Recorded sounds lesson

Here's a simple idea for a lesson, or part of a lesson for intermediate or advanced students. You could possibly combine it with the tired daily routine topic. Get a digital recorder or use your phone and record as many sounds as you can around the house. Here are a few you could easily record:

running a tap
flushing the toilet
boiling a kettle
using a can opener
pouring a drink
opening a bottle of fizzy drink
pulling a wine cork
running the washing machine or dishwasher
opening the fridge door
opening and closing doors
hoovering
using the microwave
closing the oven door
laying the table
scraping a chair across the floor
switching the radio on or off
typing on the PC
switching on a light
using a whisk
cracking an egg
opening a packet
cutting with scissors
dropping ice into a glass
blowing your nose
chopping or peeling vegetables
climbing stairs
dropping an object (e.g. cutlery or unwanted crockery!)

You could play the sounds in sequence whilst students note down in the target language what is being done. They should always attempt an answer. Then students could compare answers orally in pairs.

An alternative, to make the exercise accessible to less advanced learners, would be to produce a set of sentences for a matching task: match sentence with each sound.

You could build in some grammar practice by describing in present and past tenses. I'm sure imaginative teachers could come up with other, better ways for exploiting such sounds.

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