Note Taking

Aim:

To help students focus on the main points of a text and to practise taking appropriate and useful notes

Target Audience:

Students

Relevance to ICFE Listening:

Whole paper

Organisation:

Individuals, then pairs

Materials needed:

Tapescript and recording of a news story;Worksheet;

  1. Find a news story which will be interesting for your students (or use the sample tapescript provided here), and record it onto a tape. (Alternatively, find a recording with tapesript on the internet, eg at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/).

  2. Tell the students they are going to listen to a news story. Play the first part (first paragraph) of the tapescript, and ask students to identify the topic of the story (sample tapescript: insider trading)

  3. Encourage students to discuss what they know about the subject, and to speculate on what might follow in the rest of the news story.

  4. Now tell students they are going to take notes on the main points of the story they will hear. Ask them to imagine that, after hearing the story again, they are going to tell it to a friend. This can help them to distinguish main points from detail.

  5. Play the recording, stopping after each paragragh, twice if necessary.

  6. Give the students some time to complete and organise their notes before putting them into pairs. Tell them to compare their ideas, and use their notes to write a summary, which covers the main points of the text.

  7. Give each pair a copy of the tapescript, to compare their summaries with the text. Encourage them to tick each important fact or piece of information which they understood correctly.

  8. This could be followed up by a gap-fill exercise, similar to Part Three of the Listening Paper.