Julia Smith CO#3

On January 18th I observed Angel Rios' 2A listening class. While observing, I was very captivated and inspired by the classroom teaching and dynamic. Rios' confident and clear voice alone caught the students' attention, but his additional hand gestures and movement around the classroom served as additions means through which he creates a fun learning environment. Rios called each student by name, which I thought was impressive and also sincere to the students. He began the class with a review of what they had discussed the previous day, which consisted of defining values and giving examples. Next, he led a classroom discussion of words that would be in the recording the students were about to listen to. I was able to learn about and witness a discussion in which the teacher and students were defining and describing English words, in English. This brought my attention to what I believe is an important aspect of learning a second language, which is not merely translating words from the second language into the first language, but creating a functioning meaning of the word in the second language. Although this may be more difficult in the moment, Rios showed that it is possible and definitely worth the challenge. The students then listened to the recording and discussed it with classmates, while Rios was walking around the room listening and answering any questions. Rios informed the students that they would be writing two sentences about the recording before playing the audio again, which prepared them for the task to come, rather than surprising the students and possibly causing frustration. I thoroughly enjoyed observing his class because his passion for teaching was evident within the first few minutes of class time. The students also seemed to be very engaged and liked Rios, which further proved the importance of creating an interesting environment for students to aid their learning.