ESL School Listening

There are several ESL school listening activities on this page that will help you get better at listing to spoken English. It is often difficult for students to start to speak as they do not have a chance to practice listening to spoken English. This page will help you with this.

There are several recordings of a native English speaker talking on this page, and with each recording there are some questions or a task for you to do. This will give you a reason to listen as well as you can, so you can do well in the tasks. All the recordings are of a native English speaker, so when you listen to them you will be hearing the correct way to say and pronounce the words. If you are not sure of how the school vocabulary words should be spoken you can go to the ESL school vocabulary page that has a recording of the words being spoken by a native English speaker and listen to the correct pronunciation.

The four ESL school listening tasks on this page are as follows:

• Identification of spoken word order.
• Identification of spoken definition.
• Listening comprehension passage.
• Dictation passage.

ESL School Listening Exercises

Exercise 1 – Identification of Spoken Word Order

For this ESL school listening exercise you need to listen to the following recording and then decide which option (A-D) for each question has the words listed in the same order as they are spoken in the recording. When you have finished you can use the get score button to see the correct answers.

ESL School Identification of Spoken Word Order

Listen to the recording of the five groups of five words each given above and decide which option (A-D) in the five questions in this test has the correct order.

1) Which is the correct order for group of words one?

    A) Rounders, Recess, Text book, Latin, Hockey
    B) Latin, Rounders, Text book, Recess, Hockey
    C) Recess, Text book, Latin, Hockey, Rounders
    D) Hockey, Recess, Text book, Latin, Rounders

2) Which is the correct order for group of words two?

    A) Overhead projector, Blackboard, Swimming pool, Chemistry, Playtime
    B) Chemistry, Overhead projector, Swimming pool, Blackboard, Playtime
    C) Blackboard, Swimming pool, Chemistry, Playtime, Overhead projector
    D) Playtime, Blackboard, Swimming pool, Chemistry, Overhead projector

3) Which is the correct order for group of words three?

    A) Science, Department, Assembly, Rounders, Bell
    B) Rounders, Science, Assembly, Department, Bell
    C) Department, Assembly, Rounders, Bell, Science
    D) Bell, Department, Assembly, Rounders, Science

4) Which is the correct order for group of words four?

    A) High school, Register, Secondary school, Assignment, Department
    B) Assignment, High school, Secondary school, Register, Department
    C) Register, Secondary school, Assignment, Department, High school
    D) Department, Register, Secondary school, Assignment, High school

5) Which is the correct order for group of words five?

    A) Drop-off, Classroom assistant, Uniform, Term, Christmas holiday
    B) Term, Drop-off, Uniform, Classroom assistant, Christmas holiday
    C) Classroom assistant, Uniform, Term, Christmas holiday, Drop-off
    D) Christmas holiday, Classroom assistant, Uniform, Term, Drop-off

Score =

Correct answers:

Exercise 2 – Identification of Spoken Definition

For this ESL school listening exercise you again need to listen to the following recording, but this time you should chose the option (A-D) that has the word that matches the spoken definition from the recording. Again there is a get score button so you can see how many you got correct.

ESL School Listening Identification of Vocabulary Meaning

Listen to the recording of the meanings of the five vocabulary words given above and decide which word out of the options (A-D) in each question matches the meaning.

1) What is the meaning of the first definition in the recording?

    A) Netball
    B) State school
    C) Easter holiday
    D) Marker pen

2) What is the meaning of the second definition in the recording?

    A) Overhead projector
    B) Year
    C) Education
    D) Department

3) What is the meaning of the third definition in the recording?

    A) Latin
    B) English literature
    C) School
    D) Soccer

4) What is the meaning of the fourth definition in the recording?

    A) Caretaker
    B) Secondary school
    C) Religious education
    D) Public school

5) What is the meaning of the fifth definition in the recording?

    A) Playtime
    B) Principle
    C) Bell
    D) Break

Score =

Correct answers:

Exercise 3 – Listening Comprehension

In the next ESL school listening activity you need to listen to the following recording of a passage and then answer the questions that follow it. You can listen several times if you need to. Then there is the get score button that you can use again to see the correct answers.

At the end of this page there is a link that you can click that will show the full text of the passage so you can check your understanding.

ESL School Listening Comprehension

Listen to the recording of the passage about school above and answer the following five questions.

1) What names are used for the three school terms?

    A) Autumn, spring, summer
    B) Christmas, spring, summer
    C) Autumn, Easter, summer
    D) Autumn, spring, leavers

2) How many weeks holiday do children get at Christmas?

    A) Three
    B) Four
    C) Two
    D) One

3) Name an activity that the children enjoy in the autumn term.

    A) Painting Easter eggs.
    B) Taking part in plays and pantomimes.
    C) Running races.
    D) Taking part in swimming galas.

4) Why do children enjoy the Summer term?

    A) They know it will soon be the long summer holiday.
    B) They can sit outside in the sunshine.
    C) They can read their books under the trees.
    D) Pupils can take part in competitive races.

5) Why is the end of the summer term sad for some pupils?

    A) They do not want a holiday.
    B) It is a time of saying goodbye to favourite teachers.
    C) Pupils want to go to school and it is closed.
    D) Children miss their friends.

Score =

Correct answers:

Exercise 4 – Dictation

For the last ESL school listening task you need to listen to the following recording and then write down what is said exactly as in the recording. To do this you might need to listen a few times. The recording has the passage being spoken twice. The first time is at a slow speaking speed while the second time has pauses after every few words and the punctuation is also spoken.

At the end of the page there is also a link to show the full text of this passage. You can look at the text when you have finished the dictation so you can see how well you did and how closely your answer matches the original.

Listening Comprehension Passage
Show Passage »


Dictation Passage
Show Passage »

ESL 4u home › Listening › School