Skip to main content

An advanced listening task: Cinderella





Here is a listening task you could try with an advanced level class. You might preface the task with a discussion about fairy tales, and perhaps specifically the story of Cinderella. After this get the class into pairs and have one partner slowly read this faulty story to their partner (with repetitions where needed). The other partner should try to correct or improve the story. The task might take about 20 minutes. Tell the students that there may be variations in the final, corrected version.




CENDRILLON 

Il était une fois un beau jeune garçon, orphelin, qui habitait dans un petit appartement avec sa mère. Le garçon avait deux chiens laids mais mignons.
 
La belle-mère et les deux chiens obligeaient Cendrillon à regarder la télé toute la journée à la maison. Elle ne devait pas faire la lessive, faire la vaisselle, faire le repassage et préparer tous les repas. Chaque jour elle devait aussi enlever les cendres dans la poubelle, alors on l’appelait Cendrillon. 


Un jour, le fille du roi a organisé un concert pour trouver un fiancé. Tous les garçons du pays étaient invités. Ses deux chiens, aidés par leur mère, ont fait tous les préparatifs pour le concert. Cendrillon, très contente, n’a pas osé demander la permission d’y aller. Elle a ri si fort, que son vieil ami, la fée, l’a entendue et est venue. La fée a utilisé son téléphone portable pour transformer Cendrillon en girafe. Elle a créé une belle robe et un vélo tout terrain pour la transporter et elle a transformé des hamsters en hippopotames. Ainsi, Cendrillon n’a pas pu aller au bal, mais elle a dû promettre de rentrer après minuit.


Arrivée au concert, Cendrillon était admirée par tous. Le jeune prince l’a invitée à jouer à la console. A la fin de la matinée, elle était si triste qu’elle a oublié son nom. Dans sa hâte, elle a perdu son iPhone.


Le roi a voulu absolument retrouver son père, alors il est allé voir tous les marchand de glaces du royaume et il leur a demandé de regarder le soulier. Il a promis d’épouser le garçon qui était capable de regarder le soulier . Ainsi il a retrouvé Cendrillon et a vécu en concubinage avec elle. 


Written task


Write out correct version of the story.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What is skill acquisition theory?

For this post, I am drawing on a section from the excellent book by Rod Ellis and Natsuko Shintani called Exploring Language Pedagogy through Second Language Acquisition Research (Routledge, 2014). Skill acquisition is one of several competing theories of how we learn new languages. It’s a theory based on the idea that skilled behaviour in any area can become routinised and even automatic under certain conditions through repeated pairing of stimuli and responses. When put like that, it looks a bit like the behaviourist view of stimulus-response learning which went out of fashion from the late 1950s. Skill acquisition draws on John Anderson’s ACT theory, which he called a cognitivist stimulus-response theory. ACT stands for Adaptive Control of Thought.  ACT theory distinguishes declarative knowledge (knowledge of facts and concepts, such as the fact that adjectives agree) from procedural knowledge (knowing how to do things in certain situations, such as understand and speak a langua...

Zaz - Si jamais j'oublie

My wife and I often listen to Radio Paradise, a listener-supported, ad-free radio station from California. They've been playing this song by Zaz recently. I like it and maybe your students would too. I shouldn't really  reproduce the lyrics here for copyright reasons, but I am going to translate them (with the help of another video). You could copy and paste this translation and set it for classwork (not homework, I suggest, since students could just go and find the lyrics online). The song was released in 2015 and gotr to number 11 in the French charts - only number 11! Here we go: Remind me of the day and the year Remind me of the weather And if I've forgotten, you can shake me And if I want to take myself away Lock me up and throw away the key With pricks of memory Tell me what my name is If I ever forget the nights I spent, the guitars, the cries Remind me who I am, why I am alive If I ever forget, if I ever take to my heels If one day I run away Remind me who I am, wha...

What is the phonological loop?

This post is about how we use part of our short-term memory (working memory) to process sounds, words and longer utterances. I also intend to show how knowing about the phonological loop can help you refine your practice as a language teacher. Firstly, what is the phonological loop and where does it fit into a popular model of working memory? To start with, it's probably best to start by activating another component of short-term memory, your visuo-spatial sketchpad. Look at this diagram: Image from cheese360 at Wikimedia Commons That is one depiction of the well-known model of working memory put forward by cognitive psychologists Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch back in 1974. But first, when we see, hear, touch, taste or smell something our sensory memory takes note (beneath our consciousness). As far as language is concerned, we choose to pay attention to it and the information enters working memory, more specifically what are called the visuo-spatial sketchpad (aka scr...