Jordan CO1

On Tuesday, July 5th, I went to my first Class Observation, starring Karin Devick and a group of Elementary Composition students. She makes it look so easy to manage a class and keep everyone paying attention and working yet also take care of anyone who needs help.

She began with a warm-up exercise from a workbook that each student had a copy of (simple past crossword puzzle) and wrote the day's agenda on the board while the students worked individually. After about five minutes, she broke the class into pairs, and finally, they checked the puzzle as a class. The room was small and the class had only 5 students sitting around one large square table. Karin sat down at the table and called on specific students by name to share what they had written in the blanks.

As they talked about the answers Karin used the word "consensus" to indicate they all agreed. She wrote this word on the board, with a definition, and told the class this would be the first word for the vocab quiz, a weekly quiz featuring more advanced words used in class. I really like this idea, and I plan to try it.

After finishing the simple past warm up, she reviewed the simple past lesson from the day before, making sure everyone understood when to use this tense. Then she introduced the next activity by explaining myths (vocab word #3) and fables. She gave a brief retelling of Little Red Riding Hood as a model. She told the class we would break into pairs and take turns telling a myth from our home country (or just a story from our past) to each other, while the other partner took notes. These stories would be presented by the partners listened to the story-tellers, and they were to use the simple past.

Class time was effectively managed, and the students were busy until the end of class, when she gave a homework assignment (find examples of the simple past in an article).