SECTION 2

Interviewer: What was your holiday location and how did you hear about it?

Interviewee: My holiday location was New York, I heard about visiting New York from some friends who were there and who were impressed of the beauty of the city and who even decided to stay there and start a new life. My friend and I received an invitation last summer from these friends so I spent my holiday there. It was the best holiday I’ve ever been on.

Interviewer: So, you just went there with one friend, right?

Interviewee: Yes. I travelled with my best friend and it was very exciting because it was the first time either of us had travelled by plane- Our excitement grew higher and higher as we got close to new york . At the airport I saw a lot of foreigners who had come there to work or to visit this incredible city and I must say I was amazed by the number of these foreigners, I don’t think I have ever seen so many foreign people in one place.

Interviewer: How much time did you spend finding out information about New York and what resources did you use?

Interviewee: I gathered the information I needed from my friends who live there, from the Internet, from the brosius that I took from the American embassy and of course from the travel agency where I got an idea of the cost of the trip and the flights . We got cheaper tickets by not taking a direct flight. We changed planes in London.

Interviewer: Can you tell us the thing you like most in this place?

Interviewee: The thing that I liked most in New York was definitely the variety of buildings and monuments . I also enjoyed the parks. They were great. New York is a unique city. It’s like you are in the middle of the world. It’s considered by many to be the economic centre of the world. I also liked the people. Some people told me that New Yorkers have a reputation for being unfriendly , but I didn’t notice this.

Interviewer: Were there any things that you didn’t like?

Interviewee: I think that the downside of my holiday was that there are crowds on the streets every day, almost all day long. Also, sometimes the bad weather that kept us in the house.

Interviewer: How was your accommodation?

Interviewee: My friends live in a big flat. My friend and I shared a bedroom , which was very big and comfortable and most of all we had the perfect view-view overlooking the ocean. So I must say that we had all the comfort we needed. They even gave us access to a computer for us to check our email or to play on when we were in the mood and when the weather was bad.

Interviewer: You said that the people there were fine.

Interviewee: Yes. The people from New York are very kind and now I will tell everybody I know this. Whenever we needed help on the street, because we didn’t know where to go or because we found the map confusing , they always gave us a hand and helped us find our way.

Interviewer: Did you make any new friends? Have you kept in touch?

Interviewee: Yes I made some new friends there. I made friends with mv friend’s neighbors . We spent much of our time together and sometimes they were our guides around the city.

Interviewer: How did you spend your time? Did you participate in any recreational activities?

Interviewee: During the day we went visiting and walking on the streets for hours. And when the weather was bad we played a lot of chess. We had the chance to participate in the 78th Annual Feast of San Gennaro, but we missed the 36th Annual African American Day Parade through the whole of Manhattan. And we went to the Richmond County Fair on Staten Island, which amazed us in every possible way.

SECTION 3

Tutor: Come in, everyone. The office might be a bit crowded with four of us and all these materials! There’s coffee over there-help yourselves. … Now, we’re here to discuss three types of learners- learners kinesthetic , visual and auditory-and how we can teach each type. I gave each of you one of them to consider. Jack, can we look at yours first, please. You were assigned to kinaesthetic learners, weren’t you?

Jack: Yes, I was. The first idea I had was using gestures , particularly finger gestures. Teachers can use them to emphasizes tress on certain syllables . They can also use their fingers to write words in the air-spelling out the letters. The second thing is that the teacher can use the board. The teacher can ask students to spell words by going to the board and writing them up. The teacher could also ask students to write a letter each, in order. The teacher could put a poster on the board and students could go to the board with labels and label it as directed by the teacher. Another possibility is to ask students to organise words into categories on the board.

Tutor: Good. The important thing is to keep kinaesthetic learners active- moving.

Helen: Games are good for them. Jack, did you think of any?

Jack: Yes, Helen. I thought of a couple. One is like charades . Divide the students into two or three teams. Give the students on one team some words and ask them to act them out. For example, if the word is ‘cold’, a student might shiver. The other teams have to guess the words.

Tutor: Good idea. Simple, but effective. Well done. Tina?

Tina: Well, I was asked to think about teaching visual learners. Flash cards are good in my opinion . The students can guess words from seeing part of the flashcard-which can be a word or a picture-or the teacher can show students the flash cards very quickly. Maybe that’s how flash cards got their name! Flash cards can also have different background colours depending on which part of speech they are- noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc. Students could also learn from their peers by highlighting words they don’t know, in a text for example, then asking, helping each other with unknown words.

Jack: I know a good game for visual learners. Make a set of cards-half with words on and half with pictures . The cards are face down and students can turn over two at a time. If the word and picture match, they keep the cards. If they don’t, they turn them face down again and the next student tries.

Tutor: Great idea. Visual learners are often good at categorizing words.

Each page in the student’s notebook refers to a category of words. Students write new words on the correct page in their notebook for faster recall. For example, page one might be food and page two could be telephone phrases .

Tina: Spider diagrams are good too.

Tutor: Yes, they are. Helen, you were assigned auditory learners.

Helen: OK. I had these ideas for teaching auditory learners. First, they could listen to a dictation and draw what they hear. For example, students listen to the teacher describing items of furniture and then draw them in the appropriate rooms of the house. Or the teacher could describe a picture. After the description , the teacher and students can see whose picture was closest to the original. Flash cards can also be used. Each student gets a flashcard and they hold up their card when they hear that word or phrase in a song, poem or story. Another way of using them is to go around the class, with each student adding a sentence to a story, including the word on their flash card.

Tutor: Auditory learners can also learn using songs and music. Any suggestions ?

Tina: The teacher could give the students a text of a song, you know, the lyrics, with some words replaced by a rhyming word. Students then listen to the song and make corrections .

Tutor: That’s a really good idea. Perfect for auditory learners. Well, thank you for your suggestions. I have a few other ideas you might consider

SECTION 4

Tutor: Welcome to this class on note taking. Let’s take a look at the basics first of all. The first question we need to look at is ‘Why take notes?1 The purpose of taking notes during a lecture is to help you to concentrate on what the speaker is saying and to provide you with a summary in note form so that you can write up your notes in full later. Also, it may be that the notes provided by the lecturer are not sufficient -the lecturer may add new information during the lecture and your own notes will be needed to provide you with a complete record of the lecture. Taking your own notes will promote a deeper understanding of the content of the lecture.

So, how do you take notes? The general principle in note taking is to reduce the language by shortening words and sentences. The following advice will help you to take notes efficiently , leaving you free to listen to your lecturer. Remember that these notes are for you and as such you can use any method you like, so long as it enables you to reproduce the ideas contained in the notes and show how these ideas connect to each other later. However, there are certain principles you should bear in mind and certain conventions that are commonly used which you may find useful, First of all, you must be able to determine what you need to write down, what is important to you.

How do you know what is important and what is not? This is not an easy question to answer, but there are things you can look out for, The first piece of information you receive is the title of the lecture. This is perhaps the most important single piece of information of the whole lecture , so you should make sure that you write it down in full. Even better-find out what it is beforehand so that you can have time to think about what the lecture will be about.

Secondly, listen for direct or indirect signals from the lecturer that tell you what is importance . As a direct signal, for example, he/she may say, “This is important, write it down,” or “Make sure you get this down.” Or, he/she may make indirect signals such as pausing before saying something important, or saying it slowly, loudly or with greater stress. Listen for repetition . When the lecturer repeats a point, go back to your first notes and add in any new details or information.

When a teacher or lecturer recommends a student to read a book it’s usually for a particular purpose . The book may contain useful information about the topic being studied or it may be invaluable for the ideas or views that it puts forward, and so on. In many cases, the teacher doesn’t suggest that the whole book should be read. In fact, he may just refer to a few pages which have a direct bearing on the matter being discussed.

Now, how should you write your notes? As mentioned above, you can make notes in any way that you like, but the following guidelines will help you to develop a style that is both quick and accurate . Concentrate on the important ideas-avoid avoid repetition and omit things that do not need to be stated specifically because only you yourself will be reading the notes and you will know what they are referring to. Summarise important ideas- you can use words that are not used by the lecturer to restate in a shorter form what he/she is saying. Write in short phrases rather than in complete sentences.

Many students ask me when they should write up their notes. You might not have time to note down everything you want during the lecture itself so you must rewrite them as soon as possible so that you minimise the risk of forgetting something. Finally, you should decide on a personal note-taking style and be willing to adapt according to whom you are listening.

For more practice in note taking, take a look at these books which can be found in the resource Room: “Study Listening” by Tony Lynch, particularly units 6 and 12. Then there’s “Learning to Study in English” by Brian Heaton and Don Dun more, more especially units 5 and 10. The first one is published by Cambridge University Press and the second one is published by Oxford University Press.