Financial Accounting Exxon Shell Case Essay Example for Free

Financial Accounting Exxon Shell Case Essay Objective: Understanding the effect of inventory valuation assumptions on financial statements. Assignment summary: You are taking the role of a security analyst who recently started following the Oil and Gas industry. The analyst has a task to draw a comparison of several financial indicators for two industry leaders: Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell, based on their income statements and balance sheets (attached at the end of this document) as well as the information from the notes to the financial statements summarized below. The two companies appear to be quite similar and are similar in size based on total assets. A private investor notes, however, that some financial ratios appear to be different. Your task is to guide an investor through the basic steps that will help them understand the effect of inventory valuation assumptions on the financial ratios. The following information is based on Exxon’s and Shell’s 2011 Annual Reports. Exxon Mobil Background information. Exxon Mobil Corporation was incorporated in the State of New Jersey in 1882. Divisions and affiliated companies of ExxonMobil operate or market products in the United States and most other countries of the world. Their principal business is energy, involving exploration for, and production of, crude oil and natural gas, manufacture of petroleum products and transportation and sale of crude oil, natural gas, and petroleum products. NOTES TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS Inventories. Crude oil, products, and merchandise inventories are carried at the lower of current market value or cost (generally determined under the last-in, first-out method – LIFO). Inventory costs include expenditures and other charges (including depreciation) directly and indirectly incurred in bringing the inventory to its existing condition and location. Selling expenses and general and administrative expenses are reported as period costs and excluded from inventory cost. Inventories of materials and supplies are valued at cost or less (i.e., lower of cost or market). The aggregate replacement cost of inventories was estimated to exceed their LIFO carrying values by $25.6 billion and $21.3 billion at December 31, 2011, and 2010, respectively (Convert LIFO to FIFO).

Comparison of A Farewell to Arms and The Great Gatsby Essay -- Ernest

Comparison of A Farewell to Arms and The Great Gatsby The author’s style from Ernest Hemigway’s A Farewell to Arms differ from F.Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby in many ways. Fitzgerald uses a more reflective style of writing meaning that he makes his characters reflect and the theme also includes reflection from the reader as well as the plot. On the other hand, Hemingway uses a more self-interest style with its theme, characters, and plot, meaning that he makes this book on his own personal experiences that cause the theme, plot and characters to differ in many ways. For example, the styles in which the characters are described are very different. Hemingway makes his characters less educated and from a lower social ranking than the characters from The Great Gatsby. Fredrick Henry, who is the main character in A Farewell to Arms, is less educated than Nick Carraway who is the main character in The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby also has a totally opposite theme than A Farewell to Arms because the them es that are employed by Fitzgerald’s book, are more about corruption of American youth and the education of young Americans while in Hemingway’s book, the themes are related to war and love. The plot from A Farewell to Arms is also very much different from the plot in The Great Gatsby whose plot is about five friends who meet this â€Å"millionaire† and all the time, he was lying about the money he had. H had said to be millionaire but wasn’t. In A Farewell to Arms, the plot is much more different emphasizing on a much more complicated problem. The plot is about Fredrick Henry who is an ambulance driver and deals with war issues during World War I. Fredrick Henry from Hemingway’s book is very different from Nick Carraway from Fitzgerald’s book. Henry is a young, ambulance driver that serves for the Italian army during the First World War. Henry is a very disciplined and courageous young European boy that discovers love with Catherine Barkley, an American nurse whose fiancà © was killed during a battle between Germany and Italy during World war I. Frederic Henry is an immature, troubled young man, caught in a terrible war. He is very much involved with drinking and picking up women only to have sex with them. On the other hand, Nick Carraway is a more centered young boy who went to Yale University and graduated with a major in business bon... ...In A Farewell to Arms, many upcoming events from the war lead the two happily united love partners to separate and take their own ways because of their jobs and then they reunite back together when Fredrick is severely injured by a bomb and is taken to a nearby hospital in which Catherine is the head, leading nurse and she takes care of him and they get married. In conclusion, The Great Gatsby is not related to A Farewell to Arms because of the ways the two aurthoprs express themselves. Fitzgerald uses a more reflective style of writing while Hemingway uses a more self-interest style with its theme, characters, and plot. The styles in which the characters are described are very different in both of the books. The Great Gatsby also has a totally opposite theme than A Farewell to Arms because the themes that are employed by Fitzgerald’s book, are more about corruption of American youth and the education of young Americans while in Hemingway’s book, the themes are related to war and love. The plot from A Farewell to Arms is also very much different from the plot in The Great Gatsby . These two books could never be compared due to their style in which the author has written them.

The College Board: Connecting Students to College Success

Professional DeveloPment AP Spanish Language  ® Teaching Listening Comprehension Special Focus 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 1 8/15/08 2:59:34 PM The College Board: Connecting Students to College Success The College Board is a not-for-profit membership association whose mission is to connect students to college success and opportunity. Founded in 1900, the association is composed of more than 5,400 schools, colleges, universities, and other educational organizations.Each year, the College Board serves seven million students and their parents, 23,000 high schools, and 3,500 colleges through major programs and services in college admissions, guidance, assessment, financial aid, enrollment, and teaching and learning. Among its best-known programs are the SAT ®, the PSAT/NMSQT ®, and the Advanced Placement Program ® (AP ®). The College Board is committed to the principles of excellence and equity, and that commitment is embodied in all of its programs, services, activities, an d concerns.For further information, visit www. collegeboard. com. The College Board acknowledges all the third-party content that has been included in these materials and respects the intellectual property rights of others. If we have incorrectly attributed a source or overlooked a publisher, please contact us. Page 14, 16: â€Å"Lluvias en Costa Rica dejan 18 muertos† from Radio de las Naciones Unidas, October 19, 2007 (http://www. un. org/radio/es/detail/6528. html). Used by permission of the United Nations.  © 2008 The College Board.All rights reserved. College Board, Advanced Placement Program, AP, AP Central, AP Vertical Teams, connect to college success, and the acorn logo are registered trademarks of the College Board. PSAT/NMSQT is a registered trademark of the College Board and National Merit Scholarship Corporation. All other products and services may be trademarks of their respective owners. Visit the College Board on the Web: www. collegeboard. com. 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 2 8/15/08 2:59:35 PM Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Brant Hadzima 2. Pre-AP ® Listening Comprehension Strategies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 ann mar 3. General Strategies for AP ® Spanish Listening Comprehension . . . . . . . . . 31 Brant Hadzima 4. Listening Strategies for Multiple-Choice Assessments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45 maria redmon 5. Listening Strategies in Preparation to Speak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Daizha Heberling 6.Listening Strategies in Preparation to Write . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65 Jill Pellettieri 7. About the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83 8. About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83 iii 08- 1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 3 8/15/08 2:59:35 PM 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 4 8/15/08 2:59:35 PM Introduction Brant Hadzima Newfound Regional High School Bristol, New HampshireThe AP ® Spanish Language Examination is an assessment designed to determine a student’s overall level of fluency in Spanish. This summative language examination employs a variety of authentic assessments that require students to demonstrate competence and fluency in Spanish. Most recently, the examination has been revised to best assess authentic use of the language, and the spirit and intent of the new examination is based wholly upon assessing integrated language skills. The four essential skills required to communicate fluently in a language are reading, writing, speaking, and listening.These skills are interconnected, and therefore the AP Spanish Language Examination does not assess them separately. Virtually every aspect of the examination requires students to integrate all four of these ski lls in some form in order to perform a particular task. In preparing for the examination it is important that the teacher instruct, practice, and assess all of these four individual skills. Although ideally classes should be designed to integrate skills as much as possible, it is important to first ensure that all four skills are properly developed.One cannot simply assume that because a student can write fluently in a language, he or she can also speak it with the same level of competence. The skills may be intrinsically interrelated, but they certainly do not develop uniformly. In some instances it may be necessary to allocate more time and effort to master one specific area of competency than another. Therefore, the intent of this unit is to focus predominately on one of the four essential skills: listening comprehension. Instruction, practice, and assessments have been specifically designed to hone listening comprehension skills.This unit can be used as a full AP Spanish listeni ng comprehension unit, or components of the unit may be utilized for additional remediation in listening comprehension as needed. 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 1 8/15/08 2:59:35 PM s Pecial focus: Teaching Listening Comprehension The authors have made every effort to provide appropriate pedagogical research as well as practical suggestions for classroom strategies designed to develop listening comprehension skills. As the title states, this special focus unit is based upon integrating listening comprehension skills across the modes of communication.There are several modes of communication that are assessed in the AP Spanish Examination, and consequently the unit is separated into five sections to address these modes: †¢ Pre-AP ® Listening Comprehension Skills †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ GeneralStrategiesforAPSpanishListeningComprehension ListeningStrategiesforMultiple-ChoiceAssessments ListeningStrategiesinPreparationtoSpeak ListeningStrategiesinPreparationtoWrite Finall y, although listening comprehension prompts on the AP Spanish Language Examination will inevitably vary in style, format, and content, the authors have endeavored to address a variety of means in which listening comprehension can be assessed.It is the intent of the authors to provide not only research-based theory but also practical strategies that can be readily employed and also further adapted to address all styles of listening comprehension assessment. 2 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 2 8/15/08 2:59:35 PM Pre-AP ® Listening Comprehension Strategies ann mar Alamo Heights High School San Antonio, Texas The Challenge of AP ® Listening Comprehension Success on the AP Spanish Language Exam requires highly developed listening comprehension skills—skills that cannot be achieved in a one-year AP course.Success depends on vertical teaming—the coordinated work of all the teachers from the beginning levels through the AP course. To make the goals of equity and access to A P success a reality, we need to provide ALL students at every level the opportunity to develop strong listening skills. To start teaching with the end in mind, all teachers in the program must be familiar with the AP Exam, and in particular with the role listening comprehension plays on the test. Four separate parts of the test, totaling 60 percent of the score, rely to some extent upon the student’s ability to understand spoken Spanish.A description of those AP Spanish Language Exam tasks that include a listening component follows. Multiple-Choice Listening (20%) This section includes a series of short and long dialogues and narrations testing a student’s ability to comprehend the main idea, understand details, make inferences, make predictions, and infer social relationships. The test consists of 30 to 35 questions and lasts around 30–35 minutes. Formal Writing (Integrated Skills) (20%) One of the three sources students must incorporate in their formal essay i s an audio recording, which is played 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. ndd 3 8/15/08 2:59:35 PM s Pecial focus: Teaching Listening Comprehension only once. Students must take notes and refer to the source in their essay, synthesizing rather than merely summarizing. Informal Speaking – Simulated Conversation (10%) Students participate in a conversation, creating 5–6 responses of 20 seconds each to audio prompts. Students follow a functional script, reacting to the recorded stimulus. The task requires real-time processing for immediate response; the thread of the conversation may include unexpected twists requiring accurate listening comprehension and quick thinking.Formal Oral Presentation (Integrated Skills) (10%) One of the two sources for the formal oral presentation is an audio recording played only once. Students must take notes and refer to the source in the oral presentation, comparing rather than only summarizing. There are additional challenges. The listening passages include a broad variety of regional accents and cover a wide range of academic, social and cultural topics. The recordings may include background distractions such as music or ambient noise, and may have a rapid rate of delivery as is normal in radio news. Pre-AP StrategiesTo start preparing students for these challenges from the start, I have outlined 10 strategies that teachers of beginning and intermediate levels can use to build students’ listening skills starting at the beginning levels. The strategies, sample activities, sources, and rubrics proposed here are meant to contribute to the lively exchange of ideas and experiences among teachers. I encourage teachers to try these and other strategies and share your successes and difficulties via the AP Electronic DiscussionGroup,anddepartmentandprofessionalmeetings. Principles for Building Listening ComprehensionStrategy 1: Teach in Spanish and teach about the Spanish-speaking world. Strategy 2:Getthemostoutoftextbook liste ning materials. Strategy 3: Design listening activities that provide evidence of engagement, including note taking. Strategy 4: Use authentic materials, with scaffolding tasks. Strategy 5: Develop generic tasks for listening, and use them often. 4 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 4 8/15/08 2:59:35 PM Pre-AP ® Listening Comprehension Strategies Strategy 6: Vary the evaluation of listening tasks making it appropriate to the purpose of the task. Strategy 7: Develop your skill at finding appropriate listening materials on the web.Strategy 8:Getstudentsspeaking with native speakers early on, and use technology to share their conversations with classmates. Strategy 9: Teach and practice component skills like recognizing cognates, listening for gist, etc. Strategy 10: Create a culture of listening in your classroom and program. Strategy 1: Teach in Spanish, and teach about the Spanish speaking world. From Spanish I onward, use Spanish to teach. Teach and use the words and expressions neede d for classroom routines right from the start. Classroom instructions and interaction is authentic communication, and is comprehensible, because it is â€Å"here and now. Established routines help minimize the need for English explanations. Team with your whole department to educate administrators, counselors, and parents about your approach. Praise and grant occasional random rewards for attentive students who immediately follow instructions given in Spanish. The more students know about the countries, cities, regions, physical and human geography, history, art, conflicts, challenges, and traditions, the better equipped they will be to understand authentic listening passages produced in and for the cultures of the Spanish-speaking world.Throughout the program, we need to build students’ knowledge of the Spanish-speaking world. Assign students a country, and then periodically ask them to report to the class about that country, regarding the topic at hand. For instance, in a unit on the environment, students report on the park system, endangered species, or environmental challenges of â€Å"their† country. In a unit on careers, have them research and report on two or three large employers in the country, or an aspect of the economy of the country. In a unit on food, each student can provide details of the national cuisine.This type of reporting can begin at the earliest levels, with research in English, Spanish, or both. Strategy 2: Get the most out of the textbook listening materials. Use the listening activities in your textbook, then reuse them and recycle them. Consider having â€Å"listening quizzes† or â€Å"listening tests† separate from other elements to emphasize its importance. Include easy, short passages and longer, more difficult 5 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 5 8/15/08 2:59:35 PM s Pecial focus: Teaching Listening Comprehension ones.On tests, sometimes you can use listening passages you have done previously in class, but with different questions. This will reward students for paying close attention during practice activities that are not for a grade. When the textbook provides â€Å"listen along† audio recordings of reading passages, start the activity by listening to a minute or two without looking at the written text, just to let students see how much they can â€Å"catch† without reading. Have students jot down the words they hear on a piece of paper, then share with class, writing a list on the board.Then read along, and do textbook reading activities. Then go back over the list. Praise the class on how much they could hear, and note to them how their skills improve throughout the year. The next day, listen again without looking, and see if they feel they understand more. The goal is to build students’ confidence in their ability to improve their listening skills. Strategy 3: Design listening activities that provide evidence of engagement, including note taking. Student s should DO something while listening in order to provide evidence of engagement.Ideas for types of evidence follow: †¢ notefamiliarwords †¢ writedownallnumbersyouhear (good for weather reports, sports news, economic news) †¢ checkwordsheardoffalist(prepare the list ahead of time, or have students predict words they might hear) †¢ fillinachartwithinformation †¢ fillinapartialscript(leave out cognates, familiar words, or numbers, etc. ) †¢ writedownanswerstobasicwho, what, when, where, why questions †¢ answerpreparedtrue/falseormultiple-choicequestions †¢ useâ€Å"thumbsup†orâ€Å"thumbsdown†toansweryes/noquestions Attachment A (p. 3) provides a simple chart students complete as evidence of engagement while listening to a series of interviews with native speakers found on a University of Texas Web site. Strategy 4: Create scaffolding tasks to help students to approach authentic materials from the start. Use authentic listening pas sages, full speed right from the beginning levels, but scaffold the activity by at first providing tasks that support, rather than test, students’ understanding. To make the listening more accessible to students, choose 6 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. ndd 6 8/15/08 2:59:35 PM Pre-AP ® Listening Comprehension Strategies passages on topics you are working on in your textbook. You can pair authentic listening passages with short written texts on the same topic, providing background knowledge, especially if the material or setting is unfamiliar to students. Provide students with unusual names of people, organizations, or locations mentioned in the passage, as these names are especially difficult to catch. Use a listening process, analogous to the reading process, including the following steps.A. Prelistening activity Activate prior knowledge of vocabulary or the topic; make predictions based on a headline, photograph, or theme; personalize by relating to students’ experience ; connect to studies in other classes. Tell students the topic, encourage brainstorming of known vocabulary, then offer to preteach five vocabulary words they don’t know but think they’ll need to understand the program. You could get the class to make a list of 10 words, and then you could translate the 5 words they decide they need the most. B.Have students listen with a purpose, providing concrete evidence of their comprehension. Focus student attention on specific elements, and require each student to show evidence of what was heard. Build in opportunities to hear the listening passage more than once. Provide extension tasks for those who have completed the first task on the first listening, letting others continue to focus on the basic skill. At times, provide transcripts to follow when listening, to help students recognize words they know when they see them, in the stream of speech. C. Cooperative listeningAfter students provide some evidence of what they hear the mselves, have students share their results ORALLY with a partner, noting the partner’s answers in another color, for instance, using a green pen. This will allow you to distinguish what was gathered independently from the details students got from a classmate. Be sure to require all students to note or check off what their partners heard, even if the students already wrote down what they themselves heard. On a final listening, or with a transcript, students can verify what was actually in the recording. D. Apply/connectHave students use the information gained in listening in another task such as writing a summary, making a comparison, making a prediction, 7 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 7 8/15/08 2:59:36 PM s Pecial focus: Teaching Listening Comprehension connecting to personal experience, reflecting on the learning process, writing about strategies, etc. Attachment B (p. 14) illustrates scaffolding by using the listening process in a simple â€Å"Checklist† activity. Novice-level students can successfully listen to an authentic source to develop the ability to recognize known vocabulary in the stream of authentic speech.The students simply listen to a passage and check words they hear, and skip words that are not in the passage. Then they compare lists with a classmate, listen again, and finally check their work against a script. The checklist and two colors of pens will allow the teacher to evaluate each student’s engagement in the activity, independent and cooperative listening skills, and the ability to extend or apply what was learned. The sample activity in the attachment was designed around a Radio Naciones Unidas report on torrential rains in Costa Rica. Strategy 5: Develop generic listening tasks and use them often.Many Web sources have high-interest audio news and information with accompanying written information. When the files are available to download and save on a computer, teachers can develop activities around these sound files, and keep them for future use. But it is difficult to find the time to prepare specific questions about today’s news each week, and many great Web sites have audio files that are not availablefordownloadingandthatmaynotbeavailableforreusenextyear. Generic tasks cut down preparation time and allow the listening task to become routine, which will help build confidence.Attachment C (p. 18) Pesca las palabras can be used to engage novice listeners in any authentic listening source. The sample activity in attachment C was used to listen to a BBC Mundo report on domestic workers in Latin America in a Level 2 class. Attachment D (p. 21) is a generic form to use while listening to any audio or video newscasts, and is based on the journalistic questions who, what, when, where, why, and how. For interest, vary the prelistening task and the application task according to the topic of the newscast you choose. The video news broadcasts found on the Web site Univision. om provide a we alth of short listening segments to use with this form. Strategy 6: Vary the evaluation of listening tasks, making it appropriate to the purpose of the task. WhenBUILDINGlisteningskills,useaprocess-orientedrubricsuchastheFormative Listening Comprehension Evaluation rubric (Attachment E, p. 22). This rubric evaluates four areas: 8 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 8 8/15/08 2:59:36 PM Pre-AP ® Listening Comprehension Strategies †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ Engagement Independentlistening Cooperativelistening ApplicationofinformationgainedthroughlisteningThis formative rubric recognizes the importance of attention to the whole listening process. It can be used to assess any of the listening tasks involving the listening process outlined in Strategy 4. WhenEVALUATINGlisteningskills,teachersshouldusemoreobjective measures, such as multiple-choice questions. Alternatively, students can take notes and answer open-ended questions or summarize. Then teachers can use a more product-oriente d rubric, evaluating the students’ ability to capture the main idea, understand most details, make predictions and inferences, and use linguistic cues to infer social relations.WhenINTEGRATINGskills,teachersshouldcreatetasksthatrequirestudents to listen, then use the information the students hear in writing and speaking tasks. Strategy 7: Develop your skill at finding appropriate listening materials on the Web, and share your findings with others. Work with your technology department to ensure that all teacher and student computers at school have the necessary software to view and listen to Web-based materials. With one teacher computer and speakers, all students can hear sound files on one computer. If you have the ability to project onto a large screen, you can share video clips from your computer with students.Encourage the library and computer resource center to make headphones available for students to borrow, so they can do their listening there. If you have a teacher W eb site, include links to Web sites with audio. Many Web page programs also allow you to upload audio files to your site. Some excellent Web sources for listening follow: Radio Naciones Unidas http://radio. un. org/es/ This is an excellent source, since files are not copyrighted, the archive is searchable, many programs have transcripts, and files can be downloaded to your computer. Click on Abrir archivo to view a list of recent short news items.Click on the title ofthenewsitemtoseethetranscript. RIGHTCLICKonthefilebuttonandclick on â€Å"Save Target As,† then navigate to the folder in which you want to store the 9 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 9 8/15/08 2:59:36 PM s Pecial focus: Teaching Listening Comprehension file. The actual sound file should download onto your computer’s hard drive, or to a flash memory stick if you so indicate. You can then play it off your computer, burn a CD, etc. The archive is searchable, so you can enter a term such as arte, comida, Peru, etc. , to help find material on topics you are studying. BBC Mundo http://news. bbc. co. k/hi/spanish/news/ The site contains a wealth of text, multimedia, video, and audio materials, much of it organized by topic. Studio 834 provides interviews with speakers from all over the Spanish-speaking world, and many interviews include scripts. Use this resource to familiarize students with regional variations in accent. Radio nuevos horizontes http://www. nuevoshorizontes. org This site has a searchable archive of programs on a variety of culture, traditions, health, immigration, arts, literature, and personal finance topics. Free downloads of audio only; CDs available for purchase, with transcripts.Langmedia http://langmedia. fivecolleges. edu/collection/lm_spanish. html. Students can view short videos of native speaker interaction, from a variety ofcountries. Goodfornovicestudentsforcomprehensionandodeling,andfor comparing accents from a variety of countries. Uteach proficiency exercise s http://www. laits. utexas. edu/spe/siteindex. php Here students can view short videos of native speakers doing performance tasks on a variety of topics at the novice, intermediate, and advanced levels. Language Acquisitions Resource Center at San Diego State University http://larc. dsu. edu/voces. VideotapedinterviewswithwomenfromGuatemala and Mexico present students with a variety of voices and experiences. The worksheet available at nflrc. hawaii. edu/voces provides a good example of showing evidence of engagement. Univision http://www. univision. com Enter â€Å"videos† in the â€Å"Uniclave† window and for a searchable collection of videos of one to eight minutes’ duration with news, entertainment, and more. Radio Caracol de Colombia http://www. caracol. com. co/ Has an audio archive link on the left-hand menu. 10 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 10 /15/08 2:59:36 PM Pre-AP ® Listening Comprehension Strategies Strategy 8: Get students to interview and reco rd native speakers, and share their recordings with classmates. Across the country, students in more and more communities today have the opportunity to use Spanish outside the classroom. Students can consider interviewing neighbors, parents’ co-workers, school personnel, etc. Handheld cassette recorders, microcassette recorders, digital voice recorders, certain mp3 players, computers, digital cameras, some phones, and iPods and other devices can be used to record voices.If your department can invest in even five digital voice recorders, you can lend them to students to do their interviews. Have your beginning students interview a native speaker, write a transcript of the conversation, and share the audio recording withclassmates. Keeptheinterviewssimpleatfirst,focusingonthetopicofthe current chapter or unit. For example, in a chapter on foods, the class can come up with a short questionnaire, for example: †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ ?Cualesunacomidatipicadetupais? ?Cuales sonlosingredientes? ?Comoseprepara? ?Cualestucomidafavorita? Reflect with classmates on accents, regional vocabulary, and other haracteristics and how they effect pronunciation. At the intermediate level, include in your planning learning the language needed to call to request the interview, set up an appointment, and write a thank-you letter in Spanish. See attachment F (p. 23) for sample materials for an interview project from a Level 2 unit about jobs. Strategy 9: Target component skills for listening. Focus your listening activities on component skills and strategies for listening. Here are some suggestions: skill Discourse type task type gain familiarity with regional variations interviews with people from various countries (BBC Mundo Estudio 834)Mark a transcript where regional differences in pronunciation, vocabulary, verb forms, etc. , are evident. news and information check list activity recognize familiar vocabulary in the context of speech intended for native speakers â⠂¬Å"Pesca las palabras† 11 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 11 8/15/08 2:59:36 PM s Pecial focus: Teaching Listening Comprehension skill Discourse type task type recognizing cognates in the stream of speech news and information texts Prepare a cloze passage by eliminating cognates; students listen and complete. The topic of health often has many cognates. Students listen and note as many cognates s they can. inferring social relationships from linguistic clues recorded interactions between native speakers such as those on the Langmedia Web site Note and discuss the linguistic clues. listening for main idea, detail news and information texts Prepare a T chart on the board, with â€Å"Main idea† and â€Å"Supporting detail. † Listen, and then ask what students understood. Have class decide where each piece of information should go. comprehending specific information news and information Complete charts, fill in blanks, write numbers heard, and answer prepared multipl e-choice or open-ended questions. dvertisements Strategy 10: Create a culture of listening in your classroom. â€Å"Tweak† your classroom oral activities so they require students to listen actively to each other. For instance, expand your â€Å"Think – Pair – Share† activities to make them â€Å"Think – Pair – Share – Compare. † Have students share what the partner said, not what the student reporting said. Then after hearing from several students, ask another student to compare. For example, on Monday morning, students think about what they did on the weekend, pair with a partner to say what they did, and report to the class what their partner did.After hearing four to six students’ activities, ask another person which two students had the most similar weekends or which two had the most different weekends, or what all the students had in common. This activity, in addition to providing evidence of listening comprehension , practices the comparison and synthesis skills so important to the formal essay and formal oral presentation tasks. Tune into the mp3 generation. Encourage students to include Spanish music on their digital music players, and seek out Spanish language podcasts.As technology allows, create your own podcasts of lessons, explanations, or poems you are studying, andencouragestudentstoputthemontheiriPods. GarageBand(forMac)and Audacity (a free download for PCs) allow you to make your own audio programs. Even ifyouhaven’tlearnedthetoolsyet,manyofyourstudentshave. Getthemtoshow you, and start listening! 12 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 12 8/15/08 2:59:36 PM Pre-AP ® Listening Comprehension Strategies Attachment A: Provide evidence of engagement – Fill in a chart Listening source – University of Texas Spanish Proficiency Exercises http://www. laits. utexas. edu/spe/beg06. tml Preparacion:Conunapareja,escribeunalistadetrabajos,oficiosyprofesiones en espanol. †¢ Ahoraescuchaalasseispersonashablardeltrabajodesuspadreso parientes. Usatuboligrafoparaanotarlosqueescuchas. nombre lo que hace el padre lo que hace la madre Ejemplo simplificado Nativo hablante Beatriz Luna Torres Alejandro Ernesto Madgits Regina Ruiz Maria Angeles Fernandez Fernando Camacho Apuntes para MI presenacion oral †¢ Hablacontucompanero. UsatuboligrafoVERDEparaanandirinformacion queescuchotucompanero. †¢ Escuchaotravezparaverificartutrabajo. †¢ Aplicacion:EscribelostrabajosdedospersonasqueTUconoces.Luego describe sus trabajos oralmente (graba la descripcion para tu portafolio). 13 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 13 8/15/08 2:59:36 PM s Pecial focus: Teaching Listening Comprehension mi nombre lo que hace lo que hace Attachment B: Sample â€Å"Checklist† activity based on the Radio United Nations news piece Lluvias en Costa Rica. Transcripcion–reportedeRadioNacionesUnidas,19deoctubrede2007. http://www. un. org/radio/es/detail/6528. html Nombre Fec ha: A. Preparacion.? Quetiempohaceaquihoy? B. Escucha. UsatuboligrafoAZULymarcaconunapalomita(v)azullas palabras que escuchas. C. Lee tus palabras a tu companero.Escucha las palabras de tu companero. Marcasuspalabrasconunapalomita(v)verde. Palabra Yo escuche v mi companero escucho v en verde leimos en el texto sol calor lluvias nieve dias anos nacion aguas mas menos ayuda rios 14 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 14 8/15/08 2:59:37 PM Pre-AP ® Listening Comprehension Strategies Palabra Yo escuche v mi companero escucho v en verde leimos en el texto institucion agencias comunicacion necesidades emergencia D. Anota numeros que escuchaste en el reporte. E. Anota5palabrasqueescuchastequeNOestanenlalista. F. Leelatrascripciondelprograma. Marcaenlaultimacolumnalaspalabrasque estanenelpasaje. G. APLICACIONComparaeltiempoenCostaRicaconeltiempoaqui. Engagement Independent listening Cooperative listening Application 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 15 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 15 8/15/08 2 :59:37 PM s Pecial focus: Teaching Listening Comprehension Lluvias en Costa Rica Dejan 18 Muertos T ranscript for Checklist Activity – Reporte de Radio Naciones Unidas, 19 octubre de 2007. http://www. un. org/radio/es/ detail/6528. html r eal Descargar imPrimir LaslluviastorrencialesdelosultimosdiasenCosta Rica,handejado18muertosycuantiosasperdidas materiales. El Coordinador Residente del Sistema de la ONU enesanacion,JoseManuelHermidas,describiolos fectos adversos que han tenido las aguas sobre el territorio costarricense. â€Å"Hanhabidoinundacionesseverasenvariaspartesdelpais. Todoellitoraldel PacificoestaafectadoytambienenelValleCentral. Delos81cantonesenCostaRica, 65 se han visto afectados. † Los danos provocados en las cosechas y las redes viales han sido estimados de manerapreliminar,enmasde70millonesdedolares. SegunelRepresentantedel PNUD, las agencias de la ONU en Costa Rice se encuentran listas para ofrecer la ayuda que pueda requerirse. â€Å"Hemosestadoene strechacomunicacionconelentenacionalresponsablepara atenderlasemergencias,queeslaComisionNacionaldeEmergencias.Hemosidoa unareunionconellos,ademasdelascomunicacionescontinuasportelefonoy noshan dadounalistadelasnecesidadesmasurgentes. HemosinformadoaOCHAconuna solicitud, de parte del coordinador residente, para poder acceder a fondos para poder, entre otras cosas, comprar algunos de los requerimientos mas urgentes que segun la comisionnacionaldeemergenciasoncamillasymantas. † El representante de la ONU en Costa Rica, dijo que las necesidades de alimentos delosdamnificados,estansiendoresueltasporelgobiernoycompaniasprivadas. Attachment B: Teachers’ Notes ObjectiveIdentify familiar vocabulary in the stream of authentic speech. Prelistening–Askstudents? Quetiempohacehoy Lluevemuchoaqui? Discuss a bit about weather, at students’ level. Then pass out paper, and have students write about today’s weather. 16 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 16 8/15/08 2:59:3 7 PM Pre-AP ® Listening Comprehension Strategies Listening Instructstudentstolistencarefully,andCHECKinBLUEorBLACKpen,any words on the list that they hear. Ask if they want to listen again, and repeat. Pair students and tell students to read the words they checked. Tell partners to useaGREENPENtocheckthewordstheirpartnerheard.DO NOT let them look at each others’ papers. This is the cooperative listening part—they listen to their partners’ answers and record. They should check all words the partner heard, even if they think the word wasn’t there. Then tell them they will listen again, and they should check to see if this time they hear words they didn’t last time. These should be circled in green pen. Post-listening Pass out the transcript so students can read and see which words in fact were there. Application Even beginning students can make a basic comparison with words like tambien, pero, mas, and menos.Students staple their paper to their par tner’s paper and pass both in. You score on the rubric in Attachment E, which includes Engagement (followed directions and completed all listening tasks), Independent listening (how accurate student was on the first listening, indicated by checks in blue or black ink), Cooperative listening (includes the green checks, which generally correspond to partner’s paper and circled words, showing the ability to recognize the words once alerted to their presence), and Application (the post-listening Reflections task). 17 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 17 /15/08 2:59:37 PM s Pecial focus: Teaching Listening Comprehension Attachment C: Generic Listening Task ?Pesca la palabra! Tema: Notasdelapreparacion Yo escuche mi companero escucho Conclusiones 4. clearly meets expectations 3. meets basic expectations 2. approaching expectations 1. Does not meet expectations Engagement Independent listening Cooperative listening Application 18 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 18 8/15/08 2:59:37 PM Pre-AP ® Listening Comprehension Strategies Attachment C: Pesca la Palabra – Lesson Guide Long-term goals (claims): †¢ Recognizefamiliarvocabularyinthestreamofspeech. Comprehendspeechintendedfornativespeakers. Specific objective: †¢ Recognizedfamiliarvocabularyandcognateswhenheardinthestreamof speech in authentic sources. Level: †¢ Novice(Spanish1and2) Teacher preparation Find an authentic listening passage relating to a current chapter theme or topic. Prepare the link on your computer, or download the file. Select a one- to twominute â€Å"chunk† of the program to focus on, noting the time marker in your media player for easy access. Select chunks with a good variety of words students have studied, as well as cognates. Photocopy the generic ?Pesca la Palabra! handout, filling out the theme and pre- and postlistening tasks prior to photocopying the form, if you wish. Once students are familiar with the procedure, they can create their own forms on notebook paper. Classroom procedures Prelistening: Chose an appropriate selection of prelistening strategies: †¢ Readthetheme/titleofthepresentationandaskforpredictionsaboutthe program. †¢ Showaphotoorobjectrelatedtothetopicanddescribeit. †¢ Predictcontent. †¢ Brainstormknownvocabulary. †¢ Offertopreteachfivevocabularywordstheydon’tknowbutthinkthey’ll need to understand the program.You could get the class to make a list of 10 words, then pick only 5 to translate for them. †¢ Hacerpredicciones-? Quevanaescuchar? 19 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 19 8/15/08 2:59:38 PM s Pecial focus: Teaching Listening Comprehension Usetheâ€Å"Notasdelapreparacion†forstudentstoshowevidenceofengagement in the pre-listening activity. Instruct them to write a description of the picture, or list the vocabulary the class brainstormed, or write their predictions of what will be in the passage. Listening Students listen and jot down words they comprehend in column 1; they can listen twice if they wish.Pairing: Pair students. Students take turns reading words from their list. †¢ Ifyourpartnersaysawordthatisalreadyonyourlist,putacheckbyit. †¢ IfyourpartnersaysawordthatisNOTonyourlist,writeitinthesecond column. †¢ IfyourpartnersaysawordthatISonyourlist,putacheckbytheword,in the second column. Listen again If you hear a word your partner said, put a check by it in the first column. Postlistening The generic form has a place for conclusions. Depending on the difficulty of the passage and the level of the students, create a closing task. †¢ SummarizeinEnglish(orSpanish) †¢ Personalize(e. . ,Describeeltiempoennuestraciudadhoy) †¢ Reflect(Wastaskdifficultoreasy? Why? Observationsontheaccentof speaker, etc. ) Evaluation – Use the rubric in Attachment E. 20 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 20 8/15/08 2:59:38 PM Pre-AP ® Listening Comprehension Strategies Attachment D GenericlisteningactivityforNewsProgram. F orexample,usewith Univision. com video segments. Noticias de la semana Antes de escuchar Fecha Fuente Pais Titular ?Quesabessobreeltema? Apuntes ?Quien? ?Que? ?Cuando? ?Donde? ?Como? Resumen/comparacion/personalizacion/opinion 21 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 21 /15/08 2:59:38 PM s Pecial focus: Teaching Listening Comprehension Attachment E Formative Listening Comprehension Rubric, evaluating the listening process Have Pairs staPle PaPers togetHer anD turn in. graDe on tHe ruBric. 4 . clearly meets expectations 3. meets basic expectations 2. approaching expectations 1. not meeting expectations Written evidence and teacher observation provide evidence of full engagement throughout the listening activity. Notes and teacher observation show evidence of engagement; attention may wander, at times. Notes and teacher observation show artial evidence of engagement; off-task behavior or lack of attention detract from engagement. Notes and teacher observations show evidence of sporadic engag ement in listening activities. Independent comprehension clearly meets expectations for level. * Provides some evidence of independent comprehension; relies on classmates and total class discussion for some information. Provides little evidence of independent comprehension; relies heavily on partner work and class discussion for information. Prevents very little to no evidence of independent comprehension; may attempt to opy classmates’ work. Cooperative listening Shows clear evidence of sharing, listening, and note taking during pair interactions. Shows some evidence of sharing, listening, and note taking during pair interactions. Shows partial evidence of engagement in cooperative listening tasks. Contributes little to cooperative listening activities; may be off task and may distract classmates. Application Creatively and accurately uses information from listening in concluding tasks. Uses information from listening to complete concluding tasks. Uses minimal information fr om listening n completing concluding tasks. Provides little evidence of listening in completing concluding tasks. Engagement Independent listening *Expectations vary by task and level. 16 100 10 70 15 95 9 65 14 90 8 60 13 85 7 55 12 80 6 50 11 75 22 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 22 8/15/08 2:59:38 PM Pre-AP ® Listening Comprehension Strategies Attachment F: Interview Activity As designed, this activity is appropriate at a Level 2 or higher. Goals †¢ Usesimple,familiarphrasestocommunicatewithSpanishspeakersinthe community. †¢ Toobtainspeechsamplesfromavarietyofnativespeakersforin-class listening. TolearnaboutjobsthataredonebySpanish-speakingcommunity members. †¢ Tocomprehendavarietyofnativespeakervoicestalkingaboutafamiliar topic. Procedures Preparation: †¢ Teachandpracticequestionsneededtogetinformationaboutanadult acquaintance’s job (see handout below). †¢ AssignstudentstofindaSpanish-speakingcommunitymemberto interview and record. Technology not e – Many students have digital cameras, digital video cameras, phones, microcassette players, laptops, iPods with the iTalk microphone, mp3 players with voice recording capability, or other technology for recording the conversations.Our department has purchased a limited number of Olympus digital voice recorders (at around $70 each), which are lent out to students for one night if they have no other means of recording the conversation. Students are given a week or two to get the interviews to allow for technical problems. The following Web site has information on Olympus digital voice recorders. http://www. olympusamerica. com/cpg_section/cpg_voicerecorders. asp Project: Students record their interviews and transcribe them on the ENTREVISTA handout. 23 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 23 8/15/08 2:59:38 PM Pecial focus: Teaching Listening Comprehension Sharing: In class, students share their interviews. Classmates fill in the chart with details about each conversation they hear . Evaluation: Based on completion of interview, accuracy of transcript, and note taking during the in-class sharing. Thanks to Lucinda Salinas, Alamo Heights High School Spanish 2 teacher, for sharing this activity. Used with permission. CreatedtouseinconjunctionwiththeHolttextbookExpresateLevel2. 24 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 24 8/15/08 2:59:39 PM Pre-AP ® Listening Comprehension Strategies Mi entrevista con †¦ Ud. Clase, quiero presentarles a Ud:? AquesededicaUd.? o? QueclasedetrabajorealizaUd.? El o Ella: Ud.? Quetipodepreparacionsenecesitaparaestaprofesion? (Fui a – I went to) El o Ella: Ud.? Comoleayudaelespanolensutrabajoosuvida? El o Ella:: Ud.? Otra pregunta, UD. escoja. ? El o Ella: 25 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 25 8/15/08 2:59:39 PM s Pecial focus: Teaching Listening Comprehension i salinas – alamo HeigHt HigH scHool – 2007 nombre de su companero ?vecino, amigo de la familia,etc†¦? el oficio Dime algo†¦ 26 08-1442. AP. SF. Span ish. indd 26 8/15/08 2:59:39 PM Pre-AP ® Listening Comprehension StrategiesAttachment G: Lesson Guide Goal–Familiarizestudentswithregionalaccents. From level one, engage students in listening to diverse voices. 1. Preparation †¢ Copythescriptsforthreeinterviews. Suggestedsourceis BBCMundo’s Estudio 834 †¢ http://news. bbc. co. uk/hi/spanish/programmes/estudio_834/ †¢ JavierZanetti,soccerplayerfromArgentina †¢ SaraBaras,flamencodancerfromSpain †¢ WillieColon,musicianfromNewYork(PuertoRicanancestry) 2. Materials Photocopies of scripts; highlighters. 3. Procedure †¢ Prelistening. a. Provide name, profession, and country. b. Ask for predictions about what students might hear. c.Students scan transcript to check on predictions, and find words they understand. †¢ Listening. Have students listen to each sample while following on their copy of the transcript. They should highlight any words or sounds that seem â€Å"different† from w hat they are used to hearing. Compare impressions and listen again. 4. Debrief Avoid generalizations like â€Å"in Spain, they speak like this,† or â€Å"Cubans pronounce it like this. † There is a great deal of regional and personal variation within countries. Make comments and observations about the ways the students hear THIS particular speaker pronounced at this particular moment.The goal is to increase the students’ comfort with variations, not to teach the specific characteristics of specific regional accents. (That could well be a different lesson at another level). Students write one or two sentences about each speaker’s pronunciation, and how easy or difficult the speaker was to understand. 27 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 27 8/15/08 2:59:39 PM s Pecial focus: Teaching Listening Comprehension 5. Evaluation Based principally on engagement as evidenced by notes taken on prelistening, highlighting on the transcript, postlistening conclusions, and t eacher observation of participation in classroom discussion.Attachment G T ranscripts of segments from BBC Mundo Estudio 834 (4/7/06, 6/2/06, 4/21/06) Sara Baras – bailarina de flamenco HablaconBBCMundodespuesdehacerdosobrasdebaile,â€Å"MarianaPineda†y â€Å"Juanalaloca. † BBC: ? Queaprendistedespuesdecasi,segunentiendo,800representaciones entrelasdos? Sara Baras: Puessi,pasamoslasmil. Fueronmasdequinientas representacionesdecadauna,oseaqueaprendimuchisimo. Elhechodetrabajar al lado de directores tan importantes como Luis Pascual y Luis Olmos, ha sido algo que me ha llenado de cosas nuevas, de cosas de teatro, no solamente de baile.Yahoraescomosiapreciaramuchomasunquejido,ohacerdemimisma, porque el hecho de meterte en el personaje de alguien te va acostumbrando a expresarte siempre pensando en alguien. Cuando de repente no tienes nada que contar, sino simplemente bailar es algo muy diferente. El haber hecho â€Å"Mariana Pineda†yâ€Å"Juanalaloca† creoquemehaensenadomuchomasdeloqueyo pensaba,nosoloaniveldeespectaculo,sinopormibaile. BBC: Ydosmujeresexcepcionalesenesosdosespectaculos†¦? Queesparati unamujerexcepcional Cualesserianlosatributosdeunamujerque,comotu, esexcepcionalenlosuyo? Sara Baras: Muchas gracias†¦ risas) Yo creo que una mujer excepcional, por ejemplo, es mi madre. Creo que una buena persona, una persona con inquietudes,inteligente,generosa,unapersonaquedaalgomas,? no? Creoque sobre todo las madres me parecen mujeres excepcionales. El amor que puedan dar no lo comparo con nada. Willie Colonseconsiderauncreadordelasalsa. NacioenNuevaYork,nieto de puertorriquenos. Tengo entendido que el 2006 es el ano de tu retiro, que estaspensandoenguardardefinitivamentetutrombon. Queriapreguntartesi realmenteteretirasoseguirasenlastarimashastaqueelcuerpoaguante. 28 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 28 8/15/08 2:59:39 PMPre-AP ® Listening Comprehension Strategies W. C. : (Risas)†¦ No es exactamente un retiro, teng o algunos proyectos a los que quiero dedicarme y no puedo hacerlo mientras estoy de gira con la orquesta. Ahora estoy en el proceso de grabar un LP, puede ser mi ultimo y yo creo que me mantendriasiempreapegadoalamusica,laproduccionylacomposicion. Son cuarenta anos de viaje†¦ al final de este ano puede ser. BBC: Muchosdicenquelaedaddeorodelasalsanovolverayqueinclusono faltamuchoparaquedesaparezcacomogenerorentableenelnegociodela musica. Comolovestu,? lasalsaestamuriendo,seestatransformando,esta cambiandoaotrogenero?Colon: Bueno, esa es la ley natural, pero yo tengo confianza que algo viene, todoloviejoesnuevoydelonuevounosecansadespuesdeunrato. Yocreo queesunciclo,especialmentecuandolatecnologiahacambiado,quese puedegrabarunbuenLPenelsotanooenelgarajeconunacomputadora quenoestancara. Esovaapermitirquedenuevo,comoenmiepoca,surjan productores independientes porque uno de los problemas ha sido que las grandes corporacioneshanidoadquiriendotodoslossellos(discograficos)pequenos, ent oncesmatanlacompetenciaytambienlahonestidadylarazondeserdela musica, una musica que nace de la esquina del barrio.En verdad no entienden la esenciayelporquelamusicaeratanrentableyestanimportante. Javier Zanetti juega futbol profesional en Italia, pero es de Argentina. El estableciounafundacionparaayudaraninospobresenArgentina. BBC: ? QuesignificaPupi,dedondevieneesenombre? Javier Zanetti: PupiesunsobrenombrequemepusieronLopezyCaballero cuandocomenceajugarfutbolenelclubargentinoBanfield. Despueslepusimos esenombrealafundacion. Hacecuatroanosquecomenzamosysinceramente hemoshechomuchisimascosaspararecaudarfondosparaestoschicos:partidos a beneficio, calendarios, pulseritas con los colores de Argentina, etc.Todo esto para ellos, para seguir fomentando y haciendo crecer los proyectos que tenemos en mente. BBC: Segun tenemos entendido son unos cien los ninos que reciben asistencia diariaenlafundacion†¦ Javier Zanetti: Si,enestosmomentoshaymasdecienchicosdetresacinco anos — los que nos estuvieron acompanando durante estos cuatro anos, ahora 29 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 29 8/15/08 2:59:40 PM s Pecial focus: Teaching Listening Comprehension tienensiete,ocho-ademastrabajamosconloshermanosdeestoschicosycon lospadres. Queremosunpococerrarelcirculo,paraayudaratodaslafamiliaen lasdistintasproblematicasquesepuedenpresentar. BibliographyHumbach,J. ,Smith,S. ,andMadrigalVelasco,S. ,Expresate Spanish 2. Austin, TX: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2005. 30 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 30 8/15/08 2:59:40 PM GeneralStrategiesforAP ® Spanish Listening Comprehension Brant Hadzima Newfound Regional High School Bristol, New Hampshire Introduction Teaching and assessing listening comprehension are perhaps the most challenging components of the AP curriculum, due in great part to the many variables that affect a student’s ability to comprehend spoken Spanish: the physical classroom environment and school equipment, learning styles, note-taking skills, regional dia lects, etc.Many teachers may assume that they are assessing â€Å"listening comprehension† when in fact they are assessing listening and cognitive reasoning skills. Listening may be part of the exercise, but the inevitable tasks of reasoning, critical thinking—even the kinesthetic connection to writing—are factors that can drastically affect the outcome. In essence, two of the major obstacles in solely assessing listening comprehension are first determining which factors may impede a true assessment of listening comprehension, and then making every effort to offer students the opportunity to mitigate these variables.This will help to provide a true baseline for students, and teachers will have a better understanding of whether they need to remediate listening or focus more on reasoning and critical thinking strategies. Teachers must know what students hear in order to then address how to analyze and synthesize the information presented orally. 08-1442. AP. SF. S panish. indd 31 8/15/08 2:59:40 PM s Pecial focus: Teaching Listening Comprehension Eliminating Variables Although it may appear to be obvious, there are several issues that the classroom teacher must evaluate and address prior to administering a listening comprehension assessment.First and foremost, it is imperative that students are provided with the best possible equipment and physical space for listening comprehension. If no language lab is available, a classroom should be optimized for a listening environment: Students should be provided with headphones and a listening center, the room should be quiet, comfortable, and free from distractions such as PA announcements and hallway activity. (I can vividly recall an adept AP Spanish student who performed poorly on one of the practice listening comprehension assessments for no particular reason.I evaluated the listening comprehension segment, tried to determine if the regional accent was overwhelming, and even took the test myself. Exasperated, I finally asked the student why he did so poorly. His response: â€Å"I was watching the garbage truck picking up the dumpster outside the window. † By simply drawing the blinds, his scores improved remarkably. ) Once the classroom space and physical environment has been evaluated and addressed, it is important to know and understand each student’s learning style. Most people tend to rely heavily on visual references in order to supplement auditory comprehension.An example might be how teachers themselves process information at a faculty meeting. If the principal states an outline and a deadline for a project with no visual reference whatsoever, it is more probable that the staff will misinterpret and/ or forget the information stated. Although we have developed coping skills such as taking notes and asking clarifying questions, it is more likely that the request will be taken seriously and acted on in a timely fashion if it is written as well. Another exa mple is when teachers are assigning homework.If teachers state what the homework will be without writing it on the board, there will inevitably be confusion for some (if not all) students. Of course there will be some who will diligently write down the assignment and ask a question if confused. Others, however, will remain silent and may not understand or remember the assignment. Therefore, one essential preassessment that should be done early in the school year is to have students determine their learning style. There are many assessments readily available, and one particularly detailed assessment is the Index of Learning Styles (ILS) developed by Richard M.Felder and Barbara A. Soloman of North Carolina State University. The Web site address is www4. ncsu. edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/ public/ILSpage. html, and it provides a free, 44-question Web-based assessment for students to determine their learning styles. Students should use this information 32 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 32 8/15/08 2:59:40 PM GeneralStrategiesforAP ® Spanish Listening Comprehension to better understand how they learn and process information, and teachers should discuss in the classroom how to best prepare for listening comprehension with the understanding that each student learns differently.Once the teacher and students understand their learning styles, the next step is to help auditory learners further hone and process their listening skills, and to provide the more visual learners with coping skills necessary to compensate for their discomfort with being assessed for listening comprehension. A student who â€Å"doesn’t like† listening comprehension and who â€Å"performs poorly† on these assessments may struggle due to personal learning style—and not due to Spanish language aptitude. We all have students who can read and write very well in Spanish, but who are not proficient in listening comprehension and/or speaking.It must be surmised that the se students do not have a deficiency in Spanish, but rather in processing auditory information. Teaching more Spanish will not make them better listeners. On the contrary, teachers must make a conscious effort to help students develop coping skills and to help the students feel more at ease with the style of assessment. Pretesting Listening Comprehension After addressing physical space and learning style, it is important to give a comprehensive listening assessment in Spanish to obtain a baseline and to observe student test-taking strategies.It is best to utilize assessments that model what will be tested on the AP Spanish Language Examination, and AP Spanish–style listening comprehension assessments with resource kits are readily available for purchase and do quite well for student preparation. AP Central ® has audio files available and sample assessments as well for teacher use in the classroom. Regardless, teachers should pretest listening comprehension with short dialog ues and narratives, and also medium-to-long narratives and dialogues. I recommend giving students an overview of how they will be pretested, and to recommend that students take notes when necessary.During the actual pretest it is a good idea to observe student behavior. Perhaps more valuable than the data from the pretest is the observation of student test-taking skills;i. e. ,whichstudentstookthoroughnotesandwhichonesjustlistened? What didthenoteslooklike—weretherelists,graphicorganizers,andothervisualaides? Whichstudentswereeasilydistractedand/orwereunabletofocus? Didstudents simply look for words written in the multiple-choice answers that were said in the dialogue (â€Å"word recognition†), or did they first interpret the information and then use processofeliminationtoselectthebestpossibleanswer? 3 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 33 8/15/08 2:59:40 PM s Pecial focus: Teaching Listening Comprehension Most likely, the students who performed the best in the assessment were the ones who were taking notes, who were focused, and who concentrated on understanding and interpreting the information instead of just attempting to recognize words that matched the ones in the answers provided. Obviously, basic proficiency in Spanish is essential, and a student who does not have the proper skill base from prior classes will be at a complete loss.However, assuming that students have had the proper prior training (for more information, please refer to the AP Vertical Teams ® and Pre-AP publications on the AP Web site), the issue at hand will be to teach students to be better listeners. Teaching Listening Skills Once a baseline for listening comprehension has been established, the task of honing listening skills and forming coping mechanisms begins. The first step is to help students create their own system for listening.I have found it very helpful to model good test-taking skills as a way to broach the topic of how to tackle the listening component. After t he students take the initial pretest in listening comprehension, I take the test myself in front of the class. I copy the answer key onto an overhead transparency, and we play the test out loud. As the dialogues are played, I take notes on the overhead or the board, and create links and graphic organizers. I then model the answer selection on the overhead using the process of elimination, and explaining why certain answers are wrong while referring to my notes.Often students will start to discuss the thought process, and it becomes an interactive class where students generate ideas and discuss what they did for that particular dialogue or narrative. At times students will volunteer to direct the next dialogue, and I allow them to model their thought process for the class. The essential component to that particular lesson is that students see how to process information that is presented verbally, that they observe and evaluate techniques that worked (and didn’t work). At that point, they should begin to develop a routine for listening comprehension that works for them.I finish the lesson by having students tell me what they intend to do differently next time to perform better. For the next listening comprehension activity I eliminate the variable of the multiple-choice questions. This gives students the opportunity to focus directly on the dialogue or narrative and to employ their personal listening strategies. The class begins by brainstorming various note-taking techniques. Next, students are asked to listen to a 10-minute narrative and to take notes on the essential information.When the narrative ends, students are allotted 15 minutes to summarize the narrative in 34 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 34 8/15/08 2:59:40 PM GeneralStrategiesforAP ® Spanish Listening Comprehension their own words (in Spanish). We then read our summaries out loud, and by sharing we realize what may have been missed, what was truly essential, and what impeded our understand ing. Students should begin to realize that deficiencies in vocabulary, perhaps dialects, the rate and speed of the speaker, and background information may be impediments for comprehension. PracticeWhen students understand the impediments to comprehending a dialogue or narrative, the task then becomes practicing, and learning by trial and error. Unlike writing or grammar, there is a limit to skills that can be taught for simply listening. Essentially, once distractions have been eliminated, the format of the assessment is familiar, and note-taking skills have been instructed and reviewed, the only way to improve is through continual practice. Practicing listening comprehension should be frequent, varied, authentic, and routine in order to truly prepare students for the examination.In reality, there should never be an AP Spanish Language class where listening is not an integral component of the class itself. It is important to note that not all listening activities have to be assessed formally, but it is important that they be assessed in a variety of ways. Visual Versus Nonvisual Although there are many ways to present listening, it is best to separate listening comprehension activities into two categories: those with a visual aid and those without.The listening activities that allow for a visual reference may be easier for many students, as they provide a frame of reference and therefore some level of comfort. Using segments from Spanish television, a podcast, or watching a PowerPoint presentation can function as a less threatening form of integrating listening into the daily classes. It is vital to ensure that these activities be varied so that students do not get too accustomed to a particular dialect or vocabulary base.If utilizing segments of Spanish television is part of the class routine, make sure to access different programs and channels whenever possible. Have students â€Å"prelisten† by presenting the title or some background on the segment, and discuss what they could expect to hear. Most importantly, however, assess what they have heard. Assessments can range from a quick student synopsis to a formative written assessment to a class discussion. The assessment piece is essential nevertheless, and 35 08-1442. AP. SF. Spanish. indd 35 8/15/08 2:59:40 PM

The Role of Women in Julius Caesar Essay - 820 Words

From the expansion days of Ancient Rome to the fall of the Roman Empire, women have always succumbed to living subjacent to the status of their omnipotent and dominant male figures. After leaving her childhood home and the rule of her father, a young Roman girl would then be coerced into the dominion of her husband, often taking a plethora of roles, ranging from lover, caretaker, and best friend. It is often lightheartedly stated that, â€Å"Behind every great man is an even greater woman,† and William Shakespeare exemplifies this concept beautifully in Julius Caesar, in which he effectively used the spouses of the two main characters to add more depth, drama, and literary elements to the play, bringing it to life. Although the only two†¦show more content†¦Thus, she indicates that she can endure whatever Brutus has on his mind, and makes it known that she is definitely not the fragile feminine flower that Brutus and the rest of humanity distinguishes her as. Throug h this succinct line, Shakespeare allows the reader to recognize that Portia is not an ordinary woman, rather she is an intense and strong willed woman with deep devotion for her husband. One of Brutus’ most notable characteristics is his stoicism, which is clearly seen through instances regarding Portia, as illustrated through Act II, scene i, when he refuses to confide in Portia about the plans to kill Caesar, and when Brutus utters, â€Å"Why farewell Portia,† (Brutus, IV, iii, 189) in regards to her death. Brutus’ stoicism impinges on their relationship, because he confines his secrets from her, and towards her death, he allows the audience to gain insight of his true character: the neglect of private feelings and loyalties in favor of what Brutus believes to be the public good. Brutus thus undermines Portia as the symbol of his private life and manifests on the fact that he puts his public life before his private one. Portia’s death also serves as an example of stoicism because he does not reveal any of the emotion that was brought to him in the light of her suicide. Thus, uncovering that stoicism and honor are put before all else. With a completelyShow MoreRelatedThe Role of Women in Julius Caesar773 Words   |  4 PagesEmpire, women have always succumbed to living subjacent to the status of their omnipotent and dominant male figures. After leaving her childhood home and the rule of her father, a young Roman girl would then be coerced into the dominion of her husband, often taking a plethora of roles, ranging from lover, caretaker, and best friend. 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Similarly, many warnings in the Rwanda history triggered the genocidal slaughterRead More The role of Women in Julius Ceasar Essay861 Words   |  4 PagesThe role of Women in Julius Ceasar In the play â€Å"Julius Caesar† by William Shakespeare, women play an important role. The women are important factors in foreshadowing and in the development of many of the characters. To look at the role of women in the play we must look deeper in to the roles of the only two women in the play; Calpurnia, wife of Caesar, and Portia, wife of Brutus. Both of these women are key in foreshadowing the murder of Caesar. After Caesar’s murder we do not hearRead MoreAnalysis Of Shakespeare s Julius Caesar 1008 Words   |  5 PagesJulius Caesar Assignment Tess Macintyre IGCSE English Literature Discuss the contribution made by the two women, Portia and Calpurnia, to the play as a whole. 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