Today I had the privilege to observe Ms. Leslie's listening class. Just like Ms. Felicia, Ms. Leslie wrote a short list of class objectives on the board at the beginning of class. She then began teaching the topic of everyday activities. Quickly, she went around the room asking students "what do you do everyday?" After the student responded, she then asked the preceding student, "what does he/she do everyday?" She briefly reviewed the simple present tense by modeling it on the board for reference, and then continued speaking and listening exercises. She had at least six activities planned for the class which included listening to dialogue, answering questions, engaging in conversation, vocabulary review, and board games.
I learned several things from Ms. Leslie this afternoon. What was most notable, was how prepared Ms. Leslie was. She had a clipboard for note taking, several hands on activities, and a defined plan of action. This level of planning helped to avoid long pauses or lulls in conversation. I also noted that one student had a particularly difficult time with the listening objective. At one point, it seemed he was on the verge of shutting down. However, Ms. Leslie quickly thwarted this student's disengagement by stopping the lesson to catch them up to the next question. She repeated the sentence so he could regain his footing, which in turn, caused the student's mood to lighten significantly. He still had trouble with the lesson, but never gave up, and I owe that to Ms. Leslie's swift reaction in offering additional guidance when needed.
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