Class Observation with Ryan Flemming 1/13/2026

    After observing Dr. Rios' class, I then moved to observe Mr. Flemming's low-intermediate listening class. After attendance and introductions, he introduced the topic. Following what they did yesterday, they were to review music and memory vocab, as well as a listening and transcribe exercise. Mr. Flemming spoke in a distinct, slow, and clear tone to help students understand, also using hand gestures to help illustrate and help students understand what he was saying. 

    Once they were ready, he had them listen to a 1:53 min audio file talking about the relationship between music and memory. The audio speaker spoke slowly and carefully, just like the teacher. He then gave each student two cards- one black, one red. Based on the audio, they had to answer true or false questions. Red for false, black for true. Mr. Flemming mentioned that yesterday they had been allowed to read the transcript from the last class, but in this class, they would only listen to the audio. 

    During the true and false questions activity, Mr. Flemming would stress keywords that would help them understand and better respond to the answer, beyond the assignment, helping students work on their English recall. After having them answer, he would then go to the transcript to show them where the answer is. 

    The next assignment was for students to answer a question on what the main idea of the audio was, to help them find and understand what the most important and true information was. Mr. Flemming introduced them to the different types of answers; i.e., one answer was false, one was too specific, etc., helping students gain experience with the various logical fallacies in English.

    After students responded through Google Forms,  he then gave them the right answer. He then went through the wrong answers, explaining why they were wrong, based on the wording being either too specific or too broad. 

    The class then moved on to vocabulary practice. As a class, they went through some listed words and phrases from the audio, with definitions that had to be linked to. He then warned them that one of the definitions was completely incorrect and did not belong to any of the words or phrases.

    The students went up to the board, taking turns reading and linking the words/phrases with the definitions, helping each other with some input from Mr. Flemming as they went. 

    Once they finished, Mr. Flemming helped correct their answers, stressing and repeating certain words and phrases to help them understand why their answer was wrong; when it was more a misunderstanding of the meaning of the word, he would help them understand the word and match it with a more accurate meaning. 

    The last activity was the listen and transcribe activity, where they pulled up a Canvas quiz. In the quiz, they were given multiple-choice answers to choose from, which one their teacher said. The responses had slightly different word choices, with 4 different options. Mr. Flemming repeated his sentence as needed. Once students submitted their responses, they then went over the answers together regardless of scores (all students got 100% on the quiz). The listen and transcribe activity was based on the prior music and memory audio, linking topics and recall through successive assignments. 

Mr. Flemming then ended the class, asking students about their preference in studying with music, allowing for a comfortable free response time, and practicing new vocabulary on the topic. Mr. Flemming then explained that as the course progressed, they would listen to the audio repeatedly fewer times, getting them prepared for increased difficulty.