Corbin Ryan: Class Observation #3 with Olivia James

For my third class observation, I observed Olivia James' reading class, Group 3A. The main focus of the class was a method of note-taking, a CIES adaptation of Cornell Notes. The class was structured into two parts: the first one was an explanation and demonstration of how to take notes using this system, then during the second part, the students applied the note-taking technique to a passage on a handout.  

Olivia pointed out to me that a few of the students in the class had mentally checked out, since it was such a high-level course and some of the students had already been admitted into the University. It looked like two students didn't even make any attempt to learn anything or do the in-class assignment and tried to play on their phones the whole time. Another one just said he didn’t care because he was leaving in twelve days.  

Something Olivia did that I will definitely try to do is that she knew each of her students' professions and/or goals. I saw this in how she went from student to student during the note-taking activity, and pointed out how the note-taking technique could be relevant to what the student was attempting to achieve. For example, she related the technique to one student who's in pursuit of film, and then related it to another student in pursuit of engineering.  

Overall, there wasn't a whole lot to see due to the individual work taking up a good portion of the class time, but I definitely saw the importance in getting to know the students, especially when intrinsic and extrinsic motivation can be lacking class-wide. 

Corbin Ryan: Class Observation #2

            I observed Victoria’s reading class last Thursday. She opened up the class with a pretty casual discussion about the way men and women tend to interact with strangers in the United States. I see the value here that this presents to a class of foreign English learners, since they not only get an opportunity to practice comprehending the spoken word, but also it is an opportunity to gain a perspective on American culture.

            Vicky (as she told me to call her) presented her students with several different reading activities throughout the class. The students have been given reading practice textbooks that contain many passages that are simple and easy to understand to native English-speakers. The class was given five minutes to read a short paragraph about the Erie Canal, and then had to answer a few reading comprehension questions, very similar to the FCAT tests I took growing up.

            The activity that appeared to hold the most value was one where Vicky projected a set of two passages from the textbook about the history of flags onto the whiteboard. This way, she could underline, circle, and point out words, phrases, and idioms so that the whole class would be able to notice them. This was especially valuable since the second passage was a paraphrased version of the first one, containing virtually the same information, yet explained using different words. In this way, Vicky as well as the students could point out the similarities and differences with ease.    

            Vicky seems quite comfortable in her teaching role. She seems relaxed and genuine, and it’s clear that her students are better able to connect and communicate with her because of this. Of course, I must also consider that her while her mannerisms seem favorable to me, they could possibly come off very different to someone of a different culture. 

Corbin Ryan: Class Observation #1

            Last Thursday, I observed Ryan Flemming’s speaking class. There were two major activities during the fifty-minute class. For the first activity, the entire class went down to the computer lab. Ryan displayed several open-ended questions onto the board with the projector, and each student had two or three minutes to record their response to the question on a headset-mic. This activity took about half the class. I imagined how much work it would take for Ryan to analyze and give feedback to his students from all the voice recordings.   

The second activity revolved around a discussion question, put together by one of the students, Tingwei. He had typed up a discussion question about healthcare in the US for the rest of the class. The question was quite lengthy, multi-parted, and even contained a brief explanation of the situation in the United States. After reading the questions and explanation from his paper, Tingwei led the discussion among the students. I think just about everyone had something to contribute.

My understanding was that every student, throughout the course, is required to prepare their own discussion question and lead their classmates through a discussion. This seems like a great activity in that it facilitates outside-class writing practice to put together a succinctly written question good enough to read to the rest of the student’s peers. Also, it provides material that students can communicate about. But, most importantly, it helps those language-learners break that barrier of hesitation when it comes to speaking to others, to say nothing of the social barrier that must be broken through when speaking a foreign language to a group of people.

I took notice of how Ryan interacted with his students. He spoke quite deliberately, giving enough space between his words. He was also very encouraging to his students in all their attempts, and gave Tingwei fair critique on how he handled the discussion question.