Today, I had my first classroom observation. I chose to watch Ms. Debbie Carretta's Advanced Foundations grammar class at 9:00 am. The topic of the day was the simple past tense of the verb "to be," as well as a review of the positive present tense "to be" and "to have." I really enjoyed the lesson, and I thought Ms. Carretta was very clear. Some of the students were very shy during the class and hardly spoke at all, while others--particularly one student--spoke up at every single question; so much so that Ms. Carretta had to remind him to let everyone else speak.
She started by asking if everyone had done their homework, and although everyone had said "yes," a few students actually had not completed the assignment. Ms. Carrretta gave each table an answer key for the homework and the students worked together to make corrections on their homework. While they were working, Ms. Carretta walked around the room to help with pronunciation, while checking to see if everyone had truly finished their homework. When she came across two students who did not try, she reminded them that if they don't do the homework, they won't learn the material.
After everyone had finished making corrections, she projected the textbook's page onto the whiteboard, and asked questions about the positive and negative "to be," "to have," and "-er than" phrases. Although most of the students were hesitant in giving answers, they did not have much of an issue until the questions dealt with "to have." The question was whether the man in the image had long hair. One of the students answered "he haven't," and when told that is incorrect, he demanded to know why--after all, the statement is a negative. Ms. Carretta explained that the negative is always "does not/doesn't have." She wrote example sentences on the other board while explaining this, while also letting the students know that, although this would not be on next week's exam, it was critical for them to learn this grammar. I appreciated that she was very clear on what she expected for the upcoming test--as we read in Snow's Ch. 4, students should be aware of what exactly they will be tested on.
I liked that the teacher would often repeat "do you understand?" to get visual confirmation from her students after almost every single grammar point or question. She made the students listen and think for themselves as well--when the class couldn't answer "the box is heavy," she had them think of the opposite of light, rather than providing the answer I also noticed that she didn't correct most of the speaking grammatical mistakes of the students--which, again, we learned is something teachers should not do for beginner levels--and I will definitely be careful not to immediately correct my own student's errors in the future.
She started by asking if everyone had done their homework, and although everyone had said "yes," a few students actually had not completed the assignment. Ms. Carrretta gave each table an answer key for the homework and the students worked together to make corrections on their homework. While they were working, Ms. Carretta walked around the room to help with pronunciation, while checking to see if everyone had truly finished their homework. When she came across two students who did not try, she reminded them that if they don't do the homework, they won't learn the material.
After everyone had finished making corrections, she projected the textbook's page onto the whiteboard, and asked questions about the positive and negative "to be," "to have," and "-er than" phrases. Although most of the students were hesitant in giving answers, they did not have much of an issue until the questions dealt with "to have." The question was whether the man in the image had long hair. One of the students answered "he haven't," and when told that is incorrect, he demanded to know why--after all, the statement is a negative. Ms. Carretta explained that the negative is always "does not/doesn't have." She wrote example sentences on the other board while explaining this, while also letting the students know that, although this would not be on next week's exam, it was critical for them to learn this grammar. I appreciated that she was very clear on what she expected for the upcoming test--as we read in Snow's Ch. 4, students should be aware of what exactly they will be tested on.
I liked that the teacher would often repeat "do you understand?" to get visual confirmation from her students after almost every single grammar point or question. She made the students listen and think for themselves as well--when the class couldn't answer "the box is heavy," she had them think of the opposite of light, rather than providing the answer I also noticed that she didn't correct most of the speaking grammatical mistakes of the students--which, again, we learned is something teachers should not do for beginner levels--and I will definitely be careful not to immediately correct my own student's errors in the future.
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