Xueping CO 3

       Olga’s speaking class is my third observation class.  I was very excited to watch her class since she is one of the most popular teachers at CIES.  Also, my tutee, Youshimi was in her speaking class.  I hope that I could get more information about Youshimi in class so that I could help her more effectively.

       I went to this class on May 21^st.  Before the observation, I had asked Olga for some handouts that they would use in this speaking class.  This is a Group Two speaking class.

       Olga started her class with discussing their beautiful mistakes that they had made in their presentation class the last week.  After that, they started to learn a new topic—Buying a car.  Olga passed out the handouts to the students.  The goal for this class was to teach them some strategies to do better in Time-Speaking section in TOEFL test.  Firstly, Olga asked them the meaning of the word “priorities” and showed them the list on Page One as well.  She talked about the vocabulary in the list with her students to identify whether they could understand all of them well.  The first page listed major devices in a car.  When she was sure that all the students had no questions about the vocabulary, she moved on and told them to mark the things that they HAVE TO HAVE in a car with a 1, mark the things that WOULD BE NICE TO HAVE with a 2, and mark the things they DO NOT NEED with an X. 

       The next task for the students to do was preparing for their Timed-Speaking about their priorities in a car.  Before the students got started, Olga wrote down the structure of a good speaking and some sample sentences:

       Personal preference ( I prefer cars with …; It is important for me to have …)

       Body :  Reason 1—Example (mini story/ personal experience)

          Reason 2 –Example

       Conclusion: (This is why …? These are reasons why ….)

I believed that she had given the students a very good direction to start their speaking.  Five minutes later, she asked two students to present their Timed-Speaking in class.  Then, she divided them into three groups and shared their speaking with the classmates.  I participated in one of these groups.  I found that it was a little hard for the students to come up with their ideas to support their opinion very quickly and effectively.  However, I agree with “Practice is perfect.”  After they practice more in class and at home, they will make good progress.

       Finally, Olga ended her class by assigning homework, which is thinking about the advantages of buying a new car or a used car.  They would continue to practice Timed-Speaking skills in the next class.