As the students become more accustomed to listening to a variety of reduced forms, I try to personalize the forms by incorporating them as much as possible into real exchanges with the students. I occasionally use recognition games such as dividing the class into teams, reading out a sentence containing one or more reduced forms, and giving points to the team that can correctly repeat the sentence in full first. Team members can discuss what they hear, but only each team's captain is allowed to give the answer. I also use exercises that call for students to listen for stressed words. Students check whether stress is placed on when or where something is happening.
Students check whether stress is placed on what happened or when it happened.
Students mark on a written text where they think the stressed or unstressed words are. This can be done first without listening to the spoken text, then checking their guesses while listening. It is unlikely the students will progress very much if the only listening practice they get is in the classroom. One way to get students to listen to English outside class is to assign listening journals as homework. Although Japanese students have few opportunities to engage native speakers of English in conversations, there are many other sources of listening material they can use.