Tuesday afternoon (the ninth) I
observed Ms A young Kim's listening class at 2:00pm. This was the
first time that I had ever observed any kind of EFL/ESL teaching in a
classroom, so I was somewhat trying to 'calibrate' my senses to
notice everything that I should be observing. The class was doing
various match-the-word-with-it's-meaning and other exercises
requiring them to complete the sentence with the correct word, which
I thought was an effective way to evaluate students' comprehension of
previously covered vocabulary words. Soon after that activity Ms Kim
asked Lauren (who was also visiting class that day) and I to read
some information to the students so that they could hear some of the
variations that there may be between native English speakers. After
this there were various written comprehension checks along with a
discussion time, and towards the end a video was shown. Again, I
thought that showing a video that communicates information or opinion
and then checking students' comprehension of the material is an
excellent way to check comprehension, and it also teaches the
students to pay attention and think critically.
Throughout the class period I noticed
that there seemed to be good teacher-student relations with an
atmosphere that was very conducive to discussion of the topic at
hand. I did not notice any students who just refused to participate
or who obviously had bad attitudes about learning. I think that the
class was conducted in a free and friendly manner, but at the same
time there was definitely structure and order. One thing that I
particularly noticed was the varying opinions expressed by those of
different cultures; this further demonstrated to me that our outlook
on life is definitely shaped (to a large extent) by our cultural
background and personal experience.
It's neat that she had you and Lauren speak. One of the problems I've faced in my language classes was the fact that I would only hear the teacher's voice and become too used to it to understand others.
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of varying opinions did you notice from students of different backgrounds? Sounds interesting.
Oh, definitely! Some of the things that we do or think are universal, but a lot of them are also learned within our own culture. BTW, I wanted you and Lauren to observe the schema building activities before listening. =)
ReplyDeleteLindsey, the varying opinions I noticed came up in a class discussion about the 'ideal' family size. It seemed that those from Asiatic cultures and backgrounds tended to be the only child or from a very small family, and felt that a small family or a single child was ideal to insure the future success of the child/children, while having a large family would most likely leave the children somewhat neglected and likely unsuccessful in life. Those from an Arabic (I guess Muslim religious background) were more likely to see (and point out) the benefits of a large family, such as the 'community' of support that typically comes with a [well structured] large family. I am from a large family myself, so I found the discussion interesting. In my family none of us are married yet, and while we older ones do have lives of our own and go here and there internationally, we still have a 'home base' and are involved in influencing our siblings lives. For example, the younger children don't have just one mother who is stretched thin trying to reach around for everyone: they have several 'mothers' who are involved in shaping their lives.
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