Today, my second class observation was of Olga's group 2 speaking class. This class was less lighthearted than the last one I observed, and maybe a bit more disorganized too. I think she had a definite plan for the lesson, but the students were often very confused about the directions. There were definitely some good aspects as well though.
She began the lesson by helping the class to remember what they did in the last lesson. The two seemed very related, and I believe the difficulty level of this one increased compared to yesterday's, so the review was probably helpful. In each class they watched a short video on how to prepare food. Yesterday's was about making a steak burger, and today was a Greek salad. They worked together as a class remembering the steps to make a steak burger, and focused on words and phrases such as "thinly sliced". She then introduced the topic of Greece and asked the students what they already knew about Greece before giving them an article to read silently. I liked how each of her activities flowed well into one another. She introduced each topic before making them dive into it without any background information. The students were able to learn from one another as much about Greece as possible, THEN read the text. That also is a nice way to level the playing ground, so to speak, so that all students have an equal advantage as they read the text.
The class then watched the video on how to make a Greek salad. She told everyone she would play it twice, the first time so that they could get the idea, and the second time so they could write down the ingredients and steps. The students seemed completely overwhelmed however, and I understand why. I couldn't even have made a list and directions that quickly! One student commented after the video played the second time that the woman spoke so fast! They were then allowed to partner up and work together creating a full list of ingredients and directions. This seemed to help a lot.
The students were then asked to write step by step directions individually. They seemed to have trouble with this, but Olga played the video one last time, maybe 80% of the way through their writing time, so they could "make a few last corrections".
The whole lesson seemed very well planned, but maybe a bit over their heads, either because the directions weren't explained well, or the video was too fast, or both? It was an enlightening experience though, and I enjoyed it.
Great observations, Sarah. At times, the material we select doesn't hit the spot exactly, but you can see that this was more of an intensive listening practice. The good thing about online videos is that students can relisten outside of class.
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