DJ CO#2

Today I observed Victoria's speaking class. At the beginning of class they were doing teacher evaluations. Her lesson was about idioms. The lesson was a group activity: groups of 2 were given 3 idioms and their meanings. Then, they had to come up with a dialogue that would convey the meanings to the class. She explained the lesson orally, and then also wrote it on the board. I noticed that she spoke pretty fast, and she even mentioned that to me at the end of class. She said the students were high-intermediate so it was ok to speak faster. While the students were working, she went to each individual student to make sure they understood the assignment. Then, she went to each group and observed for a moment. Afterwards, the students presented their dialogues. Some of them were really good and even funny, but some did not convey the meanings whatsoever. I found it odd that there was such a disparity in the levels of the students. After the dialogues were acted out, she ask the non-acting students to explain the meaning of the idioms, and then she explained further. Usually she just gave a translation instead of going into detail, which works because many L1 English speakers don't actually know the reasons for idioms. She also wrote the answers on the board.