Ganem CO-3

On June 8^th I went to my final classroom observation. I was in Anisa Radman’s listening class. She announced I was observing their class and introduced me to her students .She then went straight into her lesson. Her teaching style is teacher centered; she stood in the front and center of the class and maintained a sense of authority.

The students were going to listen to a broadcast from the NPR show “This American Life.” The subject of this broadcast was the perception of money. Before making the students listen to the broadcast she wrote down vocabulary they would have to listen for. She also asked the students what people use money for. Different students replied money is used for buying food, buying shelter, buying clothes, and also for leisure. She then asked the class where the concept of money came from. Different students answered with different values. Some students said money was based on gold; others said it was based on oil. She explained that these values were based on how much people wanted or needed these resources. This allowed her to segue into one of the points of the broadcast; the value of money is fictional and based on people’s perception.

She then played the broadcast for them. The students were writing a dictocomp for the broadcast. They were quiet and listened attentively as the host, Ira Glass, spoke. The broadcast covered the history of money and how it’s valued today. The broadcast mentioned how gold used to be the normal standard for money but then it was changed to credit. She stopped the broadcast after the end of the first half and asked the students questions. She asked students what money was described as and students reiterated that money was fiction, numbers, information. She then went further and asked the class what concrete and abstract meant. They had a hard time answering. She helped them out; she explained that concrete meant things were tangible, things like gold, oil, and abstract meant things were virtual or imaginary.

She then started the second half of the broadcast. This part was about an economic crisis that affected Brazil in the 1970s. It was about how a team of economists sponsored by the Brazilian government helped bring the nation out of this tense economic situation. After this half of the broadcast, she asked questions about what the broadcast was about, who it involved, where and when the event happened. The students answered from their listening.

This was a very well organized, well thought-out lesson. The subject matter was interesting. She maintained both classroom management and student participation. Her explanations for the lesson were very natural and didn’t feel forced.