Do we really hear everything that is conveyed in oral communication? These activities have been designed to teach students how to critically listen to auditory information.

Directions: Listen to one of the audio recordings below by clicking on the number. Use the Listening Guide to describe what you hear.

Acoustic Recording - a record made with a diaphragm and needle powered only by the force of a voice.

Dialect - a regional variety of a language differing from the standard language.

Diamond Disc - a heat resistant disc that required a diamond stylus to play the recording.

Gramophone - an antique record player; the sound of the vibrating needle is amplified acoustically.

Instrumental Music - composed for or performed on a musical instrument.

Minstrel - a singer of verses accompanied by music.

Phonograph - an instrument that reproduces sounded recorded on a grooved disk.

Presto Disc Recorder - a recorder that used a stylus to engrave tracks into acetate coated discs. It weighed eighty pounds and was used to make the recordings found in Voices of the Dust Bowl.

Rube - an awkward, unsophisticated person from a rural area; rustic.

Slang - an informal nonstandard vocabulary composed of invented words, changed words, and exaggerated or humorous figures of speech.

Sketch - a short comedy piece.

Song - a short piece of music with words intended to be sung; the act or art of singing.

Speech - the communication or expression of thoughts in spoken words.

Vocal Music - composed or arranged for or sung by the human voice.