IELTS Listening 4 - Section 3

x1~5th May~x2~16th July / Friday 16th July~x3~clear / was clear~x4~(an/the) outline / (a/the) course outline~x5~(the) 2nd half~x6~(standard of) teaching / (standard of) teachers~x7~discussion / group discussion~x8~handouts~x9~written work~x10~student support / support of students

x1~.................~x2~.................~x3~.................~x4~.................~x5~.................~x6~.................~x7~.................~x8~.................~x9~.................~x10~.................

ANNIE: Oh Ben - I just remembered I never filled in that form for Nick - did you do it?
BEN: The course feedback form?
ANNIE: Yes. If you want, we can do it together, I've got mine here.
BEN: Is that OK?
ANNIE: Yeah.
BEN: OK, let's have a look then. What do we have to do?
ANNIE: Let's fill in the top first, let's see, Course, Course code ...
BEN: Er, it's Communication in Business.
ANNIE: OK, Communication ... in ... Business, I do know that, but what's the code?
BEN: CB16 something, CB162, isn't it?
ANNIE: Mmm, that's it, OK and dates, when did we start? I remember, my birthday's on May 4th and it was the day after, it must have been May 5th.
BEN: Gosh, doesn't seem that long ago, does it?
ANNIE: No, and we finish at the end of this week, on Friday, so that's July 15th?
BEN: Er 16th, Monday was the 12th. Right, that was the easy bit, now let's have a look - "Please give your comments on the following aspects of the course", OK, what's the first one? Oh, course organisation. What do you think?
ANNIE: Er, clear? It was, wasn't it?
BEN: Yes, I think the organisation was clear. OK, anything else for course organisation?
ANNIE: It was a good thing he gave us the course outline at the beginning, in the first session, that was useful, so I'll put that down, shall I? Now, going on to suggestions for improvement, one thing that wasn't so good, I think we could have done a bit more work at the beginning, I mean at the beginning it seemed dead easy.
BEN: Yeah.
ANNIE: I thought it was going to be really easy and then all of a sudden in the second half of the course we got a whole load of work, reading to do and essays and things.
BEN: Yes, it'd be better if it was more even. OK, now course delivery, does that mean teaching?
ANNIE: Yeah, I suppose so. Well, what I thought was really good on this course was the standard of teaching. Actually - I mean some of the teachers were better than others - but the standard generally was fine. Much better than other courses I've been on.
BEN: Yeah, I agree. Let's put that then. What about suggestions for improvement?
ANNIE: I ... I didn't think it was all that wonderful when we had great long group discussion sessions that went on for hours and hours. I don't mean we shouldn't have group discussions, just that they shouldn't go on too long.

ANNIE: Now, on to materials and equipment.
BEN: Oh, now what was good about some sessions was the handouts.
ANNIE: Yes, I thought all the handouts were good actually, and some were great, with website addresses and everything.
BEN: One problem though with materials was the key texts.
ANNIE: Yes! There just weren't enough copies on reserve in the library. And if you can't get the key texts before the session, how are you supposed to do the reading?
And not enough computers. You have to wait ages to get one.
BEN: OK, testing and evaluation - well, I don't know, it's hard to say until we've got our written assignments back.
ANNIE: Don't talk about it, I only. got mine in yesterday, it was a real struggle. I hate to think what mark I'll get.
BEN: Yes, but at least we've done the oral presentation - I thought that was good, the way I got my feedback really quickly.
ANNIE: Yes, it was. And I liked the way we knew what we'd be evaluated on, we knew the criteria, so we knew we had to think about clarity, organisation, and so on.
BEN: Yeah, but I'm not so sure about the written work. One thing I think is that there's just too much, it's really stressful.
ANNIE: Yes, I'd agree and I don't see why they can't let us know the criteria they use for marking.
BEN: The written assignments? But he told us.
ANNIE: No, for the final exams. What are they looking for - what are the criteria? What makes a pass or a fail?
BEN: Yeah, I never thought of that. It'd be really useful.
ANNIE: OK, any other comments?
BEN: I thought student support, was excellent.
ANNIE: Yeah, me too. OK, excellent. Other comments?
BEN: No, I can't think of anything else.
ANNIE: Nor me. OK, so that's done. Thanks, Ben.
BEN: No, thank you.