Sabrina CO #2

March 8^th

I attended Vickey Golen's Wednesday grammar class for intermediate level students (Group 2). The class began with a review of previous day's lesson about “present simple”. Students were asked questions about what defined a present simple and asked to give examples. The class then had a conversational activity. They were to ask their partner about their day and answer in present simple form answers. I also participated in this activity with the students. It was fun for the students to find out about their partner' day all the while helping each other correct their present simple tense. While we were doing this activity the instructor walked around listening to our conversations with a pen and notebook in hand. After the activity was over, she wrote down the errors and corrected them with the class. Vicky called them “beautiful mistakes”. She keeps a log of these mistakes and then students are given a quiz on them after some time. I found this to be an excellent idea. The new lesson of the day then proceeded to be about “present simple continuous”. The instructor introduced the form of this tense with various examples. She also reemphasized grammar points already learned when explaining the lesson. The students participated in providing their own examples. They used their textbooks to see more detail about the form of present simple continuous. At the end of class, a writing assignment was given in which students would use the newly learned verb tense to write about the topic of “What are your family doing?”. Vicky's class was a highly activity led class with the structure being 50% speaking and 50% writing. Students are propelled to speak using the newly learned grammar point in their conversational activity and then given another assignment to test their writing skills. I loved how Vicky made their errors be a point of strength by calling them beautiful mistakes. This label made students not be shy about confronting their errors. They kept asking her questions about whether their way of speaking was right or wrong. Vicky also was very clear about her expectation regarding assignments. She told her students exactly what she was looking for. I picked up many good points and lessons in this class. I loved Vicky's idea of having a log of beautiful mistakes. I think this might be a technique I might try in the future.