Gale_CO#1

Gale Workman

CO#1

Sept. 2, 2014, 2-3 p.m.

Hecht House

Wallace Govins/Speaking class

Foundations level

Mr. Govans manages his class firmly. His oral instructions were simple, direct and clear. Some students appeared comfortable asking Mr. Govans to repeat or clarify. Other students looked like “deer in the headlights.”

This is a Foundations-level class, so I was interested to learn how the teacher would conduct a class with students who have few English-language skills. Mr. Govans used teams to work on in-class exercises, during which students taught one another. This strategy encouraged students to find the language (vocabulary, grammar) to explain their answers so classmates could understand. That’s SLA (Second Language Acquisition) through CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) – I’ve learned in TEFL class.

The thing that interested me most in this class was the note-taking practice exercise: Students were assigned to take notes (using skills learned last week in class) while listening to an online news broadcast from Voice of America. Great practice! This exercise is one I could use with my native-speaking undergrads in the State University System, who stopped taking notes in class approximately four years ago.

When I teach undergrads, I don't use PowerPoints nor do lecture from the texts, so how do my students remember or study material presented in class? Problem is – they don’t remember at exam time. I think my undergrads could benefit from learning how to take notes and note-taking practice-- as Mr. Govans' students do.

Research shows that the very act of writing notes reinforces learning. Taking notes requires students to use critical thinking skills of analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

Mr. Govans sets high expectations for his students. He identifies the class agenda at the beginning of the class, presents material, provides practice/feedback. If a student participates, s/he leaves Mr. Govans’ 50-minutes of instruction having acquired some new language skills s/he can use immediately.

Mr. Govans also grounds his lessons in reality for his students: Today, he told students the note-taking skills were vital to students in U.S. universities, which most of Mr. Govan's students want to attend someday.