Olumayowa CO-1

On Tuesday May 15th, I went to observe Karin Devick's Group 1B Reading class at CIES. I first couldn't tell who was the teacher because she was catching up with some students on a really friendly and personal level, until she realized that I was the odd one out and introduced me to the class. I liked the fact that she took her roll call before the class started and made conversation around the room until it was time to start the lesson, she even took the time to show her gratitude to a female student who rarely is in class. On the whiteboard, she had clearly written everything that will be done throughout the 50 minute class in order; I bet this helps a lot to keep the class alert and on track, she makes sure to cross every item on the agenda off when it was done with. This is a nice sigh of relief for students, to know that they've completed an entire section of the class period.

In this class I was introduced to the SQ3R method of reading, which Karin uses religiously to help her students' reading comprehension. The "S" stands for "Scanning for words", the "Q" for "Questioning", and the "3R" refers to "Read, Review, Recite"; these are all the skills that together make a proficient reader. Since it's the third week of school, I'm sure the students know the meaning of SQ3R but Karin still went over it for emphasis. To practice, the class went over an article about Steve Jobs that was assigned to them the night before and were asked to identify the main idea of each paragraph as Karin read with moderate speed, pronouncing every word as clearly as possible. I was really impressed by the reading comprehension of the students and I can really tell that they wanted to read this article because they could relate to it culturally due to mentions of ipods, macbooks, etc. Though there were 2 or 3 students that she allowed to answer most of the questions, Karin still called on some students who were trying hard not to make eye contact. As they listed the main ideas, Karin wrote them in order on the whiteboard; I noticed that she was writing in shorthand, I'm not sure how acceptable this is in the English learning classroom because students might be confused by their teacher writing in improper/grammatically incorrect English. At the end of the reading there was a list of vocabulary words that are pulled from the reading that the students had defined as homework using their dictionaries, I was astonished to see that Group 1 students were learning words like CEO(Chief Executive Officer), genius, and dropout. They were assigned a story about pandas on the next day and I could tell that some students were actually excited to read it.

For the rest of the class period we read a picture book version of "The Scarlet Letter". Even with a story so long, Karin stopped at every paragraph to ask students for the main idea. I thought this was unnecessary until she split us into groups and I worked with a student named Faisal. When I asked him about the main idea of the passage that we had read, Faisal confessed that he did not understand most of what he had read (he reads out loud very well btw). I now understand how many more students can be confused in a reading class and stay under the teachers' radar so it is important to emphasize the SQ3R method when reading anything. I do disagree with the choice of book for a class that is being culturally immersed in the U.S.A, especially when most students in the room were women. I kept wondering what the students opinion of the book was when we read sentences like "Esther Prynne is a child of the devil! We should burn her with fire!", though Karin read it in a very theatrical manner that provoked some laughter.

I am so lucky that I chose Karin Devick's Reading class for my first observation, I just could not help smiling throughout the class. The 50 minute class period was a breeze, none of the students looked bored or overwhelmed, some looked genuinely happy to be there even though it was the period before lunch. She is the professional yet humorous teacher that I hope to become in the near future. Based on how I feel about the next class that I observe and how I feel about that teacher, I might want to see Karin teaching her Grammar or Listening class for my 3rd observation.