Jackson CO3

For my final classroom observation I sat in with Whitney and her group 3 listening class. There were some familiar faces in the class which was nice because I had not seen these particular CIES students in a classroom setting before. Whitney was extremely kind to me and provided me with all sorts of ideas and resources for teaching English as a second/foreign language. She pointed out a book that she based many of her lesson's on - Noteworthy, Listening & Notetaking skills 2 (published by Heinle Cencage Learning). This book provided entire lesson plan's (including pre-reading, active lesson, post-lesson, homework, etc) as well as an audio CD that had various articles, comprehension questions, and other related things on it. Whitney started the class by allowing the students to compare notes from an article that they had listened to the previous day. The article pertained to public education in the United States. She let the students know ahead of time that there would be 10 comprehension questions and that they would be allowed to use their notes in order to encourage the students to exchange as much useful information as possible. The questions, which were included on the Noteworth audio CD, were only played once for the students. They were given only a minute and a half to answer. If the question had multiple parts or was a little difficult, Whitney would help reiterate what the question was asking. After the comprehension questions, Whitney prepared the students for a TedTalk that they would be watching. She began asking pre-listening questions that pertained to their own thoughts on the value of creativity in a classroom setting. Next the students had 5-7 minutes to discuss the pre-listening questions among themselves. Lastly Whitney covered new vocabulary for the TedTalk (innovation, contention, hierarchy, epiphany. The TedTalk itself was particularly interesting. The speaker had a strong English accent, and while I could understand what he was saying, it was obvious that the students were having a very difficult time understanding what his message was. It was a valuable lesson to see that pronunciation is truly important for the development of these students' listening abilities. Even though these students were the highest listening level possible at the CIES, they were still having a very tough time with an accent different than what they were accustomed to. After the class ended Whitney and I sat around and talked about what her teaching methods/techniques/and experiences have been like at the CIES. She took my email address and promised to send me CIES curriculum (which she did promptly).