Marissa_CO#3

Marissa M.
Class Observation Blog #3
10/1/2014

The third class observation I did was Debbie Carretta's foundations grammar course.  I had already observed these students in my last session - speaking course - but was glad that I had the same students.  The instructor made a point of asking the class why they thought I was there.  Since many were familiar with me, they were able to answer.  At the start of class, Debbie asked the students various questions about the morning.  There were several late students and she used this to ask further questions.  Many students indicated sleeping late as a reason for their tardiness.  This led to a discussion of what students could say as an alternative to "I slept late."  Other choices were "I woke up late" or "I overslept." She used the bottom-up process that we learned in class to teach students other ways of understanding these similar phrases and responding.  I thought that was interesting!

Once again I noticed that this class segregated themselves by the "boys table" and "girls table."  I wonder if it helps at all to split the class up by assigned tables?  That is how our ESOL instructor teaches.  However, she does have a mixed level class and tends to try and divide up by the level.  I would still be interested to see how well this would work.

For what I believe was a second day, the class was working with money and learning the various amounts of US currency.  I loved this lesson!  Debbie brought in a mason jar filled with various coins ($1 and $0.50 coins included!).  She them dumped half the coins on the boys table and half on the girls table.  Students did have a workbook to show pictures of each coin and their respective value.  After distributing the coins, she held up a few items with a price amount and asked the students to pretend they were going to pay for the item.  Each student then had to find the correct amount - in coins, to pay for the item.  After they found the amount, they were asked to write on the board how they got it (ex: $0.25 = 1 quarter, 2 dimes and 1 nickel, etc.).  During this activity, Debbie reminded the students to pay attention to their sentences, and make sure they were using complete sentences to respond.

In addition to helping students with speaking skills, this activity helped with math skills and showed students that there is more than one way to pay for something in most cases.  This prepared them for real world activities, which I thought was great!

After repeating this with smaller amounts for a few rounds, Debbie held up an item and said it cost $11.59.  This meant students would need to work together in groups to get the proper amount for payment.  As soon as she announced this, I noticed the girls (whose table I was closest to in class) started reaching for as many of the higher value coins as possible to keep for themselves.  They then proceeded to try and get to the correct amount without any interaction or help from the other girls at the table.  Meanwhile, the men did as they were told and worked together to find the appropriate amount.

When the class had worked on this for a little while, Debbie asked if they had enough to buy the bag.  A few did and they went to the board and wrote their method of getting the $11.59 on the board.  The girls were still struggling with this and a few had not collected enough.  Therefore, Debbie taught them the phrases "I don't have enough money," "Will you lend me some," and "How much do you need?"  They they were forced to interact with the other girls and ask these questions until they had the appropriate amount to buy the bag. 

As an ending to the class, Debbie discussed the difference in borrow and lend (some students had questioned this) and the different tenses of both verbs. 

Overall, I think she did a great job and found a good way to incorporate various different tasks and life skills into their daily activity.  This is definitely one that I will keep in mind to use in future classes.