English Class Observation

I am sorry I haven't written anything in a while...I have been busy with school and other Spanish things :) I am not travelling anywhere this weekend though, so hopefully I should have time to write. In the meantime, here is the journal I had to write for my Teaching English as a Second Language class. I am helping out in an Intermediate B adult class.

"I was surprisingly nervous before beginning my first observation. I was assigned to help in the adult Intermediate B class, which I was told was an accomplished and fun group. I first met the teacher, who is from Denver and has been in Europe for seven years. I then met the 10 students, who all ranged in ages from about mid-twenties to mid-fifties. I introduced myself and then the teacher asked then questions about what I said. They repeated my answers back to her, and seemed to have very good English comprehension skills. They then asked me some questions about my life in Sevilla.

The class began with a short game of Pictionary, using words that the class has been learning. For adults, they had a lot of enthusiasm about the game and even made up team names. The students guessed most of the words correctly, but had a difficult time with the pronunciation of the word, ‘wood’. The teacher wrote on the board: ‘wood=good’, which I thought was an interesting and useful tool to help with pronunciation. I have not had any experience in the classroom or have taken any education classes, so all of these processes are new to me in terms of being a teacher.

After the warm-up activity, the class did a listening activity about computer viruses. They use a book that integrates many current and useful topics with grammar and vocabulary. During their activities, I sat near a group of two and watched as they completed the tasks. Christina, the teacher, informed me that she uses a style of teaching where she asks the students to complete an exercise, reviews it, but doesn’t go over the answers necessarily. The answers are in the back of the book, and she says that it gives them more satisfaction and allows them to remember it better if they look up the answers. I thought this was an interesting strategy, but seems to be effective because it allows for active learning.

The rest of the time was used for more activities done in pairs and groups. During my time, I was constantly amazing at the enthusiasm and positive attitude of the group. They joked a lot and really wanted to get the answers correct. I am looking forward to going back and learning more about the group."