Meagan CO#3

The final observation took place in Mrs. Marilyn Sohan's listening class.  The subject of the lesson was "White Lies" and how they are a particular favorite for explaining tricky concepts to children, like pregnancy, Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, etc.  Before starting the lesson, Mrs. Sohan wrote out each part of the lesson on the board.  The entire lesson was comprised of discussing white lies and watching a video clip of the Cosby Show with an accompanying comprehension worksheet.

In order to build schema, she discussed the term white lies and asked students what they thought white lies meant and if their parents told them any white lies while growing up in their home country.  Most of the students had a good grasp of the definition of white lies as they were able to explain what it meant before Mrs. Sohan wrote it on the board.  Then, a couple shared stories of how they were told various versions of white lies. For example, one student from Ecuador wanted a nice shirt for Christmas, but his mother said it was too expensive. Yet, on Christmas day he received the shirt.

For the active and post lesson, Mrs. Sohan began by showing the class pictures of a stork and a bassinet.  When the students could correctly identify and describe the photos, she started to discuss the common story told to children about the stork delivering the babies to mothers.  Then, the video clip from The Cosby Show was played for the students to watch and listen for the vocabulary words on their worksheet.  The clip was between Dr. Cosby and Olivia in his office.  Olivia wanted to know what he did for a living and when he explained that he was OB/GYN, they entailed in a long discourse about the real way women deliver babies vs. Olivia/s theory of the stork bring babies from heaven. In the post activity, students had to answer questions based on what they heard from the clip (i.e. "Whose story is more believable?" "What kind of doctor is Mr. Cosby?" If students needed help or did not catch a word/phrase from the clip, she would replay it for them as many times they needed.

Mrs. Sohan is an amiable instructor with a very calm demeanor, so her students do not feel anxious or intimidated to speak or participate in her class.  She makes sure to write everything clearly on the board and speak at a nice even pace, so students have little trouble hearing her.  Furthermore, she asks students a lot of questions as a way to evaluate their progress and make sure they are keeping up with the lesson. I asked her what is the best method for evaluations and her response was it depends on the group. For lower level groups, ask as many questions as possible. For mid-to upper level groups mix-it up by asking them to write answers down first then explain and vocally answer as much questions as possible.