2.1 Listening Part 1: Name Matching

2.1 Listening Part 1: Name Matching

Quick Answer: Flyers Listening Part 1 is 5 questions, 5 marks. Children look at a big picture of people doing different things, with first names printed above and below it, and draw a line from each name to the correct person while an adult and a child talk about the scene. The recording is heard twice. The task tests listening for names and descriptions.

Where Part 1 sits in the paper

A2 Flyers Listening is a single recorded paper. Candidates cannot pause, rewind, or ask the invigilator to replay a line. They follow the recording through five parts of five questions each — about 25 minutes, 25 questions, 25 marks, a maximum of five shields. Every part opens with one or two examples, and every recording is heard twice. Recordings use adults and children speaking clearly in standard British and American English, and answers in either standard variety are accepted.

Part 1 is the paper's opening task and the only one answered with lines. Every other part uses a different motor action — a written word (Part 2), a letter in a box (Part 3), a tick (Part 4), a colour or a word on the picture (Part 5). Mixing those methods is a self-inflicted loss: a name written onto the Part 1 picture instead of a line joining it to a person does not score, however well the child heard the recording.

Bring an ordinary pencil or pen. An eraser matters more here than anywhere else in the paper: a first-listen line that touches the wrong person should be cleaned off before the second listening ends. The ten Listening colours stay in the tin until Part 5.

Candidates look at a large picture of people doing different things. First names are printed above and below the scene. A typical Flyers page shows seven names. One name is already joined by the example line. Five more names must be matched during the recording. One name is a leftover distractor that never receives a line.

The recording is a conversation between speakers who are clearly different in age or gender — usually an adult and a child talking about the people in the picture. Children listen for names and descriptions, then draw a line from each name to the correct person. The Handbook assessment line is short and exact: this part tests the ability to listen for names and descriptions.

Preview the picture before the audio starts

The Handbook tells teachers to give children the looking time and to start by thinking how each character might be described. That is not a soft suggestion. Two people in a Flyers picture often share one obvious feature: both wear blue, both sit, both stand near water. The correct line is the one that matches the unique combination the speakers actually use.

In the looking time, children should silently tag each person with four kinds of language:

• Clothes: striped jumper, spotted skirt, helmet, belt, glasses, scarf
• Appearance: curly hair, beard, tall, short, fair hair, moustache
• Action (present continuous): waving, laughing, feeding a swan, holding a bottle, riding a bike, taking a photo
• Location: behind the woman, next to the tree, on the grass, near the lake, in front of the café

A child who only scans for colour will miss "the boy who is waving his arms and looking angry". Part 1 language is clothes and physical appearance and what people are doing. Practice should include present continuous verbs, prepositional phrases, and contrast language: "the one who's wearing a helmet, not the one sitting down".

Unisex names are a designed trap

Alex, Kim, Pat and Sam may refer to a boy or a girl on this paper. That is a Handbook fact, not a classroom rumour. Children who decide "Sam is the boy in the football shirt" before the recording starts will draw the wrong line when the speakers say Sam is the girl with the puppy. Gender must come from the recording (he / she, his / her) or from a clearly male or female name on the list (William, Sarah). It must never come from a unisex name printed on the page.

Make sure children also know which Flyers first names are typically male and which are typically female, because the unisex four sit beside names such as Harry, Jane, David and Sally. A wrong gender guess is often a wrong person.

How to draw the line

Use an ordinary pencil, not a coloured pencil. Draw one clear line from the printed name to the person. Do not colour the person. Do not write the name on the picture. Do not join two names to one person. If a first-listen line looks wrong on the second listening, erase it cleanly and redraw. A messy scribble that crosses two people can be marked wrong even when the child knew the answer.

On the first listening, lightly mark likely people. On the second listening, confirm and darken the five scored lines. The example is already done; do not redraw it. Leave the unused name unconnected — that leftover name is doing its job as a distractor.

Part 1 traps

• Deciding a unisex name's gender during the looking time and defending that guess against the recording.
• Drawing a line to the group rather than to one person when two people share a feature.
• Joining two names to the same person because the leftover name feels like it must be used.
• Redrawing the example line and losing seconds on a mark that is already given.
• Colouring or labelling a person instead of drawing the line the rubric asks for.