Tag: listening sub-skills

Posted in Listening Classes, Video Classes

Video Listening Activity: Joe Lycett – Scamming a Scammer

Posted on by Tim Warre

 

Image result for joe lycett

Image credit: Chambers Management

Just a quick note…

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This is a listening activity for B2+ students based around a Youtube clip of a Joe Lycett stand-up comedy routine on the subject of scammers. Download the handout, teacher’s notes, full transcript and powerpoint below:

The video:

Teacher’s Notes

Lead-in

Use the first slide of the PowerPoint to pre-teach the UK cultural references students will need for the video:

  1. Class and social status are very important in the UK, this manifests itself in snobbery about supermarkets: Waitrose is a posh expensive supermarket, Aldi is a cheap, lower quality one.
  2. Dorothy Perkins is a relatively cheap high street clothes shop.
  3. Gumtree is a popular website where people list many things: properties for rent, things for sale etc.
  4. A scam is when someone tries to trick someone else out of their money. Common scams include: email scams, social media scams, rental scams, holiday apartment scams (timeshare), fake goods scams (watches, shoes, handbags etc.)
  5. In pairs students compare their own country with the UK, do these scams exist?

Pre-Listening

Students discuss in pairs.

  • You’re going to watch a video of the British comedian Joe Lycett telling a story about how he scammed a scammer via email.
  • What do you think he’s going to do?

Listening 1

Watch the first part of the video (until 01:26) and answer the question:

  1. What is the scam? A property scam, to get a viewing of a flat, potential tenants must transfer money using a site called moneytoindia.eu

Now watch again and answer these questions:

  1. Why does Joe start emailing Gemma? His friend discovers it and realises it is a scam.
  2. What does Gemma say about the flat? That it is in a beautiful area with parking facilities.
  3. What does Gemma ask Joe to do? Send $220 and his home address.

Prediction: What is Joe going to do next?

Listening 2

Watch the next part (until 2:06): Were your predictions correct?

Watch again:

  1. Where did Joe say he was? In Stockholm
  2. Where was he really? In his garden in Birmingham drinking prosecco.
  3. What was Gemma’s excuse for not meeting him? That she was in Berlin on a business trip.

Predict: What do you think Joe will do next?

Listening 3

Watch the next part (until 3:28): Were your predictions correct?

Watch again:

  1. What does the German phrase Joe uses mean? I know this is a scam.
  2. How did Joe make his story more convincing? By including a photo of himself in Berlin from a previous holiday.
  3. How did Joe finish the latest email? By saying he was going to contact the FBI to check Gemma out.

Predict: What do you think will happen next?

Listening 4

Watch the rest of the video: Were your predictions correct?

  1. How did Gemma react to Joe’s email about the FBI? She panicked and sent lots of emails.
  2. How did Joe give Gemma a taste of her own medicine? By asking her to send him $300 to cancel the FBI check.
  3. What did Gemma say in her last email? That she was sorry and would try to live a better life.

Reaction

  1. What did you think of the video?

Decoding – Transcript Work – KEY

Watch the first part of the video again and fill in the gaps in the transcript with what you hear:

Part 1

So this is my favorite thing that’s come as a result of me being a bit weird with somebody online. A friend of mine was looking for somewhere to live in London, which as I’m sure you’re aware is quite expensive, quite difficult increasingly.

 

He found somewhere on gumtree that looked kind of promising did a bit of emailing back and forth and realized pretty quickly this is probably a scam and so he sent all the emails that he’d done already over to me and just did the subject heading: “do your absolute worst”. A girl called Gemma, who was supposedly advertising this property, I sent her a fresh email, I said: “Hello Gemma I’m contacting you regarding the apartment listed on Gumtree, I’m interested in a viewing and wanted to arrange, regards Joe Lycett.” I used my own name on this one.

 

Discussion

  1. Is this a good way to deal with scammers?
  2. Do similar scams exist in your country?
  3. Have you ever been a victim of a scam?
  4. What do you think of this type of comedy? Do you find it funny?
  5. Which other stand-up comedians do you like? Have you ever been to a live show?
  6. Did you enjoy this activity?

Extra Support

If students are struggling to understand the text, try slowing the speed down on youtube, or give them the full transcript as a last resort.

Posted in Listening Classes, Vocabulary Classes

Scared Stiff! – Fear and Horror Film Expressions

Posted on by Tim Warre

Image credit: metro.co.uk

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This is a lesson plan for higher level students (high B2+) in which students learn expressions related to fear and horror movies. It is a good companion activity my Chucky’s Participle Clauses lesson, I plan to teach the two activities in one 90 minute class. You will need the audio file and handouts below:

Scared Stiff Teacher notes

Scared Stiff Student Handout

Audio File

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Scared Stiff

Listening Comprehension

First check students understand “scared stiff” then tell them they are going to listen to a man talking about horror films. Dictate them these 5 questions, students write them down. Play the audio twice all the way through.

  1. What’s his opinion of gory films? He doesn’t find them frightening
  2. What types of gory scenes make him uncomfortable? Gory scenes involving eyes
  3. What types of horror films scare him the most? Psychological horror
  4. What sometimes happens while they are watching a horror film? The phone rings or the cat makes a noise, scaring them.
  5. What’s his girlfriend scared of? Spiders and anything that looks like a spider

Being a bit of a scaredy-cat I’m not really into horror films. But every now and then I like to sit down and watch one with my girlfriend. I’m not very squeamish so I don’t really find gory films very frightening but anything to do with eyes gives me the heebie-jeebies, so I find any scenes where people get the eyes cut or poked out really unsettling.

The films that really send shivers down my spine are psychological horror films, for me they’re far scarier than gory films. Maybe ones where some people are exploring a spooky house and there’s some creepy music playing, they really put me on edge because you don’t know when something is going to jump out and scare you half to death. Sometimes the scariest thing is when we’re watching a horror film and the house phone suddenly rings, or the cat makes a sound and we jump out of our skins with fright.

My girlfriend is slightly different to me. She’s petrified of spiders and anything that looks like a spider but they don’t really bother me. Once we watched a film about giant alien bugs and we had to switch it off because she was shaking like a leaf!

Students listen again and write down as many expressions as they can.

Language focus

Students look at the expressions in the box, find them in the text and try to deduce meaning from context.

1.       Scaredy-cat – a person who is easily frightened/scared of a lot of things

 

2.       Squeamish – a person who can’t deal with the sight of blood/gore

3.       Gory – a film with lots of blood and guts

4.       Gives me the heebie-jeebies – makes me feel uncomfortable/scared/disgusted

5.       Unsettling – makes you feel uncomfortable

6.       Sends shivers down my spine – a physical response to being scared

7.       Spooky – haunted, supernatural

8.       Creepy – discomforting, films can be creepy but people can too, a creepy guy etc.

9.       Put me on edge – makes me nervous

10.   Scare you half to death – scare a lot

11.   Jump out of your skin – gives you a big fright

12.   Petrified of – very scared of

13.   Shake like a leaf – physically trembling with fear

Memory gap-fill

Students turn the hand out over and try to remember the positions of all the expressions to complete the text. If they get stuck they can turn the paper over and look for one expression.

Analysis

Students look at the expressions and analyse them with the following questions to increase chance of retention.

  1. Is the meaning obvious from the words?
  2. Which ones exist in your own language?
  3. Which one is your favourite?
  4. Which one will be the easiest/most difficult to remember? Why?

Discussion

Students discuss the following questions with their partner using the expressions and the language in the box below. Students should be encouraged to use the “showing interest” expressions to actively listen to their partner.

Showing interest Personalising
Uh-huh.

 

That’s interesting/weird.

Oh, I see.

Right.

Totally/absolutely.

I see what you mean.

I’m exactly the same.

Uh-uh, not me.

No way!

You’re joking

 For me personally,

 

Speaking personally,

From my point of view,

When it comes to (scary movies), I think…

Speaking of (scary movies), in my opinion…

I find (gory movies) really (terrifying)

 

(psychological horror movies) are much/far scarier than (gory movies)
  1. Are you a scaredy-cat?
  2. Are you squeamish? Do gory movies give you the heebie-jeebies?
  3. What type of movies put you on edge?
  4. What are you petrified of?
  5. Can you think of a scene in a film that made you jump out of your skin?
  6. What type of scenes/monsters send shivers down your spine?
  7. Which films left you shaking like a leaf?
  8. What scares you more, a spooky place or creepy music?
  9. What situations are unsettling in real life?
  10. Has a friend or family member ever made you jump out of your skin or scared you half to death?

Follow up

Students right a CAE style review of the scariest film they’ve ever seen, explaining why it was so scary and who they would recommend it to.

Posted in Listening Classes

Listening: I got double-scammed!

Posted on by Tim Warre

Image Credit: blogs.thisismoney.co.uk

Follow me on twitter @RobbioDobbio

This is a listening lesson for high B1+. I designed this lesson for my DELTA receptive skills assessed class. It’s based around a listening text from Speak Out Upper-Intermediate (Pearson), in which a woman describes how she had her bag stolen while sitting in a café. I chose this text because this type of crime is an extremely common occurence here in Barcelona.

Below you can download the lesson procedure, students’ and teachers’ handout, an annotated version of the transcript and the listening file.

Lesson Procedure 

Lisas bad day student handout 

Lisas bad day Teacher’s copy

Audio file

annotated transcript lisa0001

The most important thing to bear in mind is that this is a class which focuses on developing students’ listening skills rather than simply testing their comprehension of a text so feel free to replay sections of the text as many times as it takes for them to get the message.

It’s important to follow the steps as laid out in the procedure. The pre-listening tasks, in which students make predictions about what will happen next, aid students in their comprehension as they are given the opportunity to apply their own knowledge and experience to the text.

After listening the language focus section on connected speech will help students to identify and decipher fast connetced speech, for example, the pronunciation of past modals “can’t/must/might have”. I’m currently working on my grammar assessment class in which I will come back to past modals of speculation. It should make a good follow-up class to this one so watch this space.