Group 3 Daily Summary 2.1


Group 3 Monday 2.1 Daily Summary

Today our second facilitator, Shannon Spasova, gave us a video overview and transcript of what to expect today, our textbook readings, and other recommended readings.  There were lots of great discussions today and our teacher was ever present, offering assistance and encouragement. I think that Rebecca also commented on every post!  Wonderful!

The first activity, Let’s Listen and Discuss!, involved a video Ted Talk by David Treasure about 5 ways to improve listening (this included RASA – Receive, Appreciate, Summarize and Ask), while another video and article from Language Magazine by a 17 year old polyglot, Akshay Swaminathan taught us step by step how to do Audio Dissection to improve listening and comprehension skills in the target language.

As regards Julian’s video and Akshay’s steps, Rebecca mentioned student impatience and the importance of tasks no being too long.  Rebecca also asks about whether or not to provide video transcripts with the audio exercises or as a link on another page.  She also wrote a clear summary of Audio Dissection that we as language teachers do use in Face to Face courses.  Julie states that she likes the RASA technique mentioned by David treasure, because it can improve all relationships.  The step by step nature of the Audio Dissection description was a little frustrating for Julie.  Rebecca also questioned this style, but both students decided that there was a time and place for Audio Dissection and could be used as early as the first year of learning a world language.

The 2nd activity, Teaching Challenge, Hui writes, “Julian Treasure gave a very beautiful speech in his TED talk.” She states that her biggest challenge will be finding authentic listening materials.  Julie was anxious about finding and focusing on good online activities that will help students reach appropriate ACTFL proficiency levels.  This will be her challenge. Rebecca states that she is a perfectionist, this making her well-suited to understanding the feelings of the online student.  She also enjoyed the Adobe Captivate lessons in Russian given by our instructor.  Rebecca’s challenge will be to put herself in her students’ shoes. 

The 3rd activity, Communication & Expectations In An Online Course, was a discussion aimed at the Russian lessons that we did today.  Julie wondered what to call a participation rubric when she is not allowed to grade her high school students on participation.  Julie did not feel she did well on the Russian lessons, but felt that repetition and encouragement will help her continue to learn.  Rebecca discusses co-construction of her course expectations with students and mentions an exercise where students evaluate examples of student comments and justify the grades awarded.  Rebecca, Julie and Monica enjoyed creating the voice thread video introduction in Russian.  Shannon’s modeling of the introduction was very helpful in completing this task.

Each of us created a Voice Thread video introducing ourselves to the person who uploaded before us and Shannon wrote comments to all of us.  We enjoyed making the videos.
  


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