Lucy CO-2

Foundations with Victoria Davis

I love it when teachers take time out of the "lesson" to teach things the students really need to know.

For the first few minutes of class, Ms. Davis reviews how to tip in restaurants with the students. They are all curious, and talk about how expensive it is to eat over here.

The class had only 4 students, all male, all Arab, all sitting around the same table.

Davis wrote the schedule on the board and dealt well with one student's concern that he needed to have a weekly schedule...Very patient.

The lesson today was on "Ch" versus "Sh" sounds. Davis wrote the "Ch" and "Sh" columns on the board with good visual separation. and then asked students to think about "Ch" and "Sh" words. She handled the word "shit" from one student by explaining slang versus academic speech.
Then she passed out the handout "Chad and Shane" and sat down at the table with the students to go over it. I loovveed that. To me, it communicated that she was a friend, like they were all in it together. That said, it could be interpreted different ways, I suppose. Also, it was a tiny class, and only one table. Still, I'm going to keep this in mind, myself, when I teach. A simple, thoughtful gesture, I think.


Davis used a lot of hand gestures, spoke very slowly, and asked basic questions...Chad and Shane... "Are there two people?"
After reading through it a few times, and having me read it aloud, she let the students work on the accompanying questions, but walked around while they worked. She always asked students what they knew about the word before explaining it--another good trick to remember. 

Another trick I really loved is that she had a card for each of the students and would write down words they had difficulty with. After class I asked her about it, and she said she tried to do it each class, to establish if there was a pattern. That a student had trouble with a certain sound, etc. Fantastic idea.

At the end of class, she reviewed the "Ch" and "Sh" sounds again. And called it quits. Simple activity, but very organized and thorough. This was an excellent class to observe.