My third and final class observation went very well. For my last class I observed a speaking class, and the students were continuing a lesson from the day before on "speech acts." When I first heard this term, I was unfamiliar by what was meant by it. I quickly caught on after the teacher gave several examples and asked the students to begin practicing various speech acts with a partner. Because the class had an odd number of students present that day, I was assigned a partner as well. I was ready! Funny how you can go into a situation fairly confident, to quickly realize that there is always room for growth. This lesson helped me to step back and further analyze the structure of English and language itself.
I had a fun time working with my partner, as well as learning the format of an average lesson in a Group 2 Speaking class. After the first activity, the teacher asked volunteers to read different parts of a pre-written story with character. After each short story, the class would identify the different speech acts that were used in the story.
I liked how the teacher politely kept control of the classroom. Whenever students would start to drift from the discussion, she would casually add their names into the lesson to pull them back in, without directly confronting them for talking during a lecture. She was very flexible and capable of keeping the students attentive without seeming overbearing.
The more classes I observe, the more the big picture of teaching English begins to click for me. If I finally decide to teach abroad for awhile, I will definitely plan on observing more teaching settings as a way to familiarize myself with various teaching methods.
No comments:
Post a Comment