Teaching listening strategies
Listening is one of the skills, in my context, that are most difficult to develop. Students say not to understand anything when authentic or adapted materials are used in the classroom. They get frustrated and develop a negative perspective toward listening activities. However the problem may not be in students' listening speaking but in the king of strategy that the teacher is using. Either a selective, reactive, intensive, responsive, extensive or interactive the task has to include characteristics that engage the student.
With this in mind, I want to talk about an activity we did in Mathew's class. This activity did not have a name but I would call it "the cooler". I would call it that way because in this activity the teacher tells a story or gives commands, while the students walk around the classroom. The teacher, then, says the word "freeze" at anytime of the story for the students to stay in the position they are at the moment.
I consider that the main purpose of this activity is for the students to demonstrate understanding of an oral text through detecting key words and guessing the meaning. This activity also helps students to have a break from the book or any other traditional activity and since I teach teenagers I consider that they enjoy moving around. When it comes to assessment, as we saw in the class, is difficult to assess students' performance accurately because some of them would look ate their partner and just imitate what they are doing. One way of improving assessment, could be that just few students (3-4) go at the front of the classroom, follow teacher's instructions and the rest of the students can say who was doing it right or wrong.
With this in mind, I want to talk about an activity we did in Mathew's class. This activity did not have a name but I would call it "the cooler". I would call it that way because in this activity the teacher tells a story or gives commands, while the students walk around the classroom. The teacher, then, says the word "freeze" at anytime of the story for the students to stay in the position they are at the moment.
I consider that the main purpose of this activity is for the students to demonstrate understanding of an oral text through detecting key words and guessing the meaning. This activity also helps students to have a break from the book or any other traditional activity and since I teach teenagers I consider that they enjoy moving around. When it comes to assessment, as we saw in the class, is difficult to assess students' performance accurately because some of them would look ate their partner and just imitate what they are doing. One way of improving assessment, could be that just few students (3-4) go at the front of the classroom, follow teacher's instructions and the rest of the students can say who was doing it right or wrong.
The activity you talked about is called a "Freeze Walk".
ResponderEliminarYou mention one option (i.e. asking a few Ss to go in front of the class). Another option could be to ask Ss to write their own freeze walks (and you edit them), then Ss can do them with each other.