From the spring semester of 2009 we will introduce a revamped IE Listening section, which we will call IE Active Listening. To summarize the changes:
- Although the first and last classes of the semester will take place as plenaries, for all the classes in between, each half of the class will alternate between a week of classroom instruction followed by a week of self-access or outside-of-class cooperative learning. Therefore, the size of each class–except for the initial and final ones–will be reduced by half.
- The smaller number of students in the classes will make it possible for teachers to introduce listening tasks, giving students the opportunity to take a more active approach to learning.
- Students will prepare for tasks outside of class and work on self-access materials that will be made available for each of the IE themes. A management system will keep a record of the students’ engagement with the listening materials, and summaries will be accessible to teachers.
- Eventually, we will work toward having teachers and students themselves author listening materials that will be made available to other students in their class, or program-wide, after they pass a vetting procedure. To achieve this, we are having software developed that will allow for the easy creation of listening material using embedded YouTube videos and podcasts.
Please refer to a PowerPoint presentation explaining the new program in detail.
Joseph Dias
