Marissa_CO#1

Marissa M.
Class Observation Blog #1
9/23/2014

Tuesday I observed Vickie's listening class.  I really liked how she started the class - by calling on all students individually and asking them to tell her something good that had happened during their day.  This was a way to get the students talking and listening to each other, as well as take roll.  The majority of students reported on driving exams, getting cars and eating their lunch.  When the world lunch came up, a discussion of the similarities of the word to launch and lounge came up.  This was reviewed a little so the students could hear the difference.  I noticed that the students also had a few difficulties with the tenses of verbs.  Specifically in instances such as "I bring my lunch today."  I believe the students were a level 2 group, but honestly forgot to write it down in my notes.

The students were continuing a lesson on civil rights and the movement in the US when I observed.  Each student had a workbook with questions about a listening exercise.  They had started the exercise the previous class and watched two videos, each one time through to try and answer questions.  The first video was an overview about civil rights and some of the freedoms that women and African Americans were not allowed.  Ways that people were stopped from voting and the biggest issues of the time were questions that students were asked to answer based on their listening to the story.  Before playing the actual story, Vickie went around the room and asked different students to read allowed the questions so that students would know what information to listen for.  The video was then played once through entirely.  Students could get a few answers, but were having a difficult time.  Since some of the video went fairly quickly, Vickie played it through a few more times - stopping after answers to half of the questions had been revealed to allow the students time to catch up and write their responses.  This seemed to help.  Additionally, she tried to give them a few clues by pointing to key words on the screen as they came up.

Vickie asked me at the beginning of class to sit by Alli and be his partner for the class.  I assisted him with reading the questions.  To do this, I first read through all of the questions once more (slowly) before the video was shown.  I double checked that he had understood so that he could participate and answer correctly. 

Once the video was over, Vickie asked the questions about the video again.  Students discussed the video in pairs.  My partner was Alli and it was during this activity that I realized how loud group discussions can be in a class.  It was very hard to hear him!  This is something that I plan to keep in mind for my classroom.  After the pair discussions, questions were reviewed as a class.  During the time, students learned about the phrase "YOLO."  This was neat to me (and I think them) because it tied in to current American culture as well as history.  The conversation started when discussing hippies and the "counter culture." 

Toward the end of this exercise, students stopped responding as much.  Vickie mentioned that they were losing attention and/or falling asleep and had the entire class shake their hands and move around to regain focus.  I thought this was a good strategy.  Personally, it has helped me many times in classes just to take a quick break. 

After the quick stretch break, a second video on Martin Luther King, Jr. was shown.  This video asked specific questions about where he was born, what his father did, etc.  Students seemed to get the general idea but were not listening for specific details to answer the questions.  Thus, Vickie pointed out that we should always listen for specific information such as names and dates when listening to conversations.  The video was played again and students seemed to improve. 

To help with unfamiliar vocabulary, sounding words out was discussed.  Vickie told students to break the word into parts and sound them out for learning.  She also encouraged them to at least try spelling words, even if they did not know the exact spelling. 

Overall, I thought Vickie did a great job with the students and I was happy to observe her class.  She has a lot of energy which she brought to the classroom.  Students responded well to her and were participating in conversation throughout the class with jokes and input, which is great!  I noticed quite a bit of patience as well and of course a clear, slightly slower than normal, speaking tone.  Perfect for students!  The lesson was a great example of a focused listening exercise and I was glad I observed her class to see a good listening exercise in practice.