Class observation # 2 - Janire

Date/Time: 1/11/16, 1.00 – 1.50 pm Speaking

Topic/Skill: speaking – focus on grammar

Teacher Presentation: Since this is the first day of classes, the students are required to work with the computer. The teacher explains how they should use the computer to do their homework and tasks. 
Classroom Management: The students sign in the computer and they start reading to themselves the topic. Then, they have around one minute to think about the topic. They cannot take any notes. And after they think about what they are going to say, they click to record their responses. The responses vary between 3 and 5 minutes. The topics are always related to real world activities such as: speak about a problem you have with your roommate, explain something regarding the new courses you are taking, and sometimes something related to culture.

Materials: computer, headphones and microphone.

Student Participation: Students are very careful when choosing the words and try to focus on the main point to answer the questions they read in the computer. All of them seem to be enthusiastic and want to practice their oral skills. Since it is an individual task, there is no interaction between students.

Feedback Provided: The teacher will provide them the feedback later on, once they submit their task.

Lesson(s) on teaching you learned: I think it is a good idea to give students the opportunity to record themselves. That way, they can see their speaking progress in terms of intonation, fluency and pronunciation of vowels as well consonants. So, at the end of the semester they can compare how they did the first assignment with the last one. They will see that if they work hard, they will see some improvement through the months.