Don’t get me wrong: course book audio is great on many occasions. But sometimes students (and in this case, teacher, are left wanting something more substantial than a brief phone call or mini meeting excerpt where audio is studio quality with little to no background noise to confuse your ears.)

One of my intermediate groups asked me for more listening practice the other day, even though we faithfully do all the listenings in our course book. Not a problem! My computer is filled with podcasts on a million topics – so finding the audio wasn’t the problem. The issue was how to make that audio appropriate for the class’ English skill level.

Since all of my audio was raw (not studio clear) and designed for a native speaker to consume, a few workarounds and adjustments to the audio I chose had to be made.

1. Keep it short. The original audio that I picked was 56 minutes long. Obviously, the whole deal wouldn’t work well in class. I was very familiar with the audio, so I knew that the speaker often gave lists and key points for listeners to jot down or think about. (It’s a John Maxwell podcast about Time Management.) I focused the class around one of those lists – just 5 sentences with some teaching around them, which lasted no more than 8 minutes.

2. Prep the audio. I had the audio already set to go at the exact spot where I wanted to work. (That way I didn’t waste time trying to find the spot in class.)

3. Challenge your students. The first thing I said as we started the class was: “Well, you asked for it!” – I said it with a big smile as a joke, but I went on to explain that the audio we were about to listen to would be harder than anything we’ve done before simply because it was authentic. I think most people like to be challenged from time to time, because it gives them the chance to prove something. And interestingly enough, that’s how it went down in my class. Students (adults) sat up straighter, they leaned forward clutching their pens and notebooks, and focused 100% of their attention on what they were about to hear. (It was great!)

4. Stop. Talk it up. Interesting point: the speaker spoke clearly and slowly around his main points which made it easier for my students to hear and write them down. But as soon as the main point was made, speaking speed would warp into full speed.  In order to keep my class on the same page, I paused the presentation after every two to three sentences and asked them to throw back the general idea of what was just said. This worked surprisingly well – as most of the time, they would catch the majority of the idea. (Big student confidence booster – I actually can understand a REAL presentation!!)

5. Use Visuals. Before the class I listened to the section we were going to use a few times on my own. There were a few bits that could be easily represented by a picture or drawing. So in my lesson planner, I made a few rough drawings which I knew would help my students further understand what was being talked about. Before the class began, I drew each picture on our whiteboard and asked my students to identify each, and how they imagined it could possibly apply to the topic of Time Management. (Got them thinking about the theme.)

We successfully made it through the 8 minute audio, and ended in a 15 minute discussion of what was heard. The students loved it! And since the material was REAL and about a theme of great practical importance, we were able to engage in serious discussion about each of the points and how they could/should be applied in life.

How about you? Do you ever employ “real audio” in your classes? How do you go about doing it?

(Photo by Joe Seggiola )

Language learning doesn’t happen in a straight line. It’s more like a complex web of scribbles. But if you take a peek into your language course, you’ll notice that your syllabus seems to move in a mostly straight line. It progresses, step by step, and quite seamlessly from chapter/unit 1 through to course end.  Reviews and backtracking happen, but on a very defined basis. (Like at unit end for example.) But I don’t think we learn this way, it’s messier. Think about how you learn new words. You get exposed to one. You see it repeated in several circumstances. You figure out what it means. You come into contact with the word as it is repeated in a conversation or as you are reading something. Then, gradually, you begin to use it yourself. Was that in a straight line or was it like a scribble?

To be fair, some courses are able to provide this kind of repetition inside the unit – but what normally happens when you move on to the next one? Some courses I’ve worked with claim that they recycle previous course material into current content – but have you ever really noticed it much? In my experience that “recycling” is either A) so cleverly done that it just slips right by me (which would be a great thing, right?) or B) so subtle that neither teacher NOR student picked up on it. (That’s bad, right?)

So if we don’t learn English- or any other language- in a nice clean straight line, but in fact it looks more like scribbles with constant back tracking, repetition, regular exploration off the intended line of progress, what would that look like in a classroom environment?

And if constant repetition and recycling are so important, how should teachers do it inside the constraints of their classroom?

This post was inspired by a tweet from Kathy Sierra and I quote:

That is a crucial challenge, isn’t it? How to have lots of exposure and practice without it getting boring or repetitive?@KathySierra via twitter

If we need constant exposure and practice to improve, how can you build this into your classes? And how can you do it without boring yourself or your students to death?

The commercial then switches to why the 1 person didn’t return: in commercial one it’s because they were abducted by aliens. Commercial 2 is because they were hit by a car on their way back to become a regular customer.

Funny commercial – but like most ESL companies out there, it’s focused on the product. The English class or course you should buy. But how well do we help students REALLY become better because they used our service? One of my favorite authors posted this on twitter the other day:

“1 way to improve a product might not mean changing the product, but improving what the user is able to do with it. Upgrade user, not products.”  from web via @KathySierra Twitter

How do you do this in the ESL classroom? I see this as our “Holy Grail.” As a teacher, I think our job must be to ensure that our users are “upgraded” by using our service. But that’s an interesting challenge when your product is a service that requires a great deal of time commitment in order to see marked improvement.

A few ideas that we’ve been working on:
Give regular feedback on progress. We are launching a digital reporting system which lets our users know, on a monthly basis, a quick view of their development in Speaking, Reading, Listening, and Writing.
We also provide a time line meter – which graphically shows the number of hours each student has taken vs. the total number of hours required to meet course requirements.
We base our courses around  the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference) – and on each report card show our students what objectives they have already mastered, vs how many they have left before they graduate.
Sierra’s twitter post is really something difficult to put into practice when you place it into the context of the language classroom. “Upgrade your user.” What I have often found is that during the class – or a series of classes, the student is able to “upgrade.” They seem to temporarily acquire a new word, phrase, or grammar skill – but after leaving the classroom it’s like that upgrade didn’t take. It didn’t filter down to their day to day use of the language.

How to increase Assimilation
It’s not fire and forget. When you’re learning a language, and having it STICK, I think you need to prepare yourself for extremely focused repetition. Never be afraid to step back and recycle previous lesson material. That could be vocabulary words, Grammar exercises, etc. Never assume that just because your student has passed a test or finished a chapter that the material has been copied to their hard drive.

Question: Would it hurt to actually review completed CEFR objectives with your students and let them know that they have mastered that skill? Encourage students to notice their own abilities – perhaps it’s not as apparent to them as you may think.

Provide ample Kick Ass time in class: Make sure your students have time to show off what they can do. Develop presentations or activities which would allow students the opportunity to use their upgrades. (If you don’t use em, they’ll likely begin to disappear. )

How can you upgrade your students today? Think about it – and PLEASE comment!

The commercial then switches to why the 1 person didn’t return: in commercial one it’s because they were abducted by aliens. Commercial 2 is because they were hit by a car on their way back to become a regular customer.

Funny commercial – but like most ESL companies out there, it’s focused on the product. The English class or course you should buy. But how well do we help students REALLY become better because they used our service? One of my favorite authors posted this on twitter the other day:

“1 way to improve a product might not mean changing the product, but improving what the user is able to do with it. Upgrade user, not products.”  from web via @KathySierra Twitter

How do you do this in the ESL classroom? I see this as our “Holy Grail.” As a teacher, I think our job must be to ensure that our users are “upgraded” by using our service. But that’s an interesting challenge when your product is a service that requires a great deal of time commitment in order to see marked improvement.

A few ideas that we’ve been working on:
Give regular feedback on progress. We are launching a digital reporting system which lets our users know, on a monthly basis, a quick view of their development in Speaking, Reading, Listening, and Writing.
We also provide a time line meter – which graphically shows the number of hours each student has taken vs. the total number of hours required to meet course requirements.
We base our courses around  the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference) – and on each report card show our students what objectives they have already mastered, vs how many they have left before they graduate.
Sierra’s twitter post is really something difficult to put into practice when you place it into the context of the language classroom. “Upgrade your user.” What I have often found is that during the class – or a series of classes, the student is able to “upgrade.” They seem to temporarily acquire a new word, phrase, or grammar skill – but after leaving the classroom it’s like that upgrade didn’t take. It didn’t filter down to their day to day use of the language.

How to increase Assimilation
It’s not fire and forget. When you’re learning a language, and having it STICK, I think you need to prepare yourself for extremely focused repetition. Never be afraid to step back and recycle previous lesson material. That could be vocabulary words, Grammar exercises, etc. Never assume that just because your student has passed a test or finished a chapter that the material has been copied to their hard drive.

Question: Would it hurt to actually review completed CEFR objectives with your students and let them know that they have mastered that skill? Encourage students to notice their own abilities – perhaps it’s not as apparent to them as you may think.

Provide ample Kick Ass time in class: Make sure your students have time to show off what they can do. Develop presentations or activities which would allow students the opportunity to use their upgrades. (If you don’t use em, they’ll likely begin to disappear. )

How can you upgrade your students today? Think about it – and PLEASE comment!