Evan CO#2 (Reading 2)

 This Class observation was a goo demonstration of a very strong lesson plan and awareness of the materials. I think also what helps is the intricate knowledge the teacher (Dr. Rios) had of the students' capability. He began the lesson with some review of vocab from the previous class and a schema building  activity that was done prior to this class. I cannot be sure, but he seems like he spent almost as much time working up to the article as the article itself. He was very able to hone in on what exactly the students were unaware of and needed help in. Additionally the class structure did a good job in engaging students ins as many aspects of language as possible. Instead of having the students read to themselves, he made them take turns speaking aloud. This helped the students work on speaking in addition to their readin skills. One thing I think about then, is comprehension. However, this was quickly assuaged when he spent a majority of the time working on composition and gathering a main idea. This class was an exercise in the first reading of a text. I'm sure after this point, the students would comb the reading again and again. The material as well was very level appropriate. While the students may not have gotten every word, they were able to understand enough words in order to either guess at the remaining or work them out with help from the professor. Dr Rios worked through three articles, each in a similar fashion. First they would read aloud, then work on some vocab, and finally the main idea of the text. Again, this was a first read, so the main ideas were stressed, having more understanding of the minute details later. The class ran slightly late against his schedule I think, because there was not much of a closure on the lesson, just finishing the final main idea. 

 

Much of the class was not even really about reading. Sure, there was reading done in the class, but much of the happenings were about U.S culture and about language's function. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Evan TS#13 (Bruce)

           Today, we tackled clauses again. However, it was more because we were focused on the nitty gritty of the sentence. This happened by accident. We were working on adjective clauses again, he was asked to omit the relative pronoun if he could. He was struggling with knowing when he should. The difference being if the clause describes the subject or the object. If you omit the relative pronoun from the clause describing the subject, there is a mix up with the verbs in the clauses. I had to break down an individual clause and describe the idea of "complete thought" to Bruce, though that proved rather easy. We went into detail about what a subject is, and he came to the intersection of nouns and subjects. This proved more confusion as it was difficult for him to grasp that a subject must be a noun, but not all nouns are subjects. It was hard to describe his mistake to him because of how logic and language intersect. I used the sentence, "a square...
Read more

Zack - CO#3

 For my third classroom observation, I joined Ryan Flemming's beginner/intermediate listening class. This class was unique in that it contained mixed skill levels. Based on what he told me, I don't think this is typical for a CIES classroom, but was unavoidable this semester because of enrollment/COVID-related issues. Since this was a listening class, Ryan did most of the talking. More than any of the other classroom observations, the manner in which the instructor's speech was modified for the students' sake was most apparent here. Given the level of the students, this was totally appropriate and to be expected. I think it takes a lot more skill/practice than one might think to speak in a way that is comprehensible to beginner and lower intermediate students of English, but I think Ryan did a terrific job, and I sought to emulate him specifically when I was giving my own lessons (both the "fake" one during our class meeting, and the real one where we taught i...
Read more

Gabe - CP #5 (Dojun)

      Since Dojun lives in South Korea, I met him via zoom. We first started talking about how he learned English and what he does for a living. He told me that in Korea, when he was a kid, that learning English is mandatory and that he took six years of it during middle and high school, as well as taking a business English class at university. Apparently nowadays kids begin learning English in elementary school, for a total of 12 years including middle and high school. He majored in Aviation and works as an air traffic controller. He says he that in school, he learned how to read and write well but that his conversation and listening skills need improving, which is why he wants to have conversations.       We spent a lot of time talking about the Covid-19 situation and how differently it's viewed and handled between Korea and the U.S. In Korea, everyone wears masks - it's required, but hardly anyone complains - whereas over here, masks are optional in...
Read more