Jackie CO-1

I was first to Michele’s 9am, Group 3, Level 5 Grammar class, which was fine because as the students started slowwwly trickling in (which I notice is the trend at 9am classes!) they spoke so well it was extremely comfortable. Michele was apologetic because they were taking a quiz that day, but I still picked up on so much! Michele first wrote her plan on the board immediately—she would be covering the vocab, they would be taking a quiz, I would be introduced, prepositions would be introduced, and then the plan for the week would be discussed. This was such a nice strategy because the students knew what was coming up next, what needed to be done, and Michele could convert her time to make her schedule work. Definitely a class management tool I will be investing in! She asked for questions about the plan and also told the students to listen around them for “phrasal verbs” and write them down, so when they did the lesson the next day they would have some understanding of them already. When I introduced myself, they then discussed the difference between TESOL and TEFL, which was interesting in hearing the students perspectives on what was harder. I noticed Michele asked four different times if there were questions about the vocabulary—but every time, she changed how she asked the question. Of course, there were questions, but until she asked if there were questions about the “meaning,” nobody said anything. They proceeded on with taking the quiz, and Michele led me out of the room and told me some good tidbits about TEFL. But mainly, reviewing the quiz, and realizing I didn’t even understand the instructions, I learned I would have to explain things thoroughly with every quiz, and to do them first before introducing any other subject matter so that if the students would severely struggle, it would be possible to aid them.