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 in pairs).

Ryan's speech was very careful, slow without sounding strained and unnatural, very communicatively rich despite only utilizing very simple vocabulary, and extremely clear. He also did an excellent job (just like Dr. Rios) of correcting students' mistakes without being at all abrasive. He would ask questions (enthusiastically) like, "ah, maybe you meant x instead of y?", or he would simply rephrase students' sentences with the correct grammatical forms in a way that made it seem like the reason he was doing it was primarily because he was actually interested in the content of the student's utterance.

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