SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING

Discussion: Question students briefly about the photographs to get them to focus on them and to introduce the topic. Then discuss the questions as a class. Write important vocabulary on the board, if time permits. The activity should require no more than a few minutes, just enough time to introduce the topic and arouse curiosity. Time: 4-5 minutes.

Vocabulary and Key Concepts: Have students quickly read through the sentences silently before they listen to the dictated sentences on the tape. This encourages students to invest in the exercise and may be done as homework. After they listen to the tape and fill in the blanks, quickly go over the spelling of each word, and discuss the meanings of words they ask about. Time: 10-12 minutes.

Predictions: Ask students to write three questions about the possible content of the lecture so that they make more of an investment in the lesson. If the example questions aren’t enough to get them started writ­ing their own questions, ask a "leading" question or two: Do you know how many people there are in the United States? (pause) How would you write the question to find out? Time: 8-10 minutes.

Notetaking Preparation: Go over the skill in Section D. l and have stu­dents practice the skill if appropriate. Try to move quickly, because they will practice the skill again during the lecture. Some skill exer­cises could also be assigned as homework, and those that require pre­lecture reading should be. Section D.2, which generally deals with the organization of the lecture, can be done as homework and checked in class to save time. Time: will vary depending on the particular skill in D. l and whether D.2 is done in class or at home.

Listening: The text calls for two listenings per lecture and additional listening outside of class for those students who fail to get at least 70 percent on the Accuracy Check. There is nothing magical in these numbers. Students stronger in listening comprehension may do well with fewer listenings from the beginning, and weaker students may need more, especially at the beginning of the course. Take into account the general level of the class when deciding how many whole-class lis­tenings to do. Try to maintain some pressure without pushing students to the frustration level. If possible, provide an opportunity for addi­tional listening outside class. Ideally, in one class period, you should get through at least the Prelistening Activities and the First Listening. Time: depends on the length of each lecture and the number of listen­ings done in class. (Actual lecture times vary from about 7 minutes to about 12 minutes.)

Accuracy Check: Do as quickly as is feasible. After students listen to and answer questions by referring to their notes, discuss only those an­swers that students disagree on. Try to raise their consciousness about why they missed an answer: Did they misunderstand the lecture? Were

their notes inaccurate? Or were they unable to locate the information in their notes? Sometimes students try to write down too much and miss relevant information. Sometimes they may simply be unable to locate information that they have in their notes. Recommendations for further listening and/or rewriting notes should be made at this time. Strive to complete and discuss the Accuracy Check by the end of the second class. Time: 12-15 minutes.

Oral Activities:

Review: Be sure that every student is involved in the activity by having individual students responsible for assigned sections of the lecture. (If students get their "assignments" the previous day, they can prepare at home and save class time.) You can vary the activity by having pairs or small groups of students prepare the same sec­tion together. Sometimes you may want individual students to re­port on their sections to just one other student; at other times, pairs or small groups can report to the whole class. Time: 10-25 minutes, depending on the complexity and length of the lecture and on the format you choose.

Transfer: Students in multinational classes will benefit from doing reports about their own countries on topics from the lectures. Stu­dents from the same country can work together to prepare the re­ports and present the information as a panel or assign one individ­ual to present it. In either case, students should prepare brief notes to speak from rather than write out the full report. Students in ho­mogeneous classes, such as those in EFL settings, will find class discussions more interesting and less duplicative of effort and in­formation. Time: will vary depending on the activity chosen, class size, and number of different national groups.

Collaboration: Appoint one member of the group as a leader, one as a recorder, and one as a reporter (when appropriate). Establish realistic time limits for completing the activity. Allow enough time for sharing upon completion of the task. Each group should receive peer feedback especially for summary writing and essay question answer writing. If time is short, assign fewer questions per group for the discussion and essay question answer writing. Time: depends on which skill is being practiced and the number of questions assigned.

Pursuing the Topic: If your schedule and course design allow, you may want to use our suggestions for further study of the topic. We have tried to include suggestions for further listening, reading, and speaking, but not every topic lends itself easily to all three. The suggestions are obviously not exhaustive, but they may remind you of works that you find more suitable for use with your students. Or the students them­selves can treat this activity as a research project in which they look for articles, stories, and books that they read and report to the class on. Students in an EFL setting, who will have difficulty finding informants

for interviews, may be able to locate one American who would be will­ing to be interviewed by the whole class. Time: will vary according to the material and activities chosen.

Follow-up Activities: Keep all follow-up activities as brief as possible. Besides providing feedback, they are also meant to remind students of the purpose of the just-completed task and to provide closure before moving to the next activity. Time: 2-3 minutes.

Unit Quiz Preparation: Our experience is that students retain informa­tion better and do better on quizzes when they anticipate the questions that will be asked. Use this section to help students anticipate quiz questions by having them review their notes and then write practice short-answer and essay exam questions. To save class time, students can review their notes at home by looking at the information in terms of main ideas and details that support the main ideas within each ma­jor subtopic. In class, small groups should then be ready to write short – answer questions that focus more on the details of the lecture as well as essay exam questions that focus more on the main ideas, albeit with support from details.

Students may well benefit from a reminder about correct question form: question word/auxiliary/subject/verb, in most cases. You may also want to walk around and give some guidance as students work, especially in the first units, to make sure that students understand their task. It is probably advisable to tell them that the quiz you even­tually give will not derive directly from their questions,- at the same time, if their notes are accurate and well-organized, they will have asked many of the same questions that the authors provide in the unit quizzes. Use the follow-up as a chance for students to evaluate their comprehension/retention of the lecture. Discuss their short-answer questions; use the better ones as review. Discuss their essay ques­tions; choose one or two for written follow-up if desired. Time: 8-10 minutes per chapter.

Unit Quizzes (Available on the Heinle Listening and Notetaking Web site http://notetaking. heinle. com: The primary purposes of the quizzes are to build motivation to take good notes and to simulate a college ex­perience. In a college class, students take notes that they later use to study from to prepare for tests. The time interval can be rather short, or it can be quite long—several weeks, for example.

We suggest giving a quiz on each unit. Assign point values to each question. Short-answer questions obviously earn fewer points than es­say questions, and you may want to weight more difficult questions with additional points. On a 25-point scale, the short-answer questions could count a total of 10 points and the essay questions, if both are as­signed, a total of 15 points.

We suggest that you let students know how much each question is worth and how much time they should devote to each portion of the quiz. If the class has studied all three chapters in a unit, you will have