Assignment guidelines
Setting up your reflective audio journal

Reflective Audiojournal Entry 1

February 26, 2008

Objectives:
As a result of completing this assignment, you will

• reflect upon your experiences, ideas, and opinions about teaching and learning in higher education
• understand the format and expectations for your audio journal entries
• compose your thoughts about your successes and challenges as an Estonian educator
• practice recording and sending your own speech in an audio file
• feel comfortable using the audio journal format

RJ Entry 1:
Respond to the following questions in your first audio journal entry. Please do not read through the questions themselves or read your entry from a script. Talk about your experience and your feelings as if you were conversing with a colleague or friend. The questions serve as a guideline only. Please add any other information you feel is important in describing your experiences. Entries should be no longer than 5 minutes.

Teaching in Higher Education
Some questions to consider (in case you are stuck)

• What are the functions of universities or post-secondary institutions?
• What are for you characteristics of effective teaching?
• What is bad teaching?
• What does a good instructor need to do or to be in order to be successful?
• What are students’ responsibilities in the learning environment?
• Research is sometimes described as ‘organized curiosity’ and teaching as ‘organized communication.’ How far do you agree?
• Which do you prefer, lecturing or small group teaching? Why?
• In light of your past experiences, what is currently your most important goal in teaching/learning environments?

Reflective Audiojournal Entry 2

March 25, 2008

Objectives:
As a result of completing this assignment, you will

• Reflect upon your experiences, ideas, and opinions about teaching and learning in higher education
• Engage in reflective practice and, by doing so, be able to more clearly articulate your thoughts about attributes of Estonian education and your successes and challenges as an educator
• Practice academic spoken language

RJ Entry 2:
Respond to the following question(s) in your second audio journal entry. Please do not read through the questions themselves or read your entry from a script. Talk about your experience and your feelings as if you were conversing with a colleague or friend. The questions serve as a guideline only. Please add any other information you feel is important. Entries should be no longer than 5 minutes.

Educational Practice
Some questions to consider (in case you are stuck)

• We considered three different kinds of learning (teacher-student, peer-to-peer, and self). Which of these do you prefer? Why? Are some more appropriate in some contexts and not in others?
• Can you have a learning environment in which the teacher enters and does not say a word? Is it still a class if this happens? Support your arguments with real or hypothetical examples.
• How might factors of multicultural education be present in your classroom? What questions or conflicts might they potentially raise for the instructor or students at University of Tartu?
• Describe a multicultural educational environment that you have been involved in either as an instructor or participant. What made those learning experiences especially memorable/complex/problematic/rich?
• We listened to an advising session with an American student at the University of Michigan. Would you be able to overhear a similar dialogs at the University of Tartu? Where? How might the conversation be similar or different?
• In which way(s) do you process your teaching or other professional work?
• Share a critical incident in your classroom recently. What kinds of insights (if any) did you gain from it?
• Students often fail to learn not because of motivation or prior learning but also because of a mismatch between a lecturer’s teaching style and the student’s learning style. Have you had this experience as a learner? When?
• Is reflective practice just meaningless jargon for those in education? Does a university instructor have time/energy/interest to practice reflection regularly?
• Do you think a teaching/learning journal is a practical tool? Have you ever kept one? Would you? Why or why not?

Reflective Audiojournal Entry 3

April 29, 2008

Objectives:

As a result of completing this assignment, you will

• Listen critically to a news piece that you find interesting
• Comment on interesting language features in the spoken text
• React to the content of the news by sharing your own opinions, experiences, insights, and additional questions.
• Practice academic spoken language

RJ Prompt:

Respond to the following question(s) in your second audio journal entry. Please do not read through the questions themselves or read your entry from a script. Talk about your experience and your feelings as if you were conversing with a colleague or friend. The questions serve as a guideline only. Please add any other information you feel is important. Entries should be no longer than 5 minutes.

In the news

Step 1:
Choose an on-line news story to listen to on NPR (npr.org) or another website (you can find a comprehensive list on our webpage under resources for speaking and listening).

Step 2:
Listen carefully to your news story. Take notes on the general topic.

Step 3:
Listen again, this time taking note of any interesting linguistic features of the spoken text (vocabulary, intonation, organization, grammar, style, etc.).

Step 4:
Jot down some of your ideas and think critically about the story. Why did you choose it? Was the story what you expected? What do you know or would you like to know about the topic? Do you have a response or additional comment to the story?

Step 5:
Record your entry.

Step 6:
Send your entry together with the url for the news story to Jennifer.

Reflective Audiojournal Entry 4

Self Critique & Future Plans and Goals

May 20, 2008

Objectives:
As a result of completing this assignment, you will

• Reflect critically on the progress you have made during the last 8 weeks
• Assess your strengths and some of your challenges
• Set goals and articulate short-term and long-term plans
• Practice speaking about and expressing future plans and language-related goals
• Be aware of your progress and confident about your academic speaking abilities

Part 1

Review other reflective audiojournal entries if you have them or think about the things you have done with English this year. Consider the kinds of progress you have made in your language studies in the last semester or academic year.

Think about the activities we have done throughout this academic speaking and listening course. Reflect on some aspects of the class that you enjoyed as well as some of the activities or assignments that were difficult for you. What were some things you really liked or disliked? What do you feel like you have learned in this course? What new strategies do you have for speaking and listening? How will you apply them in your future studies?

Part 2

Fill out the goals worksheet.

Part 3

Start a new entry. Comment on Parts 1 & 2 above. Feel free to add any additional comments or insights about the course or your progress, as necessary. Your final journal entry should be around 5-6 minutes in length.