Dropping Keys

In week 8, I created a 20-minute activity that helped students practice their listening and prediction skills. The students enjoyed the TED talk and were able to answer the comprehension questions, and make sensible predictions (e.g., students mentioned radio and Internet.). Below’s the handout I used for that activity. Although I provided the students with the definition of the vocabulary words, they still had difficulty understanding venerable. I think I should have given students some example sentences using those words (contextualize linguistic input).

Joe Sabia: The technology of storytelling

http://www.ted.com/talks/joe_sabia_the_technology_of_storytelling.html (You may have noticed that I really like TED talks; I chose three TED talks for the shadowing project.)

Vocabulary:

venerable: impressive by reason of age

ubiquitous: existing or being everywhere at the same time

snatch: to take or grasp abruptly or hastily

rejoice: to feel joy or great delight

Instructions:

1. Brainstorm: What do you know about storytelling? How do we tell a story in our lives?

2. Listen to the first part of the talk and answer the following questions.

• What devices did people use to tell stories in 19th century Germany?

• Who was Lothar Meggendorfer?

• Why did people rejoice at Lothar Meggendorfer’s new invention of storytelling?

• What’s the speaker’s attitude towards Lothar Meggendorfer?

3. Now let’s listen to the first part of the talk one more time. What do you think the speaker will talk about next? In your groups, guess what will happen next and create the following part of the talk. (Hint: the title and the first part)

“…Lothar Meggendorfer wasn’t the first to evolve the way a story was told, and he certainly wasn’t the last.”

4. Let’s listen to the original talk and compare it with your “creation”. What are some of the similarities and differences you have noticed?