Taylor CO #3

Date/Time: Wednesday, January 13^th, 2:00-2:50pm

Topic/Skill: Listening (Group 4)

Teacher Presentation: For the first 15-17 minutes, the teacher went over what they did last class, which involved going over the answers for the assignments. This meant that the teacher would ask a question (which they should have already answered), the students would provide their answer(s), and then there would be minor discussion about the question (as each question was relevant to American culture). Following this review, the teacher reminded the students of their midterm. For the rest of the class, the students went down to the Listening Lab to work on the assignment that was due the next day.

Classroom Management: Though the students engaged in conversation before class, during class they followed the teacher well and answered/discussed as they were supposed to. The teacher did tell me that the most difficult part of teaching the highest level group is that many of them no longer have the motivation to keep going because they think they know everything there is to know. The teacher appeared to have both good control over and rapport with the students.

Materials: Computer lab (computers, headphones)

Student Participation: As a listening class, the students were required to give their responses to the questions as well as discuss research methods or simply the question itself. In the Listening Lab, the students were at individual computers working on the assignment.

Feedback Provided: The teacher discussed the questions with the students when they were reviewing the previous assignment in the beginning, though the students’ advanced level meant that they did not need as much guidance or error correction, but rather intellectual discussion.

Lesson(s) on teaching you learned: The teacher showed me what the class’s usual assignments are, and how at this level they look at material generally intended for native speakers. This seems like an obvious answer to “what do you teach such advanced students” but I hadn’t thought of using materials like that before. It was also interesting hearing about the students’ lack of motivation simply because of how advanced they are, and if I were to ever teach at that level, that would probably be one of my priorities.