Lauren Co1

My first class observation was of Mrs. Kim's level 3 listening class. This was a great class to observe because my conversation partner Maria was in this class so I was able to easily meet up with her as well. One of the students kindly shared her textbook with me and for a little I got to sit with the students and see how they interacted with each other.

Mrs. Kim addressed each student by name as she passed out their papers from an assignment from a previous class. The students were clearly very comfortable and unafraid to make mistakes as they learned. When called on, students did not seem annoyed or scared; rather they seemed up to the challenge and very positive. The students respected each  other and were very friendly. After introducing myself to the class they all made eye contact with me and smiled, some even leaned in to follow up with polite questions. This class seemed exceptional because everyone was so enthusiastic about learning English and showed a positive attitude unseen in most other classes at FSU.

Though this may not be something I come across if teaching abroad, Mrs. Kim had the students pair up with someone who had a different native language. This completely eliminated the likelihood that students would "cheat" and start speaking among themselves in a language other than English. Zeb and I read aloud from the book an article about twins. I think it's important that the students get as much exposure to as many different accents as possible. I'm from the midwest and certainly have an accent people often ask me about. I was also impressed with the students' ability to communicate within themselves.

Towards the end of the class we watched a clip of a women talking about success rates among siblings. The woman in the video spoke English very clearly and slowly. This video did not appear to be something made specifically for EFL students but seemed to serve this purpose very well.The topic of siblings is very universal. I enjoyed this  choice because everyone in the class was able to contribute in class discussion.