Scholastic
Mindful Listening
Teach your middle schoolers to use their ears to their highest potential! Pupils practice active listening skills and reflect on how careful listening might prove to be important in and out of the classroom.
TESOL
Are You a Good Listener?
Your learners talk to each other every day, but are they really listening? Use a instructional activity based on listening skills to ensure that class members feel heard and respected. It includes games, discussion topics, and...
International Debate Education Association
Speaking Across the Curriculum
With the focus on 21st century skills it is even more important that all teachers incorporate listening and speaking activities into their curriculum. Here's a packet of practical ideas appropriate for any classroom.
EngageNY
Mid-Unit Assessment: Listening for Main Ideas and Supporting Details
Pay attention! Scholars view the video"Why College Students Should Start Paying Attention to Water" multiple times to complete a note catcher. After discussing their thoughts with the class, learners watch "The Water Crisis Isn’t...
Curated OER
What is effective communication?
Learners practice a series of communicaton activities. In this communication skills lesson, students role play listening and active listening strategies to improve communication. Learners write a set of guidelines for improving...
Curated OER
ESL Grammar Lessons
Practice makes perfect when it comes to learning grammar with this ESL resource. Offering a great way to teach about relative clauses, this lesson engages students with a series of partner, small group, and whole class speaking and...
Curated OER
Audio Aesop: Listen to the Lesson!
Aesop's Fables are the focus of this language arts lesson. Young philosophers study and discuss the morals found in the most famous of Aesop's Fables. They write an original fable that teaches a common moral. A "Fable Listening Library"...
Do2Learn
Respecting the Ideas of Others
Communicating clearly is one part of a successful conversation, but listening to others is just as important. Individuals with special needs plan calm responses and reactions to differing opinions with a collaborative activity.
Curated OER
Teaching Debate to ESL Students
Language learners use the debate format to practice formulating, expressing, and defending their ideas. Working in teams, class members develop resolutions, use opinion indicators to express their opinions and reasons, and prepare...
Curriculum Corner
7th Grade ELA Common Core Checklists
Track your class's progress on all of the ELA Common Core standards with these handy charts. Along the left side, each seventh grade identifier is listed along with the full text of the standard. As you teach, reteach, assess, and...
Franklin Covey
The Habits of Highly Effective Teens
Sally and Joe both want the last cookie in the jar, so they split it in half. That's an example of a win-win situation, one of the many principles Sean Covey outlines in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. Using the...
Reed Novel Studies
The Lions of Little Rock: Novel Study
A true friend sticks with you through thick and thin. Marlee and Liz, main characters in The Lions of Little Rock, have that type of friendship. Scholars learn vocabulary and answer comprehension questions as they read how the two girls...
ReadWriteThink
Biography Project: Research and Class Presentation
I Have A Dream ... that after the lesson, all individuals master the reading, writing, researching, listening, and speaking skills the biography project helps them develop. Martin Luther King, Jr. serves as a topic example for a model...
Reed Novel Studies
The Underneath: Novel Study
Do you have a place that makes you feel safe and secure? Ranger, a hound in The Underneath, finds his new friend, a calico cat, and her safe place—underneath a porch. Scholars complete sentences using vocabulary from the novel as they...
Thoughtful Education Press
Personal Narratives: Learning from Lessons Life Teaches Us
"First Appearance," Mark Twain's tale about overcoming stage fright, serves as a model of a personal narrative and gets young writers thinking about milestones in their own lives. After examining student models and considering the...
Reed Novel Studies
The Hobbit: Novel Study
All it takes is a little adventure to interrupt a quiet, simple life. A study guide for The Hobbit explores the adventures that disrupt Bilbo Baggins' quiet life. Questions discuss key events found within J.R.R. Tolkien's novel and...
Reed Novel Studies
Piecing Me Together: Novel Study
Jade from Renée Watson's Piecing Me Together wants to improve the world—and herself. Worksheets introduce new vocabulary, asks comprehension questions, and review personification and alliterations.
Reed Novel Studies
A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Bad Beginning: Novel Study
Scholars read about the unlucky events that continue to fall on the children in A Series of Unfortunate Events - The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket. A set of worksheet activities include completing sentences with vocabulary words,...
Curated OER
Experimenting with Sound
Young scholars explore physical science by completing a worksheet. In this sound perception lesson, students collaborate in small groups to research sound properties on the Internet and in libraries. Young scholars conduct a listening...
Reed Novel Studies
Hatchet: Novel Study
Thanks to Gary Paulsen's Hatchet, teen readers now know it's possible to survive in the wilderness. A study guide for the novel discusses common topics and vocabulary words found within the text. Additionally, readers get the chance to...
Curated OER
Speech! Speech!
Critical thinkers consider how word choice in speeches impacts the meaning and effectiveness of the message being presented. They examine and respond to some of the speeches made at the 2004 Republican and Democratic National Conventions.
Curated OER
Studying English Abroad
Students explore what it might be like to study English in another country. In this ESL lesson, students complete several activities that represent what it might be like to experience learning the English language in another country,...
Curated OER
What Does This Song Really Say?
Students investigate communication by analyzing lyrics from a song. In this music arts instructional activity, students discuss slavery, the Underground Railroad and African American traditions while listening to a song called "This...
Curated OER
Gandhi's Autobiography and the Study of Memoir
Seventh graders explore the life of Gandhi using his autobiography and memoir. In this Gandhi exploration lesson, 7th graders analyze Gandhi's literary voice by reading his autobiography. Students identify literary techniques in Gandhi's...