Sarina Sarinasssuri

With some of my high school students I start the classes with a listening activity that usually is a song. I provide the lyrics with a few words missing that the students have to fill in, promoting the students to actively listen. From this, they also get to hear music from another culture. I use a university level textbook that has activities and go through a few activities each lesson. I stop and explain complex ideas in pictures and sometimes tell stories to help memorize concepts. My teaching is adaptive to each student and can change depending on what the student is looking for. Usually I keep lessons in a 50-55 minute window allowing for a short break in between if they need. I let the student do as much of the work as possible to promote critical thinking. I also give positive reinforcement and try to reframe incorrect answers to understand why things are wrong rather than just moving on. From this, I hope students can understand and learn from mistakes instead of feel like the concepts are too confusing and hard. On occasion, I have given students a podcast to listen to and come prepared with questions for the next class. Usually these podcasts are children's stories where the narrator speaks a little bit slower than a native speaker so students can follow along. As time goes on, I gradually increase the speed of the narrator so students can understand the range of dialects, speeds, and topics present in podcasts and listening activities.