2.3 Listening Part 3: Picture Matching

2.3 Listening Part 3: Picture Matching

Quick Answer: Flyers Listening Part 3 is 5 questions, 5 marks. Named people, places or objects sit on the left with an empty box beside each; lettered pictures sit on the right. Children hear one conversation, mainly led by one speaker, and write a letter in each box. Speakers deliberately mention the wrong pictures too, so the first picture named is not always the answer. The task tests listening for words, names and detailed information.

Why Part 3 is a discrimination task

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.

Parts 1 and 2 ask children to produce a line or a word. Parts 3 and 4 ask them to choose among pictures that are all talked about. The skill is discrimination: which picture survives the whole conversation? Part 3 punishes early commitment hardest, because one continuous recording covers all five items and there is no pause to undo a letter written too soon. The trained habit is: hear the distractor, keep the pencil still, wait for the detail that matches the heading, then mark.

Candidates listen to a conversation which is mainly led by one speaker. They match a list of illustrated words or names with a set of pictures by writing the letter of the correct picture in a box.

A usual Flyers layout looks like this:

• Left-hand side: six small named pictures (people, places or objects) with an empty box beside each name. One box is already completed as the example.
• Right-hand side: eight lettered pictures (A–H) with no names. Five of those letters are the scored answers, one is the example, and two lettered pictures are unused.

The sample Handbook task asks Where did Uncle Robert get each of these things? with named items such as a painting (example), drums, a swan, a fan, chocolates and gloves. The heading is doing real work. Without it, a child might match "what the object looks like" instead of "where it came from".

Always read the introductory question

The Handbook's first piece of advice for Part 3 is to read the question at the head of the task, which sets the context and gives the instructions. That heading tells children what relationship they are matching:

• Where did each person go?
• What present did each child get?
• Which activity did each person do at the weekend?
• Who gave Uncle Robert each of these things?

If the heading is "where", a picture of the object itself is not the answer — the place is. If the heading is "who gave", a picture of the object being used is not the answer — the giver is. Children who skip the heading treat Part 3 as a vocabulary-naming game and then cannot understand why a mentioned picture is wrong.

Speakers will talk about the two wrong pictures

This is the Part 3 rule that separates Flyers from a simple matching worksheet. Speakers talk about the two pictures on the right-hand page which are not correct, as well as those that are. Candidates must not assume that the first picture mentioned is the right answer.

A typical move sounds like this:

• "I thought about buying the gloves in the sports shop…"
• "…but they were too expensive."
• "In the end I got them from my grandmother."

The sports shop is a real picture on the right-hand page. It is mentioned first. It is still wrong. The letter that belongs in the gloves box is the grandmother picture, not the shop.

Train children to listen for the decision language that comes after the decoy:

• but, but then, but now
• in the end, finally, instead
• actually, no wait, I thought… but
• I used to… but now I
• I wanted the… but I got the…

On the first listening, pencil a tiny letter in the margin next to the named item. On the second listening, write the final letter neatly in the box. Do not write the letter on the right-hand picture — the scored answer is the letter in the box beside the named item.

Keep unused letters unused

Two lettered pictures will not be needed for the five questions (apart from the example). That is not a mistake in the paper. Children who feel they must use every letter will force a wrong match onto the last item. If two named items seem to want the same letter, one of those matches is still open — go back to the heading and to the cancellation language on the second listening.

First listening and second listening in Part 3

First listening: write a small letter in the margin for each named item as soon as you are reasonably sure. Second listening: confirm that the heading still fits, that a cancelled picture was not used, and that two named items do not share a letter. Only then write the final letters into the boxes.