cannonball Ranch and the Black Snake Prophecy...) 

It took two 50 minute sessions for the students to be able to finish the web quest. And once they completed the webquest, I gave them this correction exercise. 

Then I followed up with this listening exercise.

Here are the elements of the syllabus this lesson could fit into:

Entrée culturelle :
L'idée de progrès / Espace et échange / Mythes et héros

Pole de connaissance : 
Matériaux et structures / Energie et environnement

Exemples de problématiques :

Quelle est la place des Indiens dans l’espace américain? L'exemple de la construction d'un pipeline.

Quels sont les problèmes que posent le passage d’un pipeline sur une terre sacrée indienne ?

Le mythe Sioux du serpent noir est-il entrain de se réaliser ?




Teaching General English : web quest. Activité de recherche sur internet pour enseigner le vocabulaire et apprendre à connaitre les Indiens d'Amérique et  l'actualité au Dakota du Sud.
Teaching General English : web quest. Activité de recherche sur internet pour enseigner le vocabulaire et apprendre à connaitre les Indiens d'Amérique et  l'actualité au Dakota du Sud.
Teaching General English : web quest. Activité de recherche sur internet pour enseigner le vocabulaire et apprendre à connaitre les Indiens d'Amérique et  l'actualité au Dakota du Sud.
Teaching General English : web quest. Activité de recherche sur internet pour enseigner le vocabulaire et apprendre à connaitre les Indiens d'Amérique et  l'actualité au Dakota du Sud.
Cécile Sohier