Listening to a talk about sea animals: details and True / False
For a listening task, read the questions before you listen and think about the kind of answer: a name, a number, a time or a reason. The speaker may say a number or a name only once, so write it down at once as a note. Listen a second time to check. In True / False items, one small word can change the meaning, so listen for words such as not, only and every. If the talk does not say it, do not guess: ask which words in the talk prove the sentence. The book’s listening on pages 58 and 59 is a podcast with its own topic; our talk is about a shore centre. Our talk is read aloud once or twice by a grown-up. After the talk, the book’s speaking task on page 59 asks for a discussion of dangers to sea animals: keep your answers to simple human actions that a class can change, such as leaving rubbish.
| Listen for | Example in our talk | Note |
|---|---|---|
| a name | Rasha | Rasha – guide |
| a number | eighteen and seven | 18 shore, 7 hermit |
| a reason word | so it moves to a bigger one | grows → bigger shell |
| a warning | do not disrupt; hazardous | no picking up; walk slowly |
Welcome to the shore centre. I am Rasha, and I look after the tide pools with a dedicated team of volunteers. Today you will meet shore crabs and hermit crabs. A hermit crab has no shell of its own, so it lives in an empty sea-snail shell, and when it grows it struggles to fit, so it moves to a bigger one. Please do not disrupt the animals: we look, but we do not pick them up. The wet rocks are hazardous, so we walk slowly and wear shoes with a good grip. Every Friday our team counts the crabs by eye, which is a non-invasive way to study them. Last Friday we counted eighteen shore crabs and seven hermit crabs. Visitors are welcome from nine to one, and each group has twelve people.
Make a notes table with three columns: animal, what the guide said, one number. Then write four rules for a tide-pool visit. Begin each rule with Please do not … or Please walk …, and keep them short.