Final Exams - Reflecting

At the end of the semester, I often wonder- Have my students improved at all?

Something that brings confidence to me and to my students is to dig out their diagnostic samples from the beginning of the semester.

1. Listening - Have students take their diagnostic listening exam as we review for the final. See if their scores have improved. This is something my coworker, Lauren suggested.
   
2. Speaking - This semester, to do their final speaking assessment, I scheduled the students to meet with me in pairs. I had them randomly choose one prompt from a selection of possibilities to discuss together. Immediately after they finished their 5-minute conversation, which I recorded on my laptop, I brought up and played their diagnostic speaking samples for them. After only 30 seconds or so into their recordings, both the students and I noticed their improvement-- in grammar, pronunciation, and overall confidence. I think this is definitely something I will continue to do in conjunction with final exam time.
   

Recorded Native Speaker Interviews

This past semester, I've been requiring all my students to do a weekly interview with a native speaker. Here's the process:

1. Students write 5-8 main questions they'd like to ask a native speaker about our weekly topic (eg, diet & nutrition, study skills, technology, relationships, etc)
2. Students each meet with their peer mentor to review the grammar, vocabulary, and appropriateness of their questions.
3. Students find a native speaker to interview.
4. They RECORD the interview using a laptop, digital recorder, or cell phone.
5. They upload their mp3 or wav file to Blackboard.

Follow-up Activities
When I have the time in class, I like to do follow-up activities with these audio files. In the computer lab, students can access and listen to each others' interviews.

• Listen and take notes on the native speaker's answers
• Check for ACTIVE LISTENING SKILLS -- self and peer evaluation for verbal responses, follow-up questions, clarification questions, and paraphrasing skills.

I've found that my students need a lot of work with active listening skills. They often go from question to question without really listening to what the person is saying.

For example, "My first question is what do you think about final exams?" -- "I hate them." -- "Oh really? Me too. Okay, next question. How do you study for your final exams?" -- "I don't really." -- "Oh. Ha ha. Okay, next question..."

Having students listen again to their interviews and analyze their responses can be helpful, especially if I give them a second chance to interview someone else using the same questions. And sometimes I find that their problems result in the use of too many closed questions, so I let the students re-write them.

"This I Believe" - Activities

I got the idea for this activity from my colleague Pamela, who's been doing this for quite a while. I adapted it slightly into more of a worksheet and selected some particular essays for my students to listen to and take notes.

Pre-listening Discussion Questions
Talk about these questions in a group

• What is the difference between believing something/someone and believing in something/someone?
• What are some things that you believe?
• What are some things that you believe in?
• Why do you believe in them?

Browse the Titles
(Together as a class, look at the website, http://thisibelieve.org. Let’s look at the titles of some of the feature essays. What do you think they’ll talk about?

Listening & Note-taking
Essay #1: In Giving I Connect With Others
http://thisibelieve.org/essay/11/

First Listening
Just listen and then answer the following main idea questions.
1. Summarize her belief in one sentence.
2. Describe her background experience that led her to realize this belief in one sentence.

Second Listening: Take Notes
Write key phrases. Use the Cornell Note-taking method. Focus on these main ideas:

• Her daughter’s life
• Her own life
• Reflections

Reaction
Discuss your personal reaction to the essay. Is your belief similar or different?

Essay #2: A Taste of Success
http://thisibelieve.org/essay/52984/

Vocabulary
Bronx
Harlem
*Places in New York City where a lot of poor people live.

First Listening
Just listen and then answer the following main idea questions.
1. Summarize his belief in one sentence.
2. Describe his background experience that led him to realize this belief in one sentence.

Second Listening: Take Notes
Write key phrases. Use the Cornell Note-taking method. Focus on these main ideas:

• Work at a summer camp
• His own childhood/growing up
• Beliefs

Reaction
Discuss your personal reaction to the essay. Is your belief similar or different?

Essay #3: Unleashing the Power of Creativity and Intelligence
http://thisibelieve.org/essay/5/

First Listening
Just listen and then answer the following main idea questions.
1. Summarize his belief in one sentence.
2. Describe his background experience that led him to realize this belief in one sentence.

Second Listening: Take Notes
Write key phrases. Use the Cornell Note-taking method. Focus on these main ideas:

• Past Experiences
• What computers can do

Reaction
Discuss your personal reaction to the essay. Is your belief similar or different?

Essay #4: Asking the Right Questions
http://thisibelieve.org/essay/42143/

First Listening
Just listen and then answer the following main idea questions.
1. Summarize his belief in one sentence.
2. Describe his background experience that led him to realize this belief in one sentence.

Second Listening: Take Notes
Write key phrases. Use the Cornell Note-taking method. Focus on these main ideas:

• Past experiences
• Work success
• Safety in Chemistry
• Son, John
• Beliefs/Reflections

Reaction
Discuss your personal reaction to the essay. Is your belief similar or different?

Now, have students record their own This I Believe audio essays.

Describing a Process: Mix 'n Mingle

Here's a funny mixer activity.

Step #1: Give everyone a slip of paper that has one of the following statements on it.

• I want to learn how to find a boyfriend / girlfriend. What should I do first?
• I want to learn how to clean my apartment. What should I do first?
• I want to learn how to write an essay. What should I do first?
• I want to learn how to pass the iBT TOEFL. What should I do first?
• I want to learn how to get from University Village to the CLO. What should I do first?
• I want to learn how to get to downtown Chicago. What should I do first?
• I want to learn how to plan a party. What should I do first?
• I want to learn how to be a good video game player. What should I do first?
• I want to learn how to use a vending machine. What should I do first?

Step #2: Then, the student reads this sentence to a classmate and writes down the first step they're given.

Step #3: The student goes to another person for the second step. They use one of these phrases:

• After I ___________, what should I do?
• What’s the next step after I _____________________?
• What should I do after I _____________________?
• What do I need to do after ________________ing?

But they do not tell what the process is. (This makes it funny).

Phrases for giving instructions:

• The first step, the next step…
• After you…., you should….
• After you…., you need to….
• Next, you need to….
• Second,

Step #4: Student goes to a third classmate for the third step. Again, they just ask for the next step. Continue until you have a series of steps.

Step #5: Share them together in small groups or as a class. Everyone will think this is really funny.

Example:

Student A: "I want to learn how to use a vending machine. What should I do first?"
Student B: "Okay, well, first, decide what kind of candy to buy."
Student A: "Thanks."

Student A: "What should I do after deciding what kind of candy to buy?"
Student C (not knowing what the process is): "Well, next, you need to take the candy bar to the cash register."
Student A: "Thanks." (Writes it down)

Student A: "After I pay for the candy bar, what should I do?"
Student D: "The next step is to take your spare change and deposit it back into your bank account."
Student A: "Oh, okay. Thanks."

As you can see, the more creative students are, they will distort them to purposely develop interesting, irrelevant, and humorous directions.

Advice: Video Surveys

In my beginning conversation class, we were learning how to ask for and give advice. We made advice survey videos by recording each student giving a piece of advice. Here's one of them.

Listening: Critical Thinking

At the TESOL convention in Denver this year, I went to a presentation on critical thinking where the presenters discussed a model called D.I.E. - Describe, Interpret, and Evaluate. Although I didn't apply is exactly the way they did, I've implemented a variation of this model in my Advanced Listening Class. First of all, we watched this video and they took notes.



Describing is easy. They just do a basic summary using their notes. Then, for the interpretation part, I had them consider different questions about this video:

1) Who: who is involved? What are their values? What are their motivations? Who is being aided? What is their backgrounds?

2) What: What were the projects done? What resources were required? What is the effect?

3) Where: Where does this take place? How might this affect the outcome? What do we know about this place?

4) Why: Again, what are the motivations behind this?

5) How: How successful will this be? What are some limitations? How might culture and political background affect the success of projects such as this?

Again, I'm trying to get them to think carefully of different perspectives of all parties involved. This has been very challenging for my students, but I think they're gradually developing these critical thinking skills.

iChat Activity

Level: Intermediate

Timeframe: 40 minutes

Objectives:

• This is a short practice activity to solidify the production of Wh-Questions about the Subject and Object

Materials:

• Computer Lab with iChat
• Information Gap Sheets–For this activity, the information gap is about the fictitious activities performed by various students in the class
• Question cards for extra practice (below)

	Review: Review the structure of subject/object questions.
	Setting up iChat: In the computer lab, pair students. Log into iChat. They find their partner and begin chatting.
	Information Gap: Give half of the students Sheet A, and half of the students Sheet B. They need to ask each other questions to fill in the missing information.