Katherine-CO#3

On Wednesday, after my speaking class observation, I also observed a level 2A listening class. The teacher jumped straight into the lesson which was to take Cornell style notes on a listening passage. He slowed the audio down by 10% and took notes on the board in said style while the students listened and double checked their notes. At the end of the audio, he went over some common English note-taking abbreviations like "w/" and "&" as well as how to use bullet points and arrows, etc to connect ideas. Many of the students were frustrated with the difficulty of the listening assignment and how their notes didn't match a lot of what he had taken. He replayed the audio and asked a few questions about it (like how to summarize vs describe the passage) and some questions from the book(true or false questions, going over crucial vocabulary). After this, the students began to fret over being quizzed on it the next day. One student said that without the teacher's notes he would not be able to answer anything. The teacher tried to be encouraging, stating it takes a lot of effort and time to become fluent, it was the first assignment of this new level, and emphasized how far the student(s) had come. The teacher decided to change the quiz from the listening assignment to an easier listening passage that had been the final exam for the next level down. One thing I really liked about the class was that essential vocabulary words were listed on Quizlet with pictures, definitions, and example sentences. I can see how it would be such a great study tool!