Ted Hong - CO1

Yesterday, May 15th, I sat in on Natalie Upshaw's Group 1B speaking class.

Natalie came into class with an affable disposition, greeted her students in a personal manner and went to write the agenda of today's lesson upon the board: Describing People and R+L Pronunciation. Students address her by first name basis, and so will I.

Once class time had started, she gathered the students' attention with a resounding greeting, and began dishing out the instructions for an activity based on a lesson previously covered for further practice. The exercise was detailed as having to describe one's immediate family members to a partner, and having that partner draw family members based on the descriptions given and vice versa.

As she gave the instructions, she passed on scrap paper along with markers. Before having students jump into the activity, Natalie wrote on the board giving an example of the activity. During her instructions, some students were coming in late. She drew no attention to them but brought them up to speed by repeating the directions and continued on with the lesson.

While the students immersed themselves in the activity, Natalie made her rounds overhearing people's descriptions and offered help. Every time she heard a misphrased question or answer, she wrote it up on the board verbatim. "She nose is like mine." "He is higher than me." "What Color is his eyes?"

After the exercise, she presented people's pictures briefly and went on to go over the mis-phrased questions. Her approach in showing the correction was by asking the students what was incorrect about the structure of the question. Natalie chose students by name as well as allowing students to jump in and answer at any time. Students were respectful in waiting their turn and in response.

Once the corrections were made, she moved onto the next item on the agenda: R+L pronunciation. She passed a handout with a small card that had a "R" on one side and an "L" on the other. On the handout was a word comparison chart (rice/lice, right/light, rim/limb) with some tongue twisters at the bottom. The exercise was to have students pair up and challenge their speaking skills as well as listening. Once again, Natalie would roam about and spot people in their pronunciation.

Afterward, she would have everyone repeat after her in the tongue twister and mentioned that this handout would be great for reference. Natalie finished her agenda items without rushing and had time to spare so she decided to introduce another exercise. It was an easy exercise and still remained in the realm of her theme of family. She drew up on the board a version of a family tree, of her family tree. Once the all the students understood the assignment, some asked questions in abridging their family trees because they had quite an extensive family tree, but all went right to it.

Class time was up and she announced to the class that if they had any questions they could come up and ask. If not, class was dismissed. Some remained to finish on their family tree a bit, others were eager to gallivant out of the class. Skip to my loo.

Overall, the class atmosphere was studious yet lax. It was a small class of 8, and even though the room was a tad warm, everyone was focused. Students were comfortable enough in speaking out respectfully, concerned about completing the exercises. Classmates helped each other in correction and I was quite impressed on the interactive and helpful effort of everyone. Natalie's lessons were to a central theme of family. she used her time effectively and the class elapsed without any drag. She spoke with a drive that garnered interest in the class and her direction was concise and clear.

It was a good class. My interest was locked on how she taught. Props to her.