Please help... teaching listening & note-taking strategi

[ab j]

Dear all,
I teach the advanced in a Foundation Program and my problem is the students are not attentive and not enjoying the listening lectures no matter what I do .

For pre-listening activities, I use brainstorming or some YouTube activities. However, once I start the recording they lose track and tell me they are bored.

Your suggestions and tips are much appreciated.

[alawton]

Students to tend to drift off when listening to a recording. Could you read it yourself? Maybe throw in some of your own words. An activity I like to do, in regards to listening activities, is to read and make an occasional error. The student who detects the error gets an extra point, or whatever motivational tool you use. I hope this helps!




Andrew Lawton
http://drewseslfluencylessons.com

[Sally Olsen]

We had speakers once a week and I used to take notes on the board while they were talking. You could do the same as they listen to the recording. I used mind mapping and several other note taking techniques and varied it each week until all the students had a strategy for note taking that they felt comfortable with. I put the structure of the note taking on a poster the day after until we had several possibilities.

After the lecture, I went over the notes and most of the students were amazed that they then understood the lecture. They didn't think they had heard or understood anything if you didn't do that.

You could give them a script of one lecture to follow. They can discuss the major points, the way that a lecture is set up to give information and where they can find the major points, what to write down and how and how to use the information afterwards. It might take you three or four lessons on one lecture but the rest will go more quickly and be more interesting if they actually understand the structure.

You could share the notes of the best of the students so the rest can see what note taking is like and how it is useful. Have the best students write on overheads or if possible run off their notes for everyone to have a copy or type out their notes with corrections for everyone to have a copy.

They can then work in groups on a short lecture and include all the things that they would like to see in a lecture, give the lecture and get positive feedback and constructive feedback from the rest of the class as to what they have missed. They could have one of the recordings for background material if you have to cover a certain number of prescribed lectures or topics.

[ab j]

Students to tend to drift off when listening to a recording. Could you read it yourself? Maybe throw in some of your own words. An activity I like to do, in regards to listening activities, is to read and make an occasional error. The student who detects the error gets an extra point, or whatever motivational tool you use. I hope this helps!



Andrew Lawton
http://drewseslfluencylessons.com

Thank you so much Andrew. I liked this activity and will give it a try in September when classes start. Thanks again

[ab j]

We had speakers once a week and I used to take notes on the board while they were talking. You could do the same as they listen to the recording. I used mind mapping and several other note taking techniques and varied it each week until all the students had a strategy for note taking that they felt comfortable with. I put the structure of the note taking on a poster the day after until we had several possibilities.

After the lecture, I went over the notes and most of the students were amazed that they then understood the lecture. They didn't think they had heard or understood anything if you didn't do that.

You could give them a script of one lecture to follow. They can discuss the major points, the way that a lecture is set up to give information and where they can find the major points, what to write down and how and how to use the information afterwards. It might take you three or four lessons on one lecture but the rest will go more quickly and be more interesting if they actually understand the structure.

You could share the notes of the best of the students so the rest can see what note taking is like and how it is useful. Have the best students write on overheads or if possible run off their notes for everyone to have a copy or type out their notes with corrections for everyone to have a copy.

They can then work in groups on a short lecture and include all the things that they would like to see in a lecture, give the lecture and get positive feedback and constructive feedback from the rest of the class as to what they have missed. They could have one of the recordings for background material if you have to cover a certain number of prescribed lectures or topics.

Thanks a lot for your great ideas. They are of great help.

[Betty Swollocks]

"An activity I like to do, in regards to listening activities, is to read and make an occasional error. The student who detects the error gets an extra point"

Thank you, I tried this and it worked very well. I changed it slightly by first asking them "How many mistakes I made?" So they just ticked off everytime they heard a mistake...make the mistakes obvious though. Then i read it again and we discuss the mistakes.

Another thing I tried is a recap exercise. Give students 2 minutes to note down as many things as they can about the last lesson ie "What did we do?" Then get them to compare notes and ad anything they might have missed. Then show them your lesson plan of what you actually did...this is a great recap.

It also encourages writing keywords (because of the time period) Rather than full sentences. You can then convert them to full sentences as an extension