My TA with Victoria started out in the computer lab. She explained that she'd noticed quite a few students struggling in her Listening 2 class and she wondered if it was because she was speaking too fast. The purpose of having today's class in the lab was so that the students could individually listen to the Listening 2 Book exercises at their own individual pace with the headphones. This would allow the slower students to stop/start the recordings as often as they needed. If the class as a whole did significantly better on the graded exercise in the lab, then Victoria would know to do more lab-based classes or would speak much slower/much more carefully in the class room. This is what she hoped to learn, though she said this was the first time she'd tried this, so she was essentially experimenting and uncertain of the outcome.
Once all students arrived, she wrote the Agenda on the board. She explained this let the students know what would happen today, and it also served to keep her -the teacher- on track if a student tried to sidetrack her.
Agenda
1) Go into your email
2) open the email I will send to you
3) open your book to pg. 22
4) open to Listening Four (advice to applicants)
Do #15, 16
I will collect and grade them!
While the students were busy completing the exercises, Victoria had me go around the room and answer questions or provide help where I could. Once everyone was settled she pulled me to the side and explained the typical steps she did to conduct a Listening Class. She added that most topics or lessons were unit lessons that covered 2 or 3 days, depending on how fast the students learned the target goal.
Example: 2 class unit lesson
1) Pre-Listening ---- vocab
-----go over vocabulary to get them thinking about the listening passage.
------ (?) have them read the listening passage to themselves.
------ Ask them if there are any words in the passage that they do not know or
understand.)
2) Listening ------ 2-3 times of passage,
---at least one of these listenings will be stop/start
*after each sentence/each question in the comprehension section is answered
----- ask questions (do they understand?)
----- assessment ex: T/F cards --they can stand up if true or false
OR individual answers and collect as a comprehension grade
3) Post Listening
-----feedback
----- discussion
She also explained she required weekly Listening Logs of all her students. These are turned in and graded. She emails a file to the student via Engrade and the student listens to the web link provided. They must answer the accompanying questions and they must write down their own definitions to the provided vocabulary words. (If the audio piece is her own voice, this must be emailed to the students separately as she said Engrade doesn't handle "do" actual audio recordings.) She also requires the students to mark the time in the video for any words they don't understand or 'can't hear'. If they write down "2:10 the man was ________" then she can find the problem word in the video and can later help the student. Finally, she stressed how she always double-checks the web links right before she sends out the log via Engrade because YouTube links in particular are always getting taken down. (Once she sent out an entire Listening Log assignment only to learn from the confused students that the enclosed link was no longer valid, prompting her to have to suddenly write an entirely new log with no forewarning.)
By this time, the students were finishing the initial assignments and we still had 20 minutes to go. Victoria said she had expected this and then added a new assignment to the Agenda list and had the students move on to it. Class time was over just as the students were finishing the second assignment. I collected the papers as they left.
From my perspective, I found all of this to be very valuable advice and I was very happy to get to help out so soon in the class. Most of the students' questions could be easily answered, but 2 of them I had to get Victoria to double-check or confirm. The students all seemed really nice and I appreciated how easily Victoria had introduced me in a way to get them to immediately see as a TA and not just a silent observer. I also appreciated how Victoria explained what she was doing and why she was doing it, as well as giving me such an informed background picture to what a typical listening class was actually all about.
After the students all left, I followed her to a back office where she gave me my own copy of the student's Listening 2 Book so I could follow along in class and understand what was happening/what exactly she was asking them to do. Victoria said she'd let me observe a few more classes, then I would start teaching segments or an entire class if I was comfortable enough.
That's good that she was able to catch herself speaking too quickly. When I taught, I noticed that my speaking pace was inconsistent. I got nervous so I talked more, then relaxed, realized how quickly I was speaking, and slowed down. As a teacher you have to be able to catch yourself doing these things and correct them.
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