Number Notation

During today’s talk you will need to write down many numbers. Some of these will be expressed as whole numbers, some as percentages, some as fractions, and some as ratios. Let’s do a little practice before the lecture. Here are some examples: If you hear "thirty-seven mil­lion," you should write this whole number as 37 mill. If you hear "three fourths" or "three quarters," you should write this fraction as 3/4. If you hear "one out of six," you should write this ratio as 1:6. If you hear "thirteen point four percent," you should write this percent­age as 13.4%. Let’s practice.

a.

b.

g-

h.

c.

f.

d.

e—————————————– j———————————————-

Follow-up: Check your answers with your teacher by saying each one as you write it on the board.

1. Rhetorical Cues

Lecturers usually use rhetorical cues to help their listeners follow the lecture. A rhetorical cue is a word or even a sentence that lets us know that some important information is coming or that a new subtopic or point is being introduced. Look at these rhetorical cues, and decide in which order you will probably hear them in today’s lecture. Order them from first (1) to fifth (5).

__ a. Another way of looking at the population…

___ b. Today we’re going to talk about population…

__ c. First of all, let’s take a look…

__ d. Now, to finish up…

__ e. Before we finish today…

Follow-up: Discuss your answers as a class.

Q A. First Listening

Listen for general ideas. After a brief introduction, the lecturer lists his three subtopics. He then goes on to discuss each one individually. As you listen, write down the three major subtopics in the spaces labeled ST1, ST2, and ST3. Take down details you have time for, but make sure you take down the subtopics.

NOTES

Introduction:

ST1

ST2

ST3

Follow-up: Now check your major subtopics with your teacher.

Q B. Further Listening

While listening again, write down necessary relevant details below the main subtopic to which they belong. Remember to use proper number notation to save time.

Follow-up: Check your notes. If you missed important information or have doubts about your notes, (1) verify them by asking a classmate questions to fill the gaps in your notes or (2) listen to the lecture a third time. When verifying your notes with a classmate, do not show each other your notes,* ask specific questions to get the information you need.

Examples: • In what regions do most people in the United States live?

• What percentage of the population is black?

• Did the lecturer say there were 6 million more women than men in the U. S. population?

This is also a good time to check to see if the lecturer answered your Predictions questions about the lecture.

<w) A. Accuracy Check

Listen to the following questions, and write short answers. Use your notes. You will hear each question one time only.

1. ——————————————————————————————–

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Follow-up: Check your answers with your teacher. If your score is less than 70 percent, you may need to listen to the lecture again or rewrite your notes so that you can understand and retrieve the information in them.

B. Oral Activities

1. Review

In pairs, use your notes to reproduce sections of the lecture. Student A will present the introduction and subtopic 1, including details, to Stu­dent B. Student В will present subtopics 2 and 3 with details to Student

A. Check what you hear against your notes. If you don’t understand or you disagree with what you hear, wait until your partner finishes. Then bring your notes into agreement by seeking clarification, as follows:

• Excuse me. I didn’t hear your percentage for Americans of Asian origin. Could you repeat it, please?

• I don’t think I agree with what you said about the five most popu­lous states. I think the five most populous states are….

• I’m afraid my notes are different from yours. …

If your class is multinational, prepare a short oral report about the population of your country, covering the points below. Work with the other students from your country.

If your classmates are all from your country, discuss the population of your country as a class. Discuss these points:

• the size of the population and where it is distributed geographically

• the most populous regions or cities

• whether the population in your country is increasing or decreasing and why

C. Collaboration: Summary

In groups of three, with one member acting as secretary, write a one – paragraph summary of the lecture on population. Use the questions be­low to decide which information to include. Write the answers in com­plete sentences in paragraph form, but limit your summary to 125 words.

• What is the present U. S. population?

• What are the percentages of the different races that make up the U. S. population?

• Which regions and states are the most populous? Is the population more rural or urban?

• Why are there more women than men? How much higher is women’s life expectancy than men’s?

• Is the average age of the population increasing or decreasing?

Follow-up: Exchange summaries with at least one other group. Check if the other group has summarized the lecture in a similar fashion.

D. Pursuing the Topic

The following are recommended for a closer look at the population of the United States:

Books/Periodicals/Internet

WWW, census. gov

This Web site has hundreds of tables and some interesting articles from the 2000 census. Besides more information about the cate­gories discussed in the lecture, you can find information on the composition of families, marital status, and employment of U. S. residents.

Any contemporary encyclopedia in English. Look up "United States," and find a section that interests you. For example, you could choose among population, rural and urban life, history, geography, and climate.

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The Population

A. Discussion

Discuss the following questions with your classmates:

• Do these pictures match your idea of the makeup of the U. S. population?

• Do you think the pictures reflect the racial diversity of the coun­try accurately?

• Do you think there are more old people or young people in the population?

• Do you think more people live in the East or in the West of the country?

Q B. Vocabulary and Key Concepts

Read through the sentences, trying to imagine which words would fit in the blanks. Then listen to a dictation of the full sentences, and write the missing words in the blanks.

1. Most countries take a__________________ every ten years or so

in order to count the people and to know where they are living.

2. A country with a growing population is a country that is becom­ing more.

3. A person’s_________________ is partly determined by skin color

and type of hair as well as other physical characteristics.

4. The majority of the U. S. population is of European_____________ .

5. The_____________________________________ of a country’s

population gives information about where the people are living.

6. The total population of the United States is___________________

_____________________________________ many different kinds

of people.

7. In other words, the population__________________ people of

different races and ages.

8. The average age of the U. S. population, which is a

__________________ large one, has been getting________________

higher recently.

9. areas are more___________________

populated than rural areas. That is, they have more people per square mile.

10. The use of antibiotics has greatly___________________ the

_____________________________________ throughout much of

the world.

11. A country whose_____________________________________

is higher than its death rate will have an__________________

population.

12. On the average, women have a higher_________________

__________________ than men do.

Follow-up: Check the spelling of the dictated words with your teacher.

Discuss the meanings of these words and any other unfamiliar words

in the sentences.

C. Predictions

Using the photographs and the vocabulary exercise as a starting point,

write three questions that you think will be answered in the lecture.

Examples: • Is the number of minorities increasing or decreasing?

• Why is the average age of the U. S. population increasing?

1. _

2.

3.

Follow-up: After you have written your questions, share them with your teacher and your classmates.

Q D. Notetaking Preparation

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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

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CHAPTER OUTLINE

Provided below is an explanation of the purpose of each part of a full chapter, which requires about three 50-minute periods to complete. (Teachers who opt to do Pursuing the Topic will need additional periods.)

Discussion: to introduce the topic, to stimulate students’ curiosity, and to begin establishing a cognitive schema for the lecture through a discussion of illustrations.

Vocabulary and Key Concepts: to familiarize students with new sub – technical vocabulary and with the major concepts of the chapter.

Predictions: to get students to invest in the lesson by predicting the content of the lecture through their questions. As students share their prediction questions with the class, a schema for the content is further established.

Notetaking Preparation: to give students strategies for understanding the organization of lectures and for taking down information in an or­ganized manner and in a meaningful, usable form.

Listening: to lead students through a series of listenings to distinguish the main subtopics from supporting details. Some guidance is given, but content is stressed over skills, and the emphasis is on repeated practice at notetaking.

Accuracy Check: to check students’ comprehension and the complete­ness of their notes through a ten-question short-answer quiz.

Oral Activities: to provide small-group oral practice that draws on the language and information of the lecture as input to improve students’ oral competence. At the same time, students check the completeness of their notes, which they use for these activities.

Review: reconstruction of different portions of the lecture.

Transfer: questions for discussion or for an oral report on a similar topic in the students’ countries.

Collaboration: to provide opportunities for students to further develop language and academic skills in small groups through discussion, sum­mary writing, and writing answers to essay questions.

Pursuing the Topic: to offer suggestions for further study of the topic through readings, videos, the Internet, and interviews.

Unit Quiz Preparation (at the end of each unit): to help students antici­pate unit quiz questions by reviewing notes in order to distinguish main ideas from supporting ones. Students write quiz questions and answer them.

Unit Quiz: to evaluate students’ mastery of the skills and content taught and to simulate the college or university experience of taking a test on content. Quizzes require both short answers and essays. The Unit Quizzes are available on the Heinle Listening and Notetaking Web site: notetaking. heinle. com.

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To the Teacher

Teachers will find that Noteworthy offers both stimulating topics for study and great versatility. Any one of its three major goals can be emphasized to fit the needs of different classes. A teacher who chooses not to devote the extra time needed for students to take notes could use the materials for listening comprehension with a focus on cultural content. Individual lessons could be used to provide background for further treatment of a topic, and suggestions for doing so are given. And, of course, the teacher who wishes to concentrate on production could use the lectures as input for the accompanying oral and written exercises.

Note: The symbol Q in the margin indicates that the material needed to complete the listening activity is on the accompanying Audio CD or cassette tape.

FEATURES IN THE THIRD EDITION

A new feature added to the third edition of Noteworthy is a video component. The lecture for each chapter is now available on DVD or VHS. The video is meant to be used as a complement to the tra­ditional audio program. Students may opt to view a chapter’s lec­ture on video in order to simulate a more authentic classroom lis­tening and notetaking experience.

• The audioscript for Noteworthy is now conveniently located in the back of the Student Book, in Appendix A.

• The Unit Quizzes and Quiz Answer Keys are now located on the Heinle Listening and Notetaking Web site. Teachers can download them from notetaking. heinle. com.

• New topics, "Globalization" and "Distance Education," as well as updated lectures from the second edition.

• Extensive work on rhetorical cues to help students detect the organ­ization of the lectures.

• Communicative follow-ups to lectures in which students verify their notes by asking each other questions.

• Accuracy checks that require students to refer to their notes rather than answer questions from memory.

• Transfer activities that accommodate EFL as well as ESL classes.

• Collaborative activities for writing summaries and essay question answers as well as for developing critical thinking skills.

• Suggestions for pursuing the topic.

• Quiz preparation for each unit. Students review lectures and collaborate in writing short-answer and essay exam questions.

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