Hello everyone. Welcome to this lesson.
In this lesson we are going to look at how to decode a parent teacher conversation, how you can understand and pick up facts from a conversation between teachers.
After this lesson, you’ll be exposed to an audio where a parent is meeting a teacher and they two have a conversation and you answer the questions based on the audio that you are going to hear.
I hope this lesson is going to help you understand and see what you need to focus if such an audio was given to you.
Unfortunately, in the exam they are not going to tell you what the audio is all about.
The examiner will just present that audio and as you listen, it will be you to tell whether that audio is about educational issues, whether it’s about parent teacher conversation, or about teacher and teacher conversations or ministerial statement, anything that surrounds the education, the education system that may come through an audio.
So in case you got a parent teacher conversation, this lesson is going to show you how you can understand almost everything based on the principles that we are going to learn in this lesson.
So to begin the lesson, let’s look at what we are going to look at.
Firstly, we are going to look at identifying key concerns, agreements and resolutions, how you can understand about concerns, about agreements and the resolutions.
Secondly, we are going to look at listening for tone and emotion when the teacher and the parent are discussing.
Thirdly, we will look at interpreting implicit meaning.
Fourthly, we are going to look at recognizing formal and informal speech patterns.
And lastly, we will look at some of the words that you need to know that parents and teachers are more likely to use.
Okay, so let’s look at how to identify key consents, agreements and resolutions.
Firstly, let’s define some of the words and then we are going to look at how you can effectively listen to them using specific strategies.
Okay, so a concern is an issue raised by a parent or a teacher regarding a student’s academic or behavioral performance.
So the teacher could be concerned about a child’s behavior, maybe making noise or not concentrating on the lessons.
Those are concerns then agreements.
These are points where the teacher and the parent find common understanding.
Resolutions are clearly agreed upon solutions or next steps that are decided during the conversation.
So you need to look for these concerns, agreements and resolutions and effective listening strategies.
How can you actually recognize concerns if you hear words like I’m worried about?
My concern is I have noticed, I have noticed that John is not concentrating in class.
May I know why this is?
So then you know that these are concerns and agreements.
When you hear I agree with you, you are right. Exactly.
I understand Then resolutions. Resolutions.
If you hear words like let’s try to keep John, you know, engaged by giving him a lot of work, or let’s try to do that, or we can do this, or it might help if he did this or if we did this, I’ll make sure to all those words that suggest resolutions.
So really, in a conversation between teachers and parents, you are just looking for three things.
What their concerns are, what agreements are in the context of that conversation, and the resolutions in that conversation.
Okay, so how can you listen for tone and emotion?
Tone changes.
Notice if the speaker’s voice sounds calm, anxious, friendly or frustrated.
Yes, you can tell this as you listen, and that can help you enhance your understanding of the audio, speech speed and volume.
So how fast speech is, is it louder, is it lower?
That might indicate stress or urgency.
In short, that can indicate emotions.
Then pauses and distortions.
Long pauses or instant speech may reflect discomfort or uncertainty.
And I’ll give you an example.
Today I went to meet my children’s teachers.
I’ve got two children who are in primary school.
The first one was my daughter’s teacher.
We had a good conversation because we actually agreed to most of the issues that were raised.
And when I went to see my son’s teacher, she.
She’s noticed something about my son, that he loves playing and then waits for the last minute to do his work.
So she didn’t want to use the word he’s slow.
She hesitated. She was like, I have noticed that he’s not using the time in class effectively because sometimes he will he wait until the last minute.
But I know him.
I’ve observed teachers are supposed to use positive language.
So she was very uncomfortable to use words like he’s slow, he’s this, because that would not sound good.
But as also as a teacher, she was trying to really make sure she uses positive language to describe a negative situation, if you understand what I mean.
So those pauses and stations could exactly just indicate that.
But the good thing is that when they pause, when they hesitate, when they speak slowly.
When the participants in the audio speak slowly, they give you a moment actually to take down your notes and to listen carefully in case you were a bit behind.
That gives you a bit more time.
But this is not the case.
And again, I repeat, you may not be given an audio where parents and teachers are discussing issues concerning students. Okay?
So that shouldn’t build expectations in you.
Interpreting implicit meanings.
How can you interpret implicit meanings?
Listen for indirect or suggestive language.
Notice hesitation or vague statements hinting at deeper concerns.
Identify when Statements politely disguise real issues.
So like I said, sometimes teachers are going to use or parents are going to use language that have got implicit meanings.
And those meanings could be deep.
It’s up to you to understand.
Let’s look at this scenario.
If a parent says, I see Oliver seems easily distracted, perhaps he’s not being challenged enough.
The implicit meaning is that the parent is suggesting that the teaching method or curriculum might not be sufficiently stimulating.
For John, that could be the implicit meaning.
Like, I feel like you are not doing enough.
And I think coming from Zambia, that is what I’ve found in Australia, that my kids.
Then the system is not very academic.
In short, it’s learning through play, learning integrated. It’s a good system.
I’m not saying it’s negative.
I’m just coming from a system where everything was very academic, even for young students in primary school.
So really, these are some of the issues that may come out in the audio.
As we listen to the audio, let’s look at how you can recognize formal and informal speech patterns.
Parent teacher conversations may vary between formal and informal speech.
Recognizing these patterns is very vital in the. In the exam.
Formal language clearly defined.
How do we define polite, professional and structured language?
So formal is polite.
It’s professional and structured.
Formal vocabulary.
And it got fewer contractions.
Contractions are always like can’t instead of cannot, didn’t instead of did not.
You know, so it has got fewer of those.
In fact, it may not have any of those.
Although when we are speaking generally, we don’t.
We do not say, I did not see him.
We usually say I didn’t see him.
Because in spoken language, usually we use contractions most of the time.
Clearly used with unfamiliar parents or serious discussions.
And when you see that parents don’t know each other, as in the video, that you’re going to see that the teacher only recognizes that parent.
Sorry, not in the video.
In the audio that you’re going to listen to in the quiz that’s coming because of the student.
Okay, what is some.
What are some of the words that you may listen to or that you may find in the audio?
Struggling, difficult.
Concern, worried.
Issue, Anxiety, Problem.
Distracted, Withdrawn.
Agree. Understand. Exactly.
You can look at all these words and I have them in the notes.
You can download the notes and read the notes.
So all these might just come out, but in a subtle way.
And you may not have all these words littered in the audio.
You may have one or two or none.
Yeah, you may not even have any of those words because when you have an audio, it sounds so natural. Okay.
In conclusion, I want to say that clearly identifying implicit explicit information and implicit messages will help you understand the audio.
And then recognizing emotions and tone will help you ascertain what the issue really is.
Even words that you do not hear clearly may come out because of the tone.
And then distinguishing between formal and informal speech is very important as you listen to a parent teacher discussion.
Okay, we’ll end it here.
And please go to the next lesson quiz.
Go to that quiz and listen to the conversation, because you are going to see how that is structured and how it can help you understand.
And I want you to answer the questions that will follow.
Thank you so much.
