Thursday, March 28, 2013

March 19, 2013 - CAB meeting/Listening


DALLAS, Tuesday March 19!  The Curriculum Advisory Board and the Princeton Academic Team are primed and ready to roll at the Dallas Sheraton, well before most of the expected 7,000 TESOL conventiongoers!  The six CAB reps able to make it were hard working, tackling issues as wide ranging as reviewing new speaking rubrics, created by the Miami Shores admin team, and doing the same for some very detailed rubrics (there we go again) for the Masters Guided Research Paper. Each rep commented on achievements and challenges in their districts.

They also got a short preview of a planned newsletter for and by ELS instructors.  When not working, they began to take in the sights of an amazingly modern city with some stunning architecture. While no ten-gallon hats were in evidence, we did happen across some longhorns the very next day, being chased away from the Convention Center (see March 20 entry).  Whatever hat you wear  - you should take them off in honor of our dedicated CAB reps:  Brenda Winch, Houston; Elsa Richter, Bristol; Dan Manolescu, Manhattan; Lisa Domanski, Miami Shores; Tammy Johnson, LaVerne; and Maria Levy, Honolulu - bearing macademias and chocolate. Below, left to right: Dan, Brenda, Tammy, Maria, Lisa, and Elsa.

 
Empowering and Engaging Language Learners with Listening Circles. By Celine Costa. School of ESL, George Brown College, Toronto, Canada. Submitted by Zita Bodonyi
Celine presented an elaborate process that engages students in listening at the advanced level. The process resembles a ‘flipped classroom’.  The listening task is given for homework; it’s a great way to level the playing field. Students who need to listen several times have the chance to do so. It also makes students responsible for their learning and for their peers’ learning. The whole class period is built around the listening, so missing homework has dire consequences.
In class, students work in groups. Each student has a different role and they rotate the roles during the semester. 
Group Discussion Leader – main responsibility: to create questions, keep time and ensure that all participants have equal amount of time during discussion
Summarizer –main responsibility: to present the summary and highlight main points in an interesting manner, using his or her own words
Debater - main responsibility: to disagree with the points presented, regardless of personal views; should research the controversy and develop questions beforehand
Researcher - main responsibility: to research the speaker’s background and the history of the topic
Vocabulary Enricher - main responsibility: to choose 4 words that are essential and teach them in an interesting manner; to include POS, pronunciation and sample sentence
Quote Master - main responsibility: to select important quotes; present the quote in group and ask clarifying questions (what does the speaker say? Does he say A or B? If the speaker had not included it, would it have changed the listening? Can you paraphrase this quote?)
Paraphraser - main responsibility: to paraphrase and assigned excerpt, determine its significance, present it to the group and get feedback about its accuracy
Connector - main responsibility: to connect the topic to his or her experiences. Did the student know about the issue before? Is it an issue in his or her country etc.
All students answer questions about the process:
Pre-listening: What do you expect to hear?
Post-listening:
·        How did you approach the listening?
·        Did your approach help?
·        How difficult was this week’s listening? Why?
·        What did you think about this week’s topic?
There is a self-assessment and a teacher assessment included in every class, and a teacher assessment at the end of the week.  
Follow this link to see her handout. It’s copyright protected.
If it doesn’t work, search for her handout by entering the last name of the presenter in the appropriate search field.


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