Tues Feb 23

I was glad to see that all four teacher trainees made a good effort to read the final Brown article even though I know they all have a lot of work at the moment. They are still working hard and doing what I ask them to do, which I appreciate. As I said, we worked through the Brown article "The present - an informed approach", making good progress before the 5pm class.

The best laid plans ... I tried to get everything organised before class began - managed to get the remote control for the DVD player, got the movie ready, etc. etc., only to find halfway through the class that the CD I'd brought for the listening strategies exercise was not the right one. For some reason there is always some risk when dealing with technology. Fortunately I was able to use a text from "consolidation of modules 5-8" which may even have worked better. The first text was rather quick and had a number of vocabulary items (lorry, pushcart, toddler). They were only able to glean a very small amount of information from the first listening, and some of the information was wrong - which at least shows they were trying to make guesses. I waited a while for someone to ask to hear the recording again, but no-one did! Finally I asked if they'd like to hear it again, and they all said yes ... On the second listening they got more key information, although still not everything.

I gave them the strategies handout, and they filled it out (and I forgot to ask them for them at the end of class) and shared a little of the more commonly-used strategies; and I asked them to use some strategies for listening to the next recording. This time I also gave them some pre-listening information: it's a news report, it's on a shark attack, it's by the same newsreader as the previous one. This time, after listening, they got a whole lot more from the first time; and the second time they got practically all the necessary information. So I'm happy that the recording worked even though it's not the one I normally use. It was shorter and the first was definitely more difficult; but at least this time and with the time available it was just right.

This time to watch the beginning of Stardust (after much pondering whether we should watch Bend it like Beckham and deciding against it) I put English subtitles on . I think this was very useful for allowing them to understand better the initial relationships and early plot. I do plan to show the rest of the movie tomorrow without subtitles; but I think I'll do as some TTs suggested today and play the first 30 minutes tomorrow without subtitles, then do a comprehension check and decide on that basis whether to continue without or put them back on. 90 minutes is a long time without subtitles; but again, the idea is for them to use different strategies than just reading what they hear.