Listening Practice With A Personalized Family Quiz

Did you enjoy our Word Search activity last month? Here is another listening activity to make practice a little more fun!

In previous blogs, we have talked about active, structured listening practice leading to faster progress, tips for practicing listening, and how to make activities easier or more difficult depending on your listening skills. This is another active listening activity which can easily be tailored to meet your individual listening needs.

Family Quiz

First, print out the Family Quiz Handout.

For this activity, you will need a communication partner to read you the questions and sentences.

This activity aims to help you to listen for and identify the names of your family and friends in isolation and in short sentences. As you are able to personalize this material, we hope that this activity is interesting and provides you with meaningful practice. We also hope that this activity brings a little fun and humor to your listening practice, as you and your communication partner discuss, or perhaps debate, characteristics about your family and friends. This quiz is divided into 5 rounds.

Tip:  Have your communication partner use listening first. If after three tries it is still difficult, add in written choices, reduce the number of written choices to 3, or add lip reading. If it is still difficult, have your communication partner show you the written word/sentence and say it again as you read along.  We want this to be a fun but not frustrating activity.

Round 1:  Your communication partner will write a list of your family and friends names without you seeing. There is space provided on your handout under Round 1. Your communication partner will say one of the names. Try to identify the name through listening. If this is too difficult, ask your communication partner to show you 3 options. Listen again and try to identify the name.

Round 2: You have been given a list of characteristics. The list is on your handout under Round 2. Your communication partner will say one of the characteristics in a random order. Point to or say the word/phrase. Continue until you have identified all characteristics. If this listening activity is difficult or some characteristics sound similar, use one of the tips above to make the task easier, or ask your communication partner to describe or give synonyms to help you to identify the word.

Round 3: You have been given a list of similar-sounding words. The list is on your handout under Round 3. Your communication partner will say one of the words in a random order. Point to or say the word. Continue until you have identified all of the words.

Round 4: You have been given a list of descriptive statements using the same characteristics from Round 2. The list is on your handout under Round 4. Your communication partner will use the characteristic at the end of the sentence “This person is the ________.” For example, “This person is the funniest.” Repeat the sentence back to your communication partner and give a response. For example, “This person is the funniest. It’s Dennis.” See if you both agree!

Round 5: This round is about hobbies.  Your communication partner will say the sentence “On the weekend, (name) enjoys (activity).” Your communication partner will fill in the gaps to include a name that was practiced in Round 1, and an activity. For example, “On the weekend, Jane enjoys playing golf.” If this is too difficult, ask your communication partner to write the sentences down. There is space provided on your handout under Round 5. Then ask your communication partner to show you 2 – 3 sentences, listen again and try to identify the sentence.

In this activity, you were provided with a variety of strategies such as being provided word lists with a number of options, categories (names, hobbies), and carrier phrases (This person is the …). You were also provided with a variety of listening exercises from familiar word discrimination (Round 1) to more cognitive/thinking exercises (Round 4). Determine which activities you like and practice more. Add or change the characteristics and descriptive statements to suit you, your family and friends.

Looking for more listening activities for your daily practice at home? Discover the complete Rehab for Adults series and find more printable handouts as well as useful tips and tricks.