Claire CO #2

March 9^th, 1:00-1:50pm

Speaking 1 with Leslie Wagner

 

Leslie’s Speaking class went through a couple of related activities from their textbook today on adjectives, descriptions of houses, and descriptions of people in the present progressive tense. The class was small and the atmosphere was positive and friendly. Leslie did a lot of helpful things to keep the class moving along at a steady pace; she had pre-written PowerPoint slides with the agenda for the day and instructions for each activity, and she made very clear regular announcements of transitions between activities such as “Okay, let’s move on,” and “We have one activity left before we finish!” The students were actively engaged and participating nearly the whole time, but there were some lapses in attention in the last 10 minutes of the class where a few people were using their cell phones or getting off topic. Leslie quickly addressed these issues in a direct but friendly manner by loudly whispering the student’s name and something like “not right now” or “What are you doing?” Leslie moved around a lot during the class time and listened for participation and errors in pair discussions. The students asked her a TON of questions—way more than the Group 2 class I observed earlier this week! She used a lot of gesturing to answer students’ vocabulary questions, such as “floor,” “lying” (on the floor), and “switch.” She was also quick to draw pictures on the board (a circle to illustrate “whole” or “half”) and list pronouns or verb forms that the students were having trouble with. Because of the students’ limited English, the Speaking scenarios in the book were somewhat controlled, but the series of activities were communicative and built well upon each other. I liked seeing how much the lesson made space for the students to play with the language and seek feedback from the teacher on what the right way was to express their thoughts. I thought Leslie did a great job showing real interest in their ideas and also giving them helpful corrections and encouragement. I also noticed that if someone needed her help with one of the questions during their discussions in pairs, she would call on him or her to answer the question in the big group discussion later to make sure they understood and reinforce their learning.