by Ryan Simpson
In this reflection from the ten-week pre-sessional 2018, I discuss creating a worksheet for a Listening Circles lesson and also show how, by introducing such an innovation for our class, this can yield robust C1 evidence for our TEAP portfolio.
Listening Circles
Listening Circles was an initiative introduced which aimed to provide more listening practice within a learner-centred and autonomous-learning paradigm. In essence, the tutor and learners can select the listening tasks to be used, such as a Ted Talk, and students are then allocated small groups, focus on a particular area, such as listening for the macro structure of the talk, and finally compare with the other groups.
Academic listening was a major challenge for my ten-week STEM pre-sessional learners. With this in mind, I decided to begin these listening skills lessons with more teacher-designed scaffolding, creating a worksheet with whilst-listening tasks and short small group feedback opportunities. The learners had identified the speed of delivery, lack of lexis and an inability to focus for long periods as the main challenge.
Alexander, Argent and Spencer’s (2008) approach influenced my approach to Listening Circles. They describe staging as the process of developing academic skills through sequencing a syllabus, ensuring at an early stage that learners gain confidence in using lower level skills; and stepping as breaking down a complex task into smaller steps.
A listening lesson
My example lesson (below) involves a Ted Talk by Hans Rosling. The scaffolding tasks, such as gap fills and a final question on the main idea, allowed the eleven-minute video to be broken up into manageable sections. In addition, I provided a blank flowchart for a final reflection task in which students could write key words related to different parts of the talk, thus allowing them to see it in chunks. Interaction patterns and peer and whole class feedback were important too. As a guide and inputter, I took a learner’s contribution and wrote on the board, if necessary, a synopsis of the lexis the speaker had actually used, thus extending individual learners’ repertoires. In addition, the lesson finishes with a discussion about the text’s structure, the main versus peripheral messages in the talk and how the class judged its success.
Considering the challenges for the pre-sessional teacher, one needs to have some time to listen to the video, start drafting questions and mould these into a piece of classroom material. To manage differentiation, the challenge is to create small mixed-ability groups, I suggest, and also to allocate giving group feedback to more reticent learners.
Learners can take more from such a learning event than listening practice. We may also like to consider what academic or subject-specific lexis could be valuable and how this could be taught or explored. My advice, having run the lesson, is to adopt the deep-end strategy of not pre-teaching lexis. The tasks should uncover the lexis required, both through students working together and the tutor acting as an inputter, providing what the speaker actually said, to introduce/reinforce the vocabulary by this strategy. I decided to pre-teach ‘laundry’ as it recurred throughout the talk and caused some learners difficulty. Appendix 1 contains the lexis that I selected as useful, whilst Appendix 2 contains that lexis which STEM learners might find worth recording and learning.
TEAP portfolio evidence
Finally, I would like to demonstrate how I related this material and rationale to TEAP criteria for C1 Core: Course Delivery.
‘ An EAP practitioner will be familiar with the approach, methods and techniques of communicative language teaching and student support, be able to locate these within an academic context and apply these to the design and planning of tutorials, learning activities and to teaching the language and skills required by academic tasks and processes.’
BALEAP 2014 TEAP scheme handbook p.19
I used a similar piece to this article as evidence for the following C1 criteria – Core Professional Area of Activity ii/ vii/viii/ix / Professional Knowledge &values b/c/j. Here we can see that with one piece such as this, a rationale for one’s own lesson design, we can garner useful evidence for the portfolio.
ii – designing tasks and activities for lessons based on an existing syllabus.
Vii – incorporating analysis of spoken text discourse and language into sequences of teaching and learning activities.
viii- staging and scaffolding the teaching of listening for study purposes.
ix – employing a range of learning technology resources in class and online to increase accessibility and enhance learning.
B – a range of theories, approaches, methods of learning and teaching and the rationale for their selection and appropriate use n EAP contexts.
C – how to select and adapt appropriate materials for use in an EAP context.
J – the need to respect individual learners, diverse learning communities and to ensure equality of opportunity in learning and inclusivity in teaching.
Teaching from the same syllabus doesn’t need to inhibit creativity and being able to contribute to a TEAP portfolio is certainly an added bonus.
Lesson Materials
Ted talks on You-tube
(search on YT for Hans Rosling The magic washing machine)
Hans Rosling, a Swedish academic, discusses a great invention.
A/Introduction
With two class friends, write down two ‘great inventions’ of the last one hundred years, and prepare to tell the class your ideas.
B/Hans starts his talk less formally; he tells a story.
Task– Listen to the story twice, and write down three things, below, that you hear.
1.
2.
3.
B ii/ Now, work with two class friends, and make a larger list. How many facts from the story can you list? Prepare to tell the class.
(Start-1.36)
C/ Next, you will watch more of the talk. We will listen twice, and try questions C-E.
Hans uses a visualisation with statistics.
Complete the following statements:
*Number of people who are ‘below the poverty line’ – ________.
*1 billion people live __________.
*Number of people ‘in between’- _____.
* Number of people globally with access to a washing machine- ____.
C ii/ He compares his grandmother with women who live in poverty. Why?
What does he say about environmentally-friendly students that he teaches?
(1.36-5)
Task – Compare your answers with your class friends. One member from a group will write the answers on the board and compare with the class.
D/ Hans uses a 2nd visualisation. Answer the questions below.
*He talks about ‘units’? what is a ‘unit’?
*How many units do the richest 1 billion people use?
*He then makes a prediction for the future (2010 – 2050).
Write down one change that he predicts – __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
What will energy use ‘climb to’ by 2050? ____________.
(5.00-6.45)
Task – Compare your answers and then one person from your group can write on the board the answers, and compare with the class.
E/ Watch the final part of the talk twice and then discuss this question with a partner.
What is the relationship, according to Hans, between this machine and ‘reading’/ ‘education’?
(6.45-end)
Reflection
Task 1. Think about the whole talk. What was the structure? What were the main parts?
Draw this as a flow chart:
Task 2 What, do you think, was his ‘main message’? discuss with your group and prepare to tell the class your ideas.
What do you think was ‘successful’ in his talk and why?
Appendix 1
Lexis possibly useful for a STEM learner
Useful lexis
Task B
Laundry / firewood / heat water over a fire / a button / push the button / a miracle
task C
The poverty line / wash by hand / time-consuming / labour / access to /
Part D/E
Energy unit of fossil fuel – oil, coal or gas / trends / population growth/ economic growth / emerging economies and the ‘new east’/
Be energy efficient / change behaviour / green energy/
Industrialisation / steel mill / power station/
Appendix 2
Lexis possibly useful for a STEM learner
Heat / push a button / time-consuming / labour/ fossil fuel / trends / growth / efficient / industrial / power.
References
Alexander, O., Argent, S. and Spencer, J., 2008. EAP essentials. Reading: Garnet.
Very useful, Ryan – thank you! I think it’s a good idea to initially provide scaffolding in this way, then build up learner autonomy week by week.
indeed, thanks for feedback, sir
Thanks Ryan. Interesting and nicely linked to the TEAP criteria. Last year I supported my students a lot with their listening circles, however, this year as each group (of slightly stronger students) is listening to a different text, rather than the same one as last year, I am not able to provide much support. It will be interesting to get some feedback on my students’ perceptions…