Last Wednesday, October 1, I had the opportunity to observe Vicky Ledbetter's group 3 listening class. I was pleasantly surprised to find my conversation partner Jihun and his friend Jack in the class. Like most teachers, Vicky began class by calling roll, but with a unique twist: as she called on each student, she asked them what made them happy. I thought it was a great way to get their minds warmed up for the lesson. Everybody loves to talk about themselves after all.
Next, the students split off into pairs to work a on worksheet that corresponded to a dictocomp from the previous class. After 12 minutes, they went over the answers as a class. Next, they did a quick dictation activity, where Vicky read several sentences (one time fast, one time slow) and the students wrote them down.
The final activity for the class was quite fun and challenging. Vicky passed out a worksheet with lyrics to a song, with blank spaces spread throughout of course. Then Vicky played a song by Tegan and Sara and the students were to attempt to fill in the blanks. She also gave me a worksheet to follow along with the activity, and boy, it was difficult even for me! I did similar exercises when I was learning French; they were always pretty difficult, but it never occurred to me that comprehending lyrics in a song can be difficult even for native speakers of the language. I told the class not to feel bad, as I had a hard time understanding the lyrics too!
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