Francis- Observation 2

The second observation I did was of an intermediate to high Speaking class taught by Anisa. This class was very interesting because that day served to prepare the class, of about 8 or 10 students, for a graded group discussion. Anisa would just be observing and grading each student based on their involvement in the discussion. What I found most interesting was the topic they were going to discuss: Capital Punishment. This is a heated topic in the states already, but the discussion that emerged between the students, from places like China and Kuwait, made it much more complex and provided many different examples. All these different view made the discussion much more interesting to the students, and I think this helped them become more involved. There were a few students who did speak out more during the discussion. I think I recognized the 'respect your elders' thing working into the dynamic of the group. The older students, maybe in their 30s, spoke more. The women, only 2 that day, kept kind of quiet. One of them only spoke when Anissa called on her. I think that a handful of students had to be encouraged a little more to become involved.

Anisa had given the whole class a copy of the rubric she would be using. She went over it by having students read each point and explain what they think it means. The activity came from a textbook Anisa had. The textbook provided guiding questions which they group discussed one by one. This seemed to help the students organize their thoughts so they could be more confident in what they were trying to say. Anisa would try to keep the discussion focused on answering the current question. If a student mentioned something that pertained to a later question she stopped them and told them to please bring that point up when the later question emerged.