I was scheduled to observe Olga’s speaking class but the students were going to have a quiz for the majority of the class so she asked if I’d like to observe Ryan’s class instead to get a better feel of what a daily class is like. I definitely want to throw out my thanks to Ryan! He had no idea I’d be dropping in, but he was so nice and chill about the turn of events! Right from the beginning, the class seemed comfortable and the students weren’t bothered by having someone observe them and had good rapport with Ryan. They were continuing an activity from the previous day where they were given a topic, wrote their thoughts, and discussed with their partner. The first topic was cause and effect and Ryan introduced a list of transitions that students could use to connect their ideas. The main topic of the day was the positive and negative effects of judging people by their appearances. He went around to each group and had the students report what their partners had said and went over any new words or questions with the whole class. The two guys at my table were on task, but were goofing off in a way. The first student was reading his sentences, and the second kept touching his ear until he reacted. The first student was pretty calm about it just saying he can’t read like that. I think they’re used to mixing in a little humor into their activities. Some students at another table were practicing their pronunciation and ‘beach’ led to ‘bitch’ and then ‘sheet’ and ‘shit’ came up. Ryan overheard so he addressed it saying he’s happy to help with pronunciation in class, since one student said he was afraid to use the wrong word with a native speaker outside class, just so long as they know it’s generally not appropriate to use those words. Overall the class was very relaxed and fun, but the students were getting things done, and at a high level too. Any explanation Ryan gave, either grammatical or about the curse words, he was able to make it fun for the students and even I had to laugh.
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