Benjamin_CO_#2

Date: 1/26/15 9:00-:950
Location: Room 314 CIES
Skill: Grammar, Foundation
Teacher Presentation: Congenial, Adaptive, Calm, Slow, Encouraging, Repetitive
Classroom Management: Teacher seemed in control most of the time, the students worked among themselves quite a bit and watched examples
Materials: Computer, Internet, Board, Marker, Textbook
Student Participation: High, all students wrote and worked diligently when asked to, most paid attention

Felicia is a great teacher who is upbeat and loves her students. She told me right off the bat that they have a lot of fun in her class. As the students entered, she played "Remember the Time" by Michael Jackson and wrote the day's agenda on the bored. The agenda appeared as follows:
1. Bell Ringer
2. Attendance
3. Grammar
This agenda is simple but seems appropriate for a foundations level class. 
The "bell ringer" was the questions "What do you do everyday?". The students were expected to say at least 5 sentences to their partner about this question.
For the foundations level class, the instructor speaks very slow and loud. There is a discussion about the bell ringer in which every student was asked to respond with one of their sentences. When someone did not know what bowling was, the instructor looked it up on google. The students were also required to repeat what their partner had said. Grammar was explained in the moment during this exercise. For example, the instructor would explain the different between 1st and 3rd person present tense. 
She the began the main grammar lesson. She showed a video from Youtube called "What are you doing?". This video is very repetitive and was about the present continuous. What followed was a lot of practice of the student using the present continuous. They made a lot of mistake, like "I am read" instead of "I am reading", but the repetitive nature of the lesson caused them to produce the correct construction by the end. The textbook was used. There were pictures of people doing things and the students were required to say what they were doing in the present continuous. Even the students who struggled were making the right constructions by the end. 
There was an issue with a student who was late and very tired and was not participating. The instructor help encouraging him in a friendly was until it came out that something was wrong at home. The classroom broke out in to a lot of Arabic, but the instructor patiently waited for the opportunity to help the student deal with the issue after class.
I learned a lot form this observation, because I was uncertain how a foundation grammar class would be conducted when the teacher does not know the language of the learners. Repetition, speaking loudly and clearly seems to be the key. Also, having the student work with each other helps, as the stronger ones can give quick explanations to the weaker ones in their own language.