I suggested a student to write journals to increse her ability to put thoughts into words.  However, I think the student is too busy to try it.  Nonetheless, we are trying something new to increase her listening ability.  During our SA section, she volunteered try it out the first time.  That’s how we did this activity.  Thanks to the effort that some teachers have done, a Chinese movie breaks up into many small, about 2min clips, including the sound-only version and the sound+image version.

When we start the activity, we first listen to the sound-only version clip twice.  During this time, she is allowed to jot down some notes, that will help her to remember what was going on in this clip; who was/were involved; were there any problems/argument; how did they react/solve; how were their emotion, etc.  I asked her to do such exerciese was trying to make her feel more confident and confortable of the thinking pattern.  Because during the real listening test, students are only allowed to listen the video twice, and then answer three-four questions.  I think getting the main idea first will be the most important thing for them to do.  After listening to the sound-only version clip, i usually discuss the above questions with her.  Sometimes, if the clip is too hard, we will go back and break the sentences down.  But, amazingly sometimes she got the whole concept perfectly.  After the dicussion, we will play the other version of the clip with sound+ image.   The video has both Chinese and English subtitles.  We try not to explain each sentence, but if there is something she still wants me to go over, I would still love to do so.

We have been doing this activity for few days.  The student is highly motivatived and very interested in doing this activity.  I hope it will help her in the long run.