Benjamin_CO_#1

Date: 1/12/15 10:00-10:50
Location: Room 312 CIES
Skill: Composition, Group 3A
Teacher Presentation: Congenial, Adaptive, Calm, Slow, Encouraging
Classroom Management: Teacher seemed in control most of the time, kept the class moving a good pace, reminded students to speak English only
Materials: Computer, Internet, Board, Marker, Handouts
Student Participation: High, all students wrote and worked diligently when asked to, most paid attention

For my first classroom observation, I chose Calyn Stringer's Group 3A Composition class. Ms. Stringer entered the classroom and began by asking the students how their weekend went as she was setting up the computer. She described her weekend, during which she was sick. I could tell she was using the opportunity to teach, because she explained her sickness and the results of it in much more detail than a person normally would. However, she made this sound natural and conversational. She spoke slowly and with a congenial tone and the students obviously understood her story because they laughed at the funny parts and and expressed concern.

She then wrote the date and the agenda for the day on the board. She took attendance and asked the students to explain where the missing students might be. She asked in a friendly, upbeat tone and emphasized her use of "there" and "here" and hand motions to signal where the missing students usually sit.

Ms. Stringer then gave the students a warm up activity before the main writing assignment of the day. She gave the students three options to write one paragraph on:

1. Someone you admire - here she asked for an explanation and synonyms of the term "role model" and explained the difference between "admire" and "like" or "love
2. Your favorite food
3. Your favorite sport

She repeated the instructions: "You need to write 1 paragraph! Are you writing 3? No just one!". The students were given 10 minutes to write and she played soft, classical music while they wrote. She also told the students if they need help, to just ask. A few students spoke in Arabic and she politely reminded them to speak only English. While they wrote, she set up for the next assignment. There was a brief discussion on the grammatical category of "role model" and that it is a verb but "role" is an adjective. One student was trying to figure out a word, which ended up being "appearance", so Ms. Stringer spelled this word and explained the various ways "appearance" can be described.

Throughout the lesson, Ms. Stringer used stop-watch.com and Pandora for music. Students were allowed to use their phones for access to dictionary.

After the ten minutes, she asked how many people wrote on each topic and separated them by topic at different tables. The students shared what they wrote with one another. They were asked to listen for the "topic sentence" in each other's writings. Near the end of this part of the exercise, the instructor wrote her own version in a few sentences on the board. She wrote the paragraph as a run on sentence and the first table to finish was asked to identify what was wrong with the writing. A discussion followed on how to avoid run on sentences and the editing symbol used to mark them.

The instructor then passed back writing assignments from a previous session and gave them an "error log" in which they write the sentence with mistake in one column and a corrected version in another. Throughout the lesson, she instructor remains upbeat and not condescending.

As students finish, she asked if they thought the activity was useful. She suggested they finish at home or with a tutor. She reminds the students they will not get better if they do not find their errors and correct them.

She then began the main lesson, which was on "topic sentences". She described the 5 good features of a topic sentence:

1. It should guide the paragraph
2. It should not be a well-known fact
1. Explained why on the board (simple facts are just details that should fill out the rest of the paragraph)
3. It should be specific
4. But not too specific
5. It must contain an idea that controls the rest of the paragraph

She then gave examples of possible topic sentence and asked students to pick the best one. 

The session ran out of time, so she said it would be reviewed next time.