LISTENING

LESSON PLAN: Note-Taking

Audrey Welch

TIME: 60 minutes

CONTEXT:

This course is offered as part of an Intensive English program that prepares students for further
study at universities in the United States. Students are in America from all over the world,
hoping to enter American universities after a semester of intensive English study. Students have
an upper intermediate proficiency. The course focuses on overall preparation for English-
medium instruction and the current unit covers academic listening.

OBJECTIVES:

SWBAT explain the elements of note-taking techniques.
SWBAT apply note-taking techniques to short lectures.
SWBAT assess the quality of other students notes.

PREVIEW: [ 2 minutes ]

Explain to students that listening to a lecture is much different than listening to a friend talk
about their day. When talking to a friend, you dont need to prepare yourself for listening
because you can draw upon your prior knowledge of the other person. This provides some
background for what they are going to say. Because we dont have that background knowledge
in a classroom setting, it is important that we help create it by looking over materials before
class, and then taking good notes that build upon themselves to create full ideas that we can
refer to later. Note taking is so important because it helps us to learn in the classroom and do
less catch-up outside of the classroom later. Today we will be learning a lot of practical advice
on note-taking and then practicing putting it into use.

PRE-LISTENING: [ 20 minutes ]

Talk with students about their note-taking habits. How often do they take notes? How do they
decide to take notes? Are there any aspects that they find difficult? Write responses on the
board.

Pass out The Dos and Donts of Note Taking Handout and explain that this is a list of things
students should and shouldnt do when note-taking in lectures.

[ Activity adapted from Richards & Burns, 2012, p. 78 ]

The DOs and DONTs of Notetaking

DOs

Look over previous notes before

class
Sit at the front of the class
Listen for signaling clues
Listen for big ideas
Look for cues that indicate
important material: teacher
repeats a sentence or concept,
changes in tones, things written
on the board, etc.
Use abbreviations
Write a summary about the
lecture from your notes
Take time to organize your notes
and review them later

DONTs
Write down everything your
teacher says word-for-word
Look up every word you dont
understand in your dictionary
Include nonessential
information

Have individual students read each point aloud on the handout. Discuss as a class.

WHILE-LISTENING: [ 7 minutes ]

Explain that we are now going to watch a video about note taking.
[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAhRf3U50lM - 5:08 minutes ]
While listening, students should take notes about the video.

POST-LISTENING: [ 30 minutes ]

All students will come up to the board (assuming this is a room with multiple whiteboards,
otherwise teacher would prepare ahead of time by taping up butcher paper around the room)
and copy their notes word-for-word in their section of the whiteboard. Students rotate
clockwise 2 places and will present the information from the new notes they are standing in
front of about the video to the class.

Teacher prompts responses and discussion about what made each of these sets of notes easy
or more difficult to use in giving the presentation. Prompt ideas like key words, use of verbs,
making sure not to include conflicting ideas side by side, big ideas rather than tangent stories.

ASSIGNMENT: [ 1 minute ]

Use your notes from this activity and reconstitute them into a written summary.