Ganem CO-2

On Wednesday June 1^st I observed Jennifer Babjack’s speaking class. The class started out with a high energy level. Her class wasn’t a large class; there were only about eleven or twelve students. It was loud when the class started. She had to quiet all the students and caught their attention when she stood in the front and center of the class. She then announced I was observing the class.

After gaining control of the classroom, she proceeded to go on with the lesson. She brought up the assignment she announced from the day before. Students will give a presentation on a topic they are interested in. She explained the subject of the presentation was the students’ choice. She also gave the rationale for the assignment. The goal of the presentation was for each students to have a prepared and organized speech about a specific subject. She gave different examples of topics could be for the presentation. Students then raised their hands and told the teacher their ideas for the topic for the presentation.

Most of the topics were approved by the teacher. However, she did run into some trouble with a West African student. He asked the teacher if he can give a presentation on homosexuality. She was surprised by this. She asked him why he wanted to cover that topic. He replied he wanted to do his presentation on homosexuality because he hated gay people. He wanted to present to the class about why he hated gays. Jennifer was able to handle it though. She told him it’s not right to hate people and he should do his presentation on something he likes instead of hates.

After this she moved on to the day’s activity. She divided the class into groups of three and four and handed them topics she printed out for them. They presented their topics in groups but each person in every group had to have a turn to speak in front of the class. One group talked about whether or not it was right for the government to censor the internet. Two students said it was alright and the other two students in the group said it wasn’t. They argued but each person took turns speaking.

After all the groups were done presenting she wrote down on the board errors in their speaking. She went over how to conjugate certain verbs and also went how certain words should be pronounced. She wrote the mispronounced words out and put stress marks for the syllables.

Right before class ended she reminded the students about preparing for their presentation. Then the class was dismissed.