Rachael CO#2

The second class that I observed (1/25) was Ramin Yazdanpanah's Reading 2A class. He took a quick, fun roll-call, chatting with the students and getting to know them. One of the students was having a rough start to the week, and she was telling Ramin all about it. He used this as an opportunity to add the word "vent (v.)" to his students' lexicon. He explained the word in a very animated fashion and then added it to a google doc that has all of the new vocabulary words. Most of the words come from the students' individual reading, which are added to the shared google doc where students can look up the meaning of the words, which are organized on a week-by-week basis. There is a weekly vocabulary quiz on these words.

Ramin has a week-long agenda that he projects on the board, this gives his students a very clear idea of what is happening in the immediate and near future.

I was then introduced to D.E.A.R reading. For the first ten minutes of class, Ramin has his students just take out the reading material of their choice (he makes sure it is level appropriate). Students simply read and take note of unfamiliar vocabulary words. At the end of these ten minutes, Ramin asks students if there were any words they were unfamiliar with. As a class, they muddled through the meaning of some of the words. These were then added to the google doc.

Students are required to fill out a weekly reading log, where students answer questions about an article/of their choice. On the reading log, he has students break down and digest the articles by answering prompts (who, what, where, when, why, how, and main ideas). He also has students write down nine unfamiliar vocabulary words on flashcards, using at least 3 of the following: part of speech, synonym/antonym, sentence, definition, picture, pronunciation, the word in students' native language, and/or a linking word.

The next activity had students working on paraphrasing. He had an article about brain development projected up on the whiteboard. As a class they went sentence by sentence, rephrasing and boiling down the sentences to avoid plagiarism, as well as finding apt synonyms and antonyms, as well as rearranging sentences. Often times, the students did a great job! However, there were times where student word choice was not apropos, and Ramin would correct them and help them find a better word. Students were allowed to use their phones as a dictionary.

Finally, students practiced summarizing in pairs. Ramin emphasized that since they are studying to be academic writers, the must be able to summarize and paraphrase. The students discussed how to best summarize the text. Then, as a class they tried to break it down paragraph by paragraph and succinctly state the main ideas of each paragraph.

The class was very lively, yet calm. Ramin is a very laid back teacher, but also very effective.