Copy of Teaching-Listening-Comprehension-64

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Grids 
A grid is simply a rectangle marked off into squares and used to 
display data as illustrated in Fig. 26a-c. The possibilities here are 
far wider than those of maps or plans, for we are not limited to 
the proportions of some physical landscape or structure, but can 
describe many aspects of life, both concrete and abstract. 
Here are two people meeting after not having seen each other 
for some time, exchanging news about each other and about a 
mutual acquaintance (intermediate level): 
Ann: Cliff! I haven't seen you since we finished college. How's 
things? Where are you living? What are you doing? 
Cliff: Ann! I hardly recognized you! You've let your hair grow. It 
makes you look older. 
Ann : Come on! I'm not that much older! 
Cliff: You must be twenty-seven. 
Ann: And you 're two years younger, and you look exactly the same 
as ever. What are you doing? 
Cliff: Teaching, what else? 
Ann: How's it going- where? 
Cliff: I still live in London, teach in a comprehensive school there. Are 
you teaching too? 
Ann: No, I got married last year and had a baby recently­
Cliff: Congratulations! 
Ann: Thanks- so I'm taking the year off to look after the baby and do 
some studying. My husband got a job in Cardiff, so we've 
moved there. 
Cliff: Like it? 
Ann: Don't know yet, I've just started to get to know people, and with 
the baby I don't get about much. How about you? Married? 
Cliff: Not yet. 
Ann: I'm surprised. We always used to say you 'd get married first of 
all of us, you're so good-looking. Talking of good-looking, do 
you remember Tammy? The beautiful girl from Bristol? She 
was in the same class as me at school. 
Cliff: Yes. She got married at the end of the course, didn't she? 
Ann: Yes, and had two children, a boy and a girl. 
Cliff: What's she doing, looking after the children, being a 
housewife? 
Ann: Who, Tammy? Never. That's a super-feminist family. He looks 
after the children, and she works full-time; she edits a 
magazine, writes articles for the newspapers, very successful. 
She's been on television once or twice. 
Cliff: Have you seen any of the others? 
Ann: One or two -let's go for a cup of coffee somewhere, and I'll tell 
you about them. 
The students may be presented with an empty grid as in Fig. 26a, 
or with an inaccurately filled-in one, as in Fig. 26b, which they 
II6 
Name 
Fig. z6a 
Name 
Cliff 
Ann 
Tammy 
Fig. z6b 
istening and making short responses 
Age Occupation Appearance Town Family 
Age Occupation Appearance Town Family 
27 teacher 
tall, dark, 
Cardiff married 
handsome 
29 teacher long hair London 
married, 
one child 
27 writer beautiful Bristol married, 
three children 
have to correct. In either case the correct solution should come 
out something like Fig. 26c. 
Admittedly this is not a very exciting subject, though classes I 
have tried it out on seem to find it absorbing enough. The grid 
technique can be extended to more dramatic and entertaining 
situations - a murder story, for example. In the following 
exercise the students are detectives listening to a recorded report 
of the evidence and taking notes in grid form on the alibis of the 
various suspects. Each of the members of the household of the 
dead man has a story to cover his or her activities on the night of