Taylor CO #2

Date/Time: Wednesday, January 13^th, 9:00-9:50am

Topic/Skill: Grammar (Foundations) – Practice: verb “[to] be” and Personal Information

Teacher Presentation: Before class began, the teacher wrote the basic agenda on the board, starting with reading a page in the book about the topics to be covered in class. The teacher introduced me, using it as an opportunity to explain new vocabulary (“guest”), and then moved on to the reading. This took 5 minutes, as they read to themselves quietly. Following, this the students practiced reading the dialogue in the book to each other in pairs for 2 minutes. In the next 2 minutes, the teacher explained the concept of capital letters and allowed the students to work on the accompanying exercise in the book. The teacher then went over the exercise for 2 minutes before allowing the students to move on to the next ‘capital letters’ exercise. They then went over this exercise together as well, where the teacher had the students state the correct answers then explain why they were correct. The teacher included some culture tidbits in this section, as she pointed out Chicago on the map (talked about in the exercise) and brought up a picture of its basketball team. From there the teacher shifted the class to going over the verb “to be” (although she introduced only as “be” for simplicity), first explaining the concept of it with examples, then having the students complete the corresponding activity in the book for 2 minutes. When a student finished, the teacher would check it for correctness and have them fix any answers that were not. After this, the teacher covered the concept of the negative of “be”, again explaining it while using clear examples for about 3 minutes. Again, this was followed with the corresponding activity and the teacher repeated her method of checking their work. The next activity was a shorter one, where the students answered questions either positively or negatively for about 1 minute. The final grammar point covered was contractions. The teacher had the students help explain the concept, and put examples on the board for about 5 minutes. For the final activity, the teacher told the students to write 5 sentences about themselves using contractions. She first told them the directions verbally, then typed them up on the computer so they were projected on the board.

Classroom Management: This class was incredibly structured, as the teacher laid out the agenda at the beginning of class, and each activity was timed (using actual timer on the computer) so that everything that needed to be covered would be. Because the students were only at the most basic level, the teacher spoke very clearly and semi-slowly, and used the board where applicable. The students’ ability to communicate was limited, and this wasn’t a speaking class, but they did seem to be genuinely trying, especially as the teacher certainly commanded respect even as she was a very warm and friendly person.

Materials: Textbook, white board, computer, Microsoft Word, projector

Student Participation: Students were invited to answer questions verbally when they could, but the majority of their participation was in completing the written activities, which the teacher made sure to check. The students did have time to speak to each other in reading the dialogue from the book, to better help them understand the concept presented.

Feedback Provided: The primary means of feedback was in checking the students’ work on the activities, where the teacher would point out if there was a mistake and encourage the student in correcting it.

Lesson(s) on teaching you learned: It was very helpful to see how a class at the foundations level is run, and I was able to see how effective having such a rigid structure is on how much the students are able to accomplish within the allotted time.