This week the issue on aural and oral skills was challenging for everybody I think. At least, teaching listening and speaking has been something which I did not actually like . The reason for this most of the students tell they don't like those lessons and their prejudice merged with mine within the course of time. I still remember my first hour in teaching listening. It was something abstract for me and for the students 5 years ago in my first course. However, grammar teaching or reading activities were quite nice on part of me as we had "concrete" books rather than "sounds" which students could not hear. As I gained experience and thought about what to do in that course, I began to read more on them (teaching listening and speaking) and I got the importance of listening skills in L2 teaching. In fact, I had been affected by Direct Method at first, then Behaviorism, then Communicative Approach then.. :) Now I am an Eclectic!! But, how I understood the importance of listening was the order of L1 acquisition, and it was true that we just listened to our environment for a long time before producing a word except for babling.
Now we have films hours, internet pages for listening and speaking, English music is favourite everywhere etc. This week I have reviewed everything again. Especially, Miller's article was quite informative for me to check my pre-listening and post-listening activities.
By the way, delicious.com was really delicious because I used to bookmark my favourite sites on the browser and the fear of formatting my computer was a nightmare.
I love this course:)
Aveka
Dear Aveka
ReplyDeleteGreat work!! I really envy you on your hard work and resourcefulness. I like the activities you left on your blog page. "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" is one of my favorite stories. I learned benefited from your attached activities about the possible activities one can give to the students based on their watching of movie.
Keep up the great work!!
Dear Ali,
ReplyDeleteThe activities you have provided on your blog are really good and very comprehensive. But I wonder how much time it takes you to watch the film and to cover all these activities with the students. Do you have the students watch the whole film (lets say in a morning session)and then do the activities subsequently? And how many students are present for each film session? I would like to hear about details.
Thank you so much
Dear Aysel,
ReplyDeleteWe have spare 5 hours every week for watching a film. The first hour is generally spent looking at the picture and the subject, and talking about the film. After watching it, we give the students exercise sheets. There are 25 students in each class.