Sarah- CO3

Today, I sat in on Vicki's Speaking foundations class for my last observation. She did not expect me, which I feel really badly about because it seems that I caught her off guard. But she did well smoothing it over and had me introduce myself to the class, probably to take a few seconds to recoup!

The class was finishing up a reading exercise from the last period that ran into their listening class, but she was able to integrate both skills, as she frequently asked them questions and really made it an interactive lesson. For example, the article was about a healthy lifestyle, and when the class got to the paragraph about exercising and all the different methods, she asked each student what their favorite way to exercise is.

To get through the whole article, she explained that they would each read one of the paragraphs and then stop... and discuss a bit about it, and then move onto the second paragraph. I realized as they were reading that this was definitely a good method because the reading was intensive for most of them. After the first paragraph was read, and she asked "Michelle, what is this about?", we all sat for a good 2 minutes while Michelle reread it and thought. I think Vicki realized this wasn't working, because she began reading the paragraphs fluently after each student struggled through it in order to increase their comprehension. I think she could have asked them to pair up, and asked "what is the main idea of this paragraph", and then regrouped as a class to get the answer as well. But she was great about being very active in her descriptions and while she spoke. I really liked this, because it provided a visual aid for the students, who were already having a hard time following her speech.

One of her students is in a different Listening class and so did not do the first half of this exercise. This definitely caused some issues, as Vicki would start something, and have to back up repeatedly to explain it to that one student. She finally stopped trying to move on and gave a full summary step by step of the first half. This is probably just a negative aspect of the system, but I think it could have been better prepared for as well. There was a lot of jumping around in general. For example, she had a student read paragraph 3, and immediately afterwards, another student asked what the main idea was of paragraph 2. She launched into a discussion with him about paragraph 2, and most of the other students spent a few minutes trying to catch on, and one finally asked "Paragraph 3?" at which point she had to explain, "Oh no, we went backwards, paragraph 2".

I'm really glad I chose this class, because my very first class observation was for a Group 3 speaking class and I got to see two different levels of the same class. This reduced the variables for me, and I could really compare the different needs and dynamics of each level.

Both Vicki and Ryan (Ryan was the Group 3 teacher) had a great classroom dynamic. I got the feel that the students respected their teachers, and enjoyed the class to such an extent, that they were eager to please and to participate. Vicki's class was a lot smaller, so there was even more sense of community in her class, though I think she had a harder time maintaining control. The entire class was teacher centered, and I think it would have helped her if she made some group or partner activities. Ryan had a lot of these, and it seemed more organized. The Group 3 class reminded me a lot of my own classes, maybe because of the larger group, but also the content and delivery was more fluent. And the Foundations class really reminded me of my tutoring at the library. Lots of hand gestures, slow deliberate speech, and constantly searching for a simpler way to say everything. I now feel like I have a decent grasp on what it's like to teach at each level. A good experience in both cases.