This audio is from Angie. It represents the first time we have ever tried to share samples of our teaching here with audio only. I think it works and I hope that many of us take the time to respond with our thoughts to Angie’s request from the group here:
Ben,
Here’s a link to a 10-minute audio of me attempting Movie Talk with a friendly group of 15 students. We’ve been together 11 days. They are a mixed-level group of first and second semester Novices on an 85-min block schedule. The clip is the Google Doodle from Valentine’s Day 2012, which Sabrina demoed in Maine this fall. She worked it for 30 minutes without sweating it, and here I manage 8 minutes…barely. Would love feedback.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzSxifAYqW5_VnFMSDNqT3NoNmM/view?usp=sharing
Angie wanted to hear our comments on why possibly she had trouble going even eight minutes with this MovieTalk. I don’t know how many screenshots she was working with, but some things that came to my mind when listening to the audio were:
1. She had great one word yes/no/single responses all the way through. It is really good CI process, just the way we want.
2. I think if she had done some comparing/contrasting with some of the kids and tried to develop some kind of parallel track to the MT image she was working with, it could have added some personalized interest from the kids.
3. SLOW was great.
4. Perhaps she stayed on one image too long. It was more like a flat and open discussion of what was visible and could have used some kind of story development as well to keep it interesting. Maybe this is an inherent flaw in MovieTalk, that it is hard to develop a strong forward moving because single static images dominate and slow down the development of action, which is critical to interest.
5. For those who haven’t heard the technique of echoing, like an owl, of the question word “Quien” with “hoo, hoo” (Who) happens at 4:30 and again at 6:OO minutes in this audio. Very nice and a mnemonic trick people might want to incorporate into their teaching, like the “Où/Where” echo we use in French.
I thought that this MT was quite good. Definitely large amounts of properly paced word chunks. Solid CI teaching and I know that Angie wants advice on how to make it more alive but honestly she is definitely doing her job here – it’s not all about wonderful and crackingly interesting input. The use of English further supports my ideas about blurting in recent posts. Thoughts from the group are welcome here. What ideas can we offer Angie about this tape?