Peter Mason Lesson Observation #2 Observer: Gary Hicks ......(Field, 2008)] Aims ... will be no script for this, I will improvise. Potential Problems prepared alternative materials

Peter Mason

Lesson Observation #2

Observer: Gary Hicks

01/02/17

09.40-10.40

Room 15, St Giles International Brighton

Listening Strategies

General English

B2

11-12 Mixed Nationality Students

Overview

Teaching Point

Listening Strategies

Class

General English

Mixed Nationality

10 Upper Intermediate (B2) students

Room 15, St Giles International Brighton, 09.40-10.40, 01/02/17

Materials

Interactive Whiteboard Smart Notebook file [own material featuring activities adapted from Listening (White, 1998)] (PDF attached)

Student Strategies recording (MP3 audio file) [own material/recording adapted from Listening in the Language Classroom (Field, 2008)] (tapescript attached)

Student strategies worksheet [own material adapted from Listening in the Language Classroom (Field, 2008)]

“The Gold Watch” scene (MP4 video) [from Pulp Fiction, 1994] (tapescript attached)

“The Gold Watch” worksheet (own material)

Summary worksheet (own material)

Alternative Worksheet: Listening Processes [own material adapted from Listening (White, 1998)]

Alternative Worksheet: Student strategies worksheet [own material adapted from Listening in the Language Classroom (Field, 2008)]

Aims

Introduce and raise awareness of listening strategies

Implement listening strategies into a task (prediction and note-taking)

Listening for gist/key information.

Subsidiary Aims

To use listening strategies in a speaking activity (optional final stage)

Evidence

Feedback sessions, monitoring and activities.

Personal Aims

To start implementing some of what I have learnt on the Diploma course, specifically listening strategies (which formed the

basis of my reflective essay).

To manage and keep focused what has been thus far a rather difficult group of students.

To have a clearer yet more flexible plan

To incorporate technology yet also have a fully-realised back-up plan should it fail

Rationale &

Timetable Fit

In this class, we use the course book Outcomes. This week’s unit is “Things You Need” and is aimed at giving students the opportunity to talk about a wide variety of items. The main listening is about an item of sentimental value which connects to the week’s topic. Also, last week, one of the lessons that the students struggled with the most was a listening lesson. I have chosen to do a listening strategies lesson for this reason: it seems clear that it is a weak point for the class. The lesson immediately following this observed one will be a guided discovery on the Passive, using extracts of the listening/video as a source text.

Overview

The aim of this lesson is to raise student awareness of listening strategies and the different processes used in listening, with a focus on the pro-active strategy of predicting and note-taking (adapted from Listening in the Language Classrom (Field, 2008) and Listening (White, 1998)). This lesson incorporates a few micro-listenings on listening strategies (own material) and an extended listening taken from the 1994 film Pulp Fiction. In the event of technology failure, I have also prepared a separate story on the same topic that I can do as a ‘live listening’. There will be no script for this, I will improvise.

Potential Problems

Technology failure I shall check all my technology-dependent material prior to the lesson, however, in the event of technology failure, I have prepared alternative materials. I shall have optional worksheets containing any essential information from the SmartBoard File, an alternative ‘strategies’ worksheet should the micro-listening fail, and I have prepared an alternative ‘live listening’

should the main listening video fail. Having said all that, the classroom opposite also has an Interactive WhiteBoard and is currently vacant, so an alternative solution is to move to that classroom.

Technology Problems Even if there is no outright technology failure there are likely to be technology problems. My Interactive WhiteBoard isn’t fully functioning at the moment and is essentially just a computer and projector. This means anything written on the board has to be typed. Also, the keyboard and mouse are wired into the computer rather than being wireless, which may restrict the movement I typically enjoy in the classroom. To combat this, I have endeavoured to make my SmartBoard file as comprehensive as possible minimising my need to interact with it.

Lack of engagement This class have demonstrated a lack of engagement in a variety of tasks previously and they often don’t seem to take their classes particularly seriously. Much of this lesson is quite serious and the students are encouraged to think about their actions during tasks rather than just completing the typical comprehension lessons. Essentially, they are being asked to engaged with what and how they do things in the class room rather than simply ‘doing’ them. They may not respond to this well or show the interest I would hope for. One might argue that if that is the case then the lesson is inappropriate for those students and their interests. However, in previous lessons they have struggled a great deal with listening tasks, so I believe going through ways of listening is of real benefit to them. However, if the students aren’t engaging with the lesson as much as I hope, I have planned an optional final stage for them to have a personalised discussion. I have even ‘gamified’ this stage to hopefully make it more fun and engaging for them.

Themes covered may be too abstract for students This may be the first time students have ever been asked to engage with ‘listening processes’ or ‘listening strategies’ and as a result they may struggle to understand the activities that revolve around them. I have tried to scaffold as much support into these activities as possible. For example, in adapting an activity from Listening (White, 1998) where students must replace the word ‘listen’ with their own ideas, I have provided possible answers so if students find the concept of the activity too strenuous, they can treat it as a matching activity.

Lack of real world experience to talk about The final activity encourages the students to talk about an item of theirs which has sentimental value. The students frequently struggle to think of experiences from their lives connected to topics in the lessons. I am unsure if this is due to lack of experience (as they are generally quite young) or an inability to think of a connected story in the moment. If this occurs, I shall encourage the students to embellish or create a fictional story to tell their peers.

Racial sensitivities The main listening features two racist terms for Asian people. I will not focus on these two pieces of vocabulary, but should questions arise I will clearly explain it is language that should not be used and is actually no longer in common use in

English. There are no Asian students in this class so it is unlikely any student will get personally offended, but in that event I will try and make clear the context of the listening and why it is used by the speaker.

Time Management As this is a lesson that I have never done before using material I have never used before, I may over- or underestimate how long each activity will take. For this reason I have kept my timings fairly flexible and allowed an optional stage at the end of the lesson should things move quickly. Should things be moving more slowly, I shall perhaps limit group feedback and class discussions in order to move on to the main tasks of the lesson.

Difficulty of listening material This will be the students first encounter with a listening that hasn’t been graded for their level. Although it is scripted (as it is from a film), it hasn’t been written with students in mind. They may find it very difficult to follow. To combat this (and to aid them in their prediction task) I will provide them with key pieces of vocabulary from the listening in advance. This should help them keep track of the listening and should they lose the thread at any point, they can listen out for the next item that has been provided to them. The key words/information I have provided include all of the names for people and places, and the events which are alluded to, because should they lack the geographical or historical knowledge, those parts can be the hardest to hear.

Over-supporting students The students are provided with quite a lot of information in order to help them with the task, such as being given key words from the listening in advance. This may make the tasks not challenging them enough. However, as the main aim of the lesson is listening strategies (or how they listen) rather than the actual content of the listening (and considering this is a step into the unknown for both me and the students in terms of both tasks and material), I feel that it is better to err on the side of giving them too much support rather than not enough.

Familiar material As this listening is taken from a fairly well-known film, some students may be familiar with the story already. However, I think the lesson would only lose value if a student knew this particular scene very well. Should such a situation arise, I will encourage that student (or students) to ‘keep what you know secret’.

Notes

Should any pronunciation issues arise, I shall be using Synthetic Phonics rather than the IPA.

References

Field, J. 2008. Listening in the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press White, G. 1998. Listening. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Class Profile

AM15

Upper Intermediate (B2)

Roll-On-Roll-Off General English

11-12 Mixed Nationality Students

I have been teaching this class for four weeks. For the first two weeks, there were 4 students in the class, this increased to 10 two weeks ago. The first two weeks were very productive, the students were very hard-working and there was a good dynamic within the class. However, with the influx of 6 more students, the dynamic has changed considerably and not for the better. The newer students in the class are, generally speaking, younger, here for a shorter period of time and less committed to learning English. The class has bonded with each other quite well, so there is a good social-atmosphere between most of the students. However, there is a bit of a split in the class between students who seem to want to engage and learn and students who don’t. Last week was difficult, with lots of problems in the class so this coming week is going to be fairly critical in order to re-establish a good working-dynamic. Problems I have identified within the class include: a lack of knowledge around grammatical terms and structures (the students are fairly competent and fluent with a limited number of structures, but seem to lack the understanding of those structures and terms used to talk about them (for example, ways of talking about the future was covered last week and the students were unaware of many of the different structures used in English to talk about the future, were unaware on the names of those terms, and were even sometimes unclear on conceptual ideas such as the difference between a ‘prediction’ and a ‘plan’)) and poor listening skills (this was evident in both struggles with completing a listening task from the class coursebook and struggles in following my instructions and explanations). I have decided to focus on listening skills and strategies for this observation as it is both a weak area in the students and it ties in to my recently completed Reflective Essay, which was on listening in the GE classroom. Possible problems I anticipate is a lack of engagement from the students – as mentioned before, some of the students don’t seem to want to be in the classroom or learning English, particularly (some of them have openly voiced their opinion that their stay here is more of a holiday than to study) which could, in turn, exacerbate their lack of ability with listening. I think theykey issue with the class is that a decent proportion of the students don’t take what they are doing seriously, which causes a clash with some of the more hard-working students. Whilst they get on well socially, there are problems when they work together.

Student Profiles

Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Rafael Brazilian Portuguese 36 M

Rafael joined the school and this class 4 weeks ago. In the first few weeks, he was very hard-working and motivated. However, I fear he has been affected by the influx of younger students as the last week seemed more of a struggle for him and he hasn’t been trying as hard as he previously had. One example of this can be seen in the homework for the class – he no longer completes every homework assignment and is unapologetic about this. He is starting an MBA (in English) in Barcelona in the spring and is studying here in order to refresh his English for that course. He is quite fluent with his spoken English, but has learnt much of what he knows from films and TV so he struggles a lot with grammar tasks. He is quite worried about his MBA and I think over the past week he has become quite demotivated by the difficulty of the lessons and the attitude of the new-additions to the class. His fiancée is also studying at the school in a different class; consequently, he doesn’t practise his English much after school.

Individual Student Aims Introduce and raise awareness of listening strategies ✓

Implement listening strategies into a task (prediction and note-taking) ✓/ X

Listening for gist/key information. ✓

Use listening strategies in a speaking activity (optional final stage) ✓ / X

Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Beatriz (Bea) Spanish Spanish 18 F

Bea also joined the class 4 weeks ago with Rafael. Unlike Rafael, she has maintained her positive attitude and still throws herself into every task she is presented with. Whilst perhaps not as fluent or accurate as other members of the class, she is one of the most hard-working and, as a result, hasn’t struggled with some of the more difficult tasks asked of her in class. She has been working as an au pair in England prior to her coming to the school and makes an effort to socialise in English outside of the class as well as in.


Implement listening strategies into a task (prediction and note-taking) ✓


Use listening strategies in a speaking activity (optional final stage) ✓

Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Falah Kuwaiti Arabic 19 M

Falah also joined the class 4 weeks ago with Rafael and Bea. His speaking is quite accurate, natural and fluent, yet his pronunciation is often unclear or mumbled, meaning he is often difficult to understand for the other students and myself. Falah is a slightly problematic student in the class as, from the very first week, he doesn’t always attend classes and, when he does, it’s rare that he is on time. This has led to him missing key lessons. Also, whilst his production is fairly good, his knowledge of language is very low. For example, he is unable to name different structures such as “present continuous” or “present simple” or even word forms like “noun” or “adjective”. He also has difficulty processing instruction, either from the teacher or written in the book, often leading him to attempt tasks incorrectly without a clear understanding of them. He is also far from a pro-active student, and takes any opportunity he can in the class to just sit in silence. He requires heavy monitoring to keep on-task. He is studying General English for the next month before moving on to an IELTS preparation course and his ultimate goal is to study at a British university. To provide him with relevant preparation for his goals, I have incorporated some IELTS material into previous classes. Ironically, of all the students, he engaged with this material the least despite it being more imminently relevant to him than other students. Overall, he is a pleasant presence in the class, albeit one that needs special attention.


Implement listening strategies into a task (prediction and note-taking) ✓ / X



Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Nada Saudi Arabian Arabic 47 F

Nada has been at the school for some time and I actually taught her in a pre-intermediate (A2) class when she first arrived. She is living indefinitely in the UK with her daughter, who’s studying at Sussex University. She has expressed that she feels a little alienated from most of the students at my institute due to the difference in age and culture, and has also mentioned she struggles with depression. She is a recent addition to this class as she requested specifically for me to teach her due to her discomfort in her previous class. She is of a higher level than most in this class and as a result she doesn’t struggle with anything we cover. She is also very hard-working and keen to help other students in the class when they don’t understand. However, she’s naturally a very shy and quiet person, so although she has perhaps the highest level, she doesn’t often show it.





Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Efsun Turkish Turkish 27 F

Efsun is another student who I have taught previously at a lower level and who has been at the school for some time. A very boisterous character, she engages well but is often vocal with her displeasure if she finds a task too difficult or not relevant to her. She is living in the UK indefinitely with her husband and, in her own words, is just learning English to have something to do during the day. She has no specific goal regarding her English and is unsure how much longer she wishes to continue at the school. Overall, she works quite hard and can get very animated in lessons, but she perhaps lacks motivation to actually improve her English. Her focus is on speaking as she feels comfortable with the grammar (although she still struggles with anything above past simple).





Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Laura Swiss Swiss-French 20 F

Laura joined the class two weeks ago with her friend, Theresa. She is only staying for a few more weeks and is studying English as it is a requirement for her degree. Of the newer students, she is more engaged and motivated than most, however, she still occasionally lapses into a demotivated state. I think the attitude of the other students affects her to some extent – she remains motivated only when students in her immediate vicinity are also. She is a low B2 level and so struggles with a lot of the lessons, whether it be grammar, vocabulary, reading or listening.





Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Theresa German German 19 F

Theresa joined the class two weeks ago with her friend, Laura. She is easily distracted and frustrated in lessons, often not understanding tasks and topics. She struggles to pay attention in class and stay focused. However, she has a sense of humour about all this and generally laughs it off. This is a bit of a double-edged sword: On the one hand, she doesn’t get de-motivated or depressed by her mistakes; but on the other, she never takes anything in the class seriously. She seems to work better on tasks where she is alone (although she often needs assistance from the teacher during these tasks), with group tasks or whole class discussions, she struggles to pay attention. Listening is one of the elements she struggles with, although it’s hard to say if this is because she can’t decode the listenings or if she simply can’t pay attention to them.





Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Ramona Swiss Swiss-German 22 F

Ramona joined the class two weeks ago and is here for another two weeks. She is quite motivated to study but is perhaps unwilling to immerse herself in the language. She processes everything by translating it into German and only uses her English within the classroom – after school and at break times she reverts to her mother tongue. She is keen to study after school and at home, but prioritises grammar and translation. I think her and Fabienne, another Swiss student who joined at the same time, share a trait: They both express openly that they understand everything and nothing is much of a struggle for them, yet from my point of view I see them struggling all the time. They get many exercises wrong, misunderstand listenings and readings – yet they don’t seem to have an awareness of this. In my opinion, their view of English and their own competence in it is a bit skewed.





Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Fabienne Swiss Swiss-German 21 F

Fabienne is a Swiss national of Israeli descent and is fluent in both Swiss-French and Swiss-German. She joined the class two weeks ago and after her first week expressed that she found everything extremely easy. I was a bit taken aback by that declaration, as she wasn’t noticeably more competent than anyone else in the class and her entry test showed she was low-mid B2. However, entry tests are not infallible and I promised to pay close attention to her to see if she

had been placed at an inappropriate level. During the past week, I observed she seemed to struggle with almost everything we did in class, yet she didn’t seem to recognise that herself. She does, admittedly, have quite a varied vocabulary and is comfortable with a range of structures but she often lacks accuracy and misunderstands vocabulary that one would expect her to be comfortable with. Her listening is particularly poor. As a result, I have decided not to move her to a higher level for the foreseeable future. I anticipate some problems with this as I believe she is starting to resent being in a class she considers below her, despite not demonstrating that she is above it.





Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Maria-Luisa (Ma-Lu) Brazilian Portuguese 18 F

Ma-Lu joined the class two weeks ago, and while as young or younger than the students who joined with her, she has a keener attitude than them. She is very keen to learn, very hard-working and always engages with the lessons. Perhaps a little lower than others in the class, she more than makes up for it in the way that she throws herself into every task. Pronunciation is one of her main issues, particularly with -ed ending words which she almost always pronounces /ed/, even after modelling and drills. In general, however, she is one of the most hard-working students in the class and I can see her improving and developing every day.





Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Elaaf Kuwaiti Arabic 18 F

Elaaf joined the class on Monday, I haven’t previously taught her and I don’t know anything about her. I believe she may have changed class already to study in a lower Upper-Intermediate class.

Individual Student Aims Introduce and raise awareness of listening strategies ?

Implement listening strategies into a task (prediction and note-taking) ?

Listening for gist/key information. ?

Use listening strategies in a speaking activity (optional final stage) ?

Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Helene French French ??? F

Helene is a new student as of Tuesday. At the time of writing, I have neither met nor taught her.

Individual Student Aims Introduce and raise awareness of listening strategies ?

Implement listening strategies into a task (prediction and note-taking) ?

Listening for gist/key information. ?

Use listening strategies in a speaking activity (optional final stage) ?

Lesson Plan

Procedure

Rationale / Purpose

Interaction

Time

(mins)

Lead In

Explain class the aim of this lesson is to develop listening skills.

Open class question: What do you find easy / difficult about listening?

Image on board to illustrate ‘listening’

To focus student on the aim of the lesson.

T>SS SS>T

2-5

Activity 1

Show students on the board listening processes sentences.

Students discuss in pairs Who is listening, Why and what they expect to hear.

Feedback.

Whiteboard slide changes to sentences with “listen” removed. Students discuss in pairs what words other than ‘listen’ could fill the gap.

Feedback + open class question: What does this tell us about listening?

Raise students awareness of different listening processes. (Adapted from Listening (White, 1998))

S<>S SS>T

7-15

Micro-Listening/Strategies discussion

On whiteboard, introduce the idea of strategies as something to help with listening. Tell students they are going to hear a few different strategies.

Students listen to micro-listening and complete ‘strategies’ worksheet.

Students discuss in pairs the questions on the ‘strategies’ worksheet (e.g. Which of these strategies do you do?)

Feedback.

Raise awareness of listening strategies. (adapted from Listening In The Language Classroom (Field, 2008)) To practise listening for specific information and note-taking.

>S

S<>S SS>T

7-15

Pre-Listening Task: prediction

Explain that students are going to see if trying to predict what they hear helps them in a listening about a watch.

Students look at key-words worksheet.

Students discuss their predictions.

Optional Feedback (depending on time)

To activate schemata To practise the pro-active strategy of prediction (adapted from Listening In The Language Classroom (Field, 2008))

>S

S<>S SS>T

5-10

Listening 1

Students listen to the story. They have the option to take notes, but if they prefer to simply engage with the listening (as it is in video form), they don’t have to.

Students write a brief summary of the story. Monitoring.

Compare with a partner.

Feedback & group question: Did predicting help understanding?

To practise listening for gist To practise note-taking (optional) To raise awareness of the benefit of predicting or using existing knowledge

>S

S<>S SS>T

10-15

Listening 2

Students listen again and add anything important they missed to their summary.


To practise note-taking

>S

S<>S

5-7

Diagnostic Activity

Students are given the tapescript and listen again whilst reading the script (Optional – depending time).

Discussion in pairs questions on board (e.g.? Did you miss anything important from the listening? Why? What problems did you have in taking notes and listening? Why did you have these problems?)

Feedback. Board any common ideas.

N.B. Should any clear issue/problem arise from this section of the lesson that I can respond to, then I may improvise an activity here. For example, if students identify weak forms as a problem area, I will do a dictation focused on that.

To raise awareness of problems in listening and note-taking.

>S

S<>S SS>T

5-15

Optional Speaking/Listening Activity

Explain to students they are going to tell a story about an item that holds sentimental value for them (or they can invent one).

They are given a time-limit to make notes and choose 3-5 key words from their story.

In groups of three, they take turns to… - give each other their keywords, - other students make predictions, - tell their story, - the student that makes the most accurate predictions ‘wins’.

Optional Feedback on any interesting stories, depending on time.

To provide a further opportunity to practise the skills previously covered in the lesson, to personalise the lesson for the students and to allow a more realistic listening opportunity (live listening to each other with the opportunity to ask questions.

>S

SS>S S>SS SS>T

10-20

Alternative Plan in the Event of Technology Failure

Lead In

Explain class the aim of this lesson is to develop listening skills.

Open class question: What do you find easy / difficult about listening?

To focus student on the aim of the lesson.

T>SS SS>T

5

Activity 1

Give students ‘listening processes’ worksheet.

Students discuss in pairs Who is listening, Why and what they expect to hear.

Feedback.

Second activity on worksheet with ‘listen’ gapped from sentences.

Feedback + open class question: What does this tell us about listening?

Raise students awareness of different listening processes. (Adapted from Listening (White, G. 1998))

S<>S SS>T

7-15

Micro-Listening/Strategies discussion

Introduce the idea of strategies as something to help with listening. Tell students they are going to read about a few different strategies.

Students read ‘strategies’ worksheet.

Students discuss in pairs the questions on the ‘strategies’ worksheet (e.g. Which of these strategies do you do?)

Feedback.

Raise awareness of listening strategies. (adapted from Listening In The Language Classroom (Field, 2008))

>S S<>S SS>T

7-15

Pre-Listening Task: prediction

Explain that students are going to see if trying to predict what they hear helps them in a listening about a personal item of sentimental value to me.

I dictate key-words from the story I’m about to tell.

Students discuss their predictions.

Optional Feedback (depending on time)

To activate schemata To practise the pro-active strategy of prediction (adapted from Listening In The Language Classroom (Field, 2008))

>S S<>S SS>T

5-10

Listening 1

Students listen to the story. They have the option to take notes, but if they prefer to simply engage with the listening (it is a ‘live listening’ by me) they don’t have to.

Students write a brief summary of the story. Monitoring.


Feedback & group question: Did predicting help understanding?

To practise listening for gist To practise note-taking (optional) To raise awareness of the benefit of predicting or using existing knowledge

T>S S<>S SS>T

10-15

Listening 2

Students listen again and add anything important they missed to their summary.


To practise note-taking

T>S S<>S

5-7

Diagnostic Activity

Discussion in pairs questions on board (e.g.? Did you miss anything important from the listening? Why? What

To raise awareness of problems in listening and note-taking.

S<>S SS>T

5-15

problems did you have in taking notes and listening? Why did you have these problems?)

Feedback. Board any common ideas.

N.B. Should any clear issue/problem arise from this section of the lesson that I can respond to, then I may improvise an activity here. For example, if students identify weak forms as a problem area, I will do a dictation focused on that.

Optional Speaking/Listening Activity

Explain to students they are going to tell a story about an item that holds sentimental value for them (or they can invent one).

They are given a time-limit to make notes and choose 3-5 key words from their story.

In groups of three, they take turns to… - give each other their keywords, - other students make predictions, - tell their story, - the student that makes the most accurate predictions ‘wins’.

Optional Feedback on any interesting stories, depending on time.

To provide a further opportunity to practise the skills previously covered in the lesson, to personalise the lesson for the students and to allow a more realistic listening opportunity (live listening to each other with the opportunity to ask questions.

>S SS>S S>SS SS>T

10-20

Documents

Peter Mason Lesson Observation #2 Observer: Gary Hicks ......(Field, 2008)] Aims ... will be no script for this, I will improvise. Potential Problems prepared alternative materials