Lesson Plans & Teaching Ideas

Student-led Listening Activity

2011-12-02T08:10:00.000-08:00

This semester, in my intermediate Listening/Speaking class, I had my students sign up throughout the semester to present their own listening activities.

Objectives:

Engage in a listening passage that interests students
Listen to a passage in a more meaningful way, in order to create comprehension and discussion questions for their classmates
Apply presentation skills in delivering the activity to the class

Sample:

Here is one of the activities my students created.

Student-created Listening Worksheet (pdf)

Student-led Discussions

2011-10-28T15:19:00.000-07:00

Here is an activity that I have implemented this semester into my advanced/speaking course. I had my students sign up in pairs on Thursdays throughout the semester.

Objective: Prepare my advanced listening/speaking students for mainstream classes where they will may have to lead a group discussion- either a study group or an in-class assignment.

Skills Practiced:

Presentation skills
Formulation of discussion questions
Eliciting comments
Responding to comments
Asking follow-up questions
Summarizing the discussion
Synthesizing ideas from multiple groups

This semester, topics my students have chosen so far were engaging: Domestic abuse, environmental issues, robotics, to name a few. Below is the most recent video clip my students used (last week).

Panel Discussion with Former Students

2011-06-07T16:16:00.001-07:00

This past semester, I implemented our first Level 3 Panel Q&A with Former ELP Students. I also invited two domestic students to join us to give their perspective. My Level 3 students spent days working on their questions, editing the grammar and categorizing them. I videotaped the entire discussion, which lasted over an hour. This video here is an edited version lasting about six minutes.

Level 3 Charity Contest

2011-05-02T18:14:00.000-07:00

For the past few years of teaching Advanced Listening/Speaking, our semester project has been the "Charity Contest." After a listening activity on George Soros, the philanthropist (from our textbook, Consider the Issues, from NPR), I assign my students to create their own idea for a charity organization. Turning it into a contest to compete for a $10 million grant from the Soros Foundation makes it especially exciting for the students.

*I must give the credit to my colleague, Pamela Martin, for coming up with this idea and first implementing it in her classes.

Here are excerpts from my worksheets, which outline the project:

STEP 1: Which groups of people need help from charities? What else in our world needs to be fixed? Consider people, social institutions, animals, and the environment. Brainstorm in groups of 4. Write your ideas below.

STEP 2: With a partner—Now, design a charity with your group. Answer the following questions:

What is the problem that your charity would help solve?
Why would your charity be important or special?
What specific services would your charity provide?
What people would you need to provide these services? (Eg, volunteers, paid employees?) What kind of training would you to do?
What materials and supplies would your charity need?
How much money would your charity need for one year?

STEP 3: Presenting Your Ideas.
Homework Assignment-Due in class, Wednesday, March 24 Individually, create an outline for your presentation. Type your outline and bring it to class. (You will compare your outline with your partner(s) outline in class and combine them.)

Step 4: Get feedback from your classmates. In pairs, ask your partner about his/her project.

What problem are you focusing on?
Why did you choose this problem to solve? + Follow-up questions
Why is this problem more of a priority than others? + Follow-up questions
How important is this problem to other people/groups like George Soros? + Follow-up questions
How would your organization go about solving this problem?
What services would your organization provide?
Where would your organization get people/workers from?
Where would your organization get materials from?
How would your organization manage the money ($10,000,000)?
How long would your organization take to get results?
How practical is your plan?

After your discussion, get back with your group and talk about areas you identified that need further planning.

Step 5: Finish your outline and create your powerpoint
Compare your outline with your partner(s). Decide together how to combine your ideas into one amazing outline.

Step 6: Presentation Skills Day

Give a Lecture Plan

• First we’re going to talk about…
• Then, we’ll go on to…
• And then we’ll move on to….
• We’ll
• tell you about…
• explain..
• discuss…
• show…
• After that…
• Finally, we’ll tell you…

Transitioning Between Speakers

Choose one transition.

____ Okay, now Johnny is going to tell you about…
____ I’ll take us through…. (the goals and objectives of our charity)…
____ Thanks, Jill. Let’s move now to….
____ Now that we’ve talked about….. I’ll explain…..
____ Okay, I’m going to let Jack tell you about….

Dealing with Q&A

1. Inviting Questions at the end of the presentation:

• Okay, we have about ___________ minutes for questions.
• We’ll take your questions now.
• Who has the first question?
• Now, what questions do you have?

2. Answering Questions

to a good question
• That’s a very good question. [+ Answer]

to a difficult question
• I don’t know that off the top of my head.
• That’s a really good question. I’m not sure I can answer that…
• I’m sorry… I’m afraid I don’t have that information with me.
• Can I get back to you on that?
• I’m afraid I can’t answer that.

to an unnecessary question
• I think we answered that question earlier.
• Well, as we mentioned earlier,….[repeat answer]

to an irrelevant/confusing question
• I’m afraid I don’t see the connection.
• Sorry, I don’t follow you.
• I’m sorry, I don’t understand your question.

3. Moving to another question:
• Okay, let’s move on to the next question.
• Who has the next question?
• Let’s move on to the next question.

4. Near the end of your Q&A time:
• We’re almost out of time.
• We’ll take 1 more question.
• We have time for 1 more question.

At the end of your Q&A time:
• Thanks for all of your questions and attention.

Contest Day!!!

This semester, we only had two sections of Advanced Listening/Speaking, so I had to find two different audiences for the presentations.

Section 1 - Panel of judges consisting of 2 other teachers and staff workers from the International Programs Office. To make it nice, I reserved a conference/board room for the presentations. The change of scenery was rather effective.

Section 2 - One of our Intermediate Listening/Speaking classes served as the audience and selection committee.

Debate: Gun Control

2011-04-05T14:56:00.000-07:00

This is a video from my advanced listening/speaking class last semester. I need to credit my coworker, Katy Montgomery, for spearheading this actually. It was her idea to do a major debate with a lot of preparation and organization. Our two classes split into two teams each-For and Against Gun Ownership. On Debate Day, she led one debate, while I led the other. Here is a video of the highlights.

Spring 2011 - Making the Transition to Mainstream Classes

2011-04-01T13:41:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to share some of my recent and ongoing efforts to help students prepare for mainstream classes after the ELP. Two activities that I am spearheading this semester are:

Class Visits - Three times during the semester, my students find a regular university class they want to observe, take notes, fill out an observation report, and then report back to the class. The assignment consists of:

Navigating the online course schedule and evaluating possible options. I require students to get my approval signature before moving forward with this. I want to make sure that all my students aren't bombarding the same professor, as well as ensure that the class is an is appropriate for them to observe.
Contacting the professor via email to request permission. Composing emails is always a challenge for ESL students. To help them with this stage, I give them a template they can copy. If the professors have any questions, they can email me. Occasionally, some do, but for the most part, professors at my university do not seem to mind.
Visiting the class and completing an observation report. What I want them to look for is phrases and key language the professor uses in the lecture to introduce topics, give examples, definitions, signal topic changes, and so forth.
Writing a reflection.
Presentation to the Class. Occasionally, I like to have students report back to the class in the form of a mini-presentation, although this depends on time constraints.

Click here to see the observation report and material.

Level 3 Panel Discussion - This is something I am in the process of organizing at the moment. I have invited former ELP students, now in their mainstream undergraduate programs in the university, to come to a panel discussion for all our advanced ELP students. In my listening/speaking classes, we are compiling questions about how to succeed in academic courses outside the ELP. This is set for April 25, if all goes well.

Pronunciation Mirroring - EnglishCentral.com

2011-04-01T13:04:00.001-07:00

A great online resource is EnglishCentral. I like to take this step-by-step.

Choose an applicable video from EnglishCentral's massive database.
If doing it together as a class, I print out the transcript with missing words and we do it as a listening cloze passage.
We listen line-by-line and mark stressed words and draw intonation arrows.
They practice with the video, and then alone.
For assessment, I have them record it and grade them.

Sample pronunciation mirroring from EnglishCentral:

mirroring-englishcentral.mp3

Listening/Speaking Quiz - Asking Questions

2011-04-01T12:37:00.000-07:00

My students struggle with asking basic questions. They've been studying English since they were kids, but somehow have developed some fossilization here. After a listening quiz on Voluntourism (NPR: "In S. Africa's Orphanages, Is Doing Good Really Bad?"), I gave them the following speaking prompt:

Imagine that you have the opportunity to interview Krystal Swen, an American volunteer in South Africa. Ask her 5 questions about her experience working in the orphanage.

We recorded the quiz on Voxopop. See screenshot below.

Listen to one of my students:

Questions.mp3

Writing: Microsoft Word Analysis Tools

2011-04-01T12:01:00.000-07:00

For my advanced writing class, I showed my students how to use Microsoft Word's readability statistics. Of course, this is mostly helpful to determine the difficulty of texts for reading, but I thought my students might be interested to know what grade level their own writing is.

I demonstrated these tools, then, gave them a worksheet where they had to run the statistics on some native-speaker writing, such as online articles. Then, they ran the statistics on their essay. It was interesting to see what grade level they were writing at.

I told my students that the reading level for general audiences is a 9. Some useful stats are the average sentence/paragraph. For students who struggled with a lot of choppy sentences, and students who struggled with stringy run-ons, this was helpful to see.

Final Exams - Reflecting

2009-12-09T12:28:00.000-08:00

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.

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.
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

2009-12-09T12:05:00.000-08:00

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

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)
Students each meet with their peer mentor to review the grammar, vocabulary, and appropriateness of their questions.
Students find a native speaker to interview.
They RECORD the interview using a laptop, digital recorder, or cell phone.
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

2009-12-09T11:34:00.000-08:00

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

2009-04-10T16:16:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-10T14:58:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-10T11:36:00.000-07:00

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

2008-12-16T13:20:00.001-08:00

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.