Jules CO-1

I had the pleasure of sitting in on Karin Devick's Group 2 Grammar class last Tuesday. Arriving a few minutes early, I was able to introduce myself to some of the students and observe how Karin developed a rapport with them. She joked with one of the students about how he had stayed out late drinking the night before... "How are you feeling today, [name removed for reputation preservation]?" This kind of benevolent teasing got the class chuckling and loosened up before they began what could have been an arduous 9 a.m. lesson.

As the rest of the students filed in, Karin wrote the day's agenda on the whiteboard. The first task was to address a question that she had been unable to answer during the previous class. The topic was the difference between "could" and "can". Apparently, "can" refers to having the ability or power to do something, whereas "could" is more indirect, tentative, and polite/formal. Karin thanked the student for her challenging question and provided some online resources that clarified the issue.

Next on the agenda was a mini-quiz that involved the future tense. Karin directed the students to write four sentences using the word "will": two expressing a voluntary action, two making a prediction about the future. The directions were projected onto the wall so that students could refer to them if they hadn't understood the oral prompt. She informed the students that they would have fifteen minutes to complete the quiz, and that they should use this ample time to look over their work before handing it in. She then set an oven timer for fifteen minutes, a practice that I probably wouldn't duplicate because the sound of a ticking clock makes me nervous and distracted. It's a smart idea to keep track of the time, but I would prefer to use a cell-phone alarm or some other device that only makes a sound at specified time intervals. After the students had been working for about five minutes, Karin noticed that one of them had not written anything so she whispered to him, "Is it clear?". The student had missed the previous class so although she attempted to explain the directions differently, there was not a whole lot she could do without giving him the answer.

After the quiz, Karin went over the modals "can", "could", "may", and "would". The previous day's homework had been to imagine that CIES was a boarding school for which they had to come up with "class rules". She asked for volunteers to provide examples of things the students at this fictitious school may and may not do. One of the students kept trying to answer all the questions, and she praised him for being so excited but said that she needed to hear some of the other students speak. I thought this was a good way of encouraging the student's enthusiasm, while asking for participation from the quieter kids.

After they had finished this activity, Karin showed the kids some YouTube videos about boarding schools, which made the rest of the class fly by. I think this variety in instructional methods (independent quiz, lecture, class participation, videos) really helped in keeping the students' interest. It was enlightening and beneficial to observe how a real teacher structures a lesson plan. Bravo Karin!