Bimodal Replay for Answer-Check

After an IELTS Listening task, replay each contested segment twice audio-only, then once with the transcript visible, and circle the evidence span. The bimodal moment is where a mishearing is repaired, not where the answer is confirmed.

Procedure

1. Run the listening task and answers with the transcript hidden. Students commit.
2. Check answers orally. Flag items the class got wrong or guessed.
3. For each flagged item, replay the 5–15 second segment twice with the transcript still hidden. Students re-attempt decoding.
4. Reveal the transcript and replay the segment once more while students read. Ask what they misheard and why — weak form, linking, unexpected paraphrase, lost focus.
5. Circle the evidence span on the transcript. Name the paraphrase relation between the question stem and the circled words.
6. Optional close: replay the whole section once more, transcript hidden.

Tips

• Step 3 is the step teachers skip and shouldn't. Going straight from wrong answer to transcript-visible replay loses the perception-shift moment — students nod along and mishear the same pattern next week.
• This is Bottom-Up Listening Repair in John Field's sense, not Nation's extensive listening-while-reading. The goal is diagnosing why a specific item was missed, not accumulating bimodal input over weeks.
• Following Vandergrift & Goh, have students name the failure type ("weak form", "paraphrase I didn't expect", "lost focus") rather than just note the gap. Over a term, the catalogue of personal failure patterns becomes a drilling plan.
• Reserve the move for wrong and uncertain items. Over-used, students stop betting on what they heard because the transcript is always coming.
• For IELTS specifically, the evidence-span habit in Step 5 transfers to the exam — students who can locate justification on a transcript stop over-writing and second-guessing on review.