Erin- CO 1

This morning, I attended Vicky Ledbetter's Elementary Composition class. Since the class is labeled at the elementary level, I was expecting for the students to be at what I consider to be a truly elementary level (like my tutee); however, I was pleasantly surprised at how much English they seemed to understand. The students volunteered suggestions, answered questions, and even made jokes (albeit small ones) in English.
I like a lot of the mechanics of how she runs the classroom, such as greeting every student as they come in and beginning a conversation with the students who are already there, both to get their attention, as well as to give them more opportunity to practice English. There were 1 or 2 students who came in late, and like in the video, she didn't discipline them; however, I do not feel that this is always necessary. Exact time is not as crucial in most other cultures as it is here, so unless they are learning English in order to come to the States, it does not seem like a huge issue. Altough Americans often are frustrated by lax time when they work abroad, it is an engrained part of the culture that one usually has to get used to. This is not to say, however, that students should not be encouraged, and possibly persuaded, to arrive on time so that the lesson can be prompt.
Vicky was very upbeat, and her positive personality seemed to feed into the classroom; all of the students seemed engaged and looked as if they felt comfortable participating. She placed the date and agenda on the whiteboard and explained both to the students so that they would also feel comfortable with the plan for the day and know what was coming next. Whenever a main point was made, or she was trying to illustrate something (such as the writing process and brainstorming), or discovered that the students did not understand a word, she wrote this all on board so that students could see, as well as hear, the process and explanation.
Also whenever she illustrated a concept, she asked for the students' participation. Instead of simply explaining what "comparing" and "contrasting" were, she first asked the students if they knew; she then asked for examples which were familiar to the students by asking them to compare and contrast two of their classmates, after she gave a couple examples of each. In addition to this, she attempted to keep students engaged by calling on various students to answer, and she encouraged them several times to take notes.
Today, they were focusing on biographical essays, and so they read two biographical essays out loud, which they are then going to compare and contrast in their next class. She read some herself and had students read as well. Then, she did something that is very simple, but that I had not considered before: Instead of reading each essay all of the way through, she stopped after each paragraph to ask students to summarize what was covered and the main idea of the paragraph. She also asked them both closed- and open-ended questions and had them begin comparing and contrasting as they read through the second essay, instead of waiting until they finished it to start.
There were a couple moments when her thoughts and explanations seemed scattered, but for the most part, she seemed comfortable. She seemed good at interpreting silence and could tell when the students in general did not understand a word; especially if a word seemed large or complicated, she would pause and ask the class what the word meant, and if no one could tell her, she would then explain it.
I liked the idea of reading several examples of biographical essays in order to teach the students what it is because it is somewhat of an abstract that would be difficult to show with a picture or explain without actually looking at examples of it.
Overall, I was very impressed, both by the attitude and the knowledge of the students, and the positive learning environment that Vicky appears to create.