Savannah CO #3

I watched Leslie's class today.    I observed her classroom before and noted that she had a steady speech rate and clear pronunciation.  She also uses the board a lot: when saying a new word, when correcting a spoken mistake, when giving a model for an activity.  

When she was reviewing the new vocabulary they were going to use in the next activity, she asked the class how you spell "washes" and used that as an example of the rule to add -es to the end of words.     When a student said "she is studies English" Leslie wrote the sentence on the board and asked the class the correct way to say the sentence.

At one point a lot of the students began speaking Arabic.   I thought she handled the situation well before it got too distracting.   She said she was going to start taking off points if she hears Arabic.   One student continued to laugh and be distracting.   She calmly said "Do you need to leave?" He  seemed confused so she said "Do you need a minute in the hall or can you focus on class?"   It was the perfect thing to say because she laid down the parameters and took care of the situation with the minimal work to stray off the class agenda.


A student wrote a phrase on the board and asked the teacher if it was correct.   She said she would talk about it later.  After the speaking activity in pairs she said she would spend one minute on it.   I liked that she addressed the question without having it interfere with her agenda. She asked students questions that used the vocabulary and grammar that they later used in the speaking activity.  The speaking activity was in pairs.   She used the smart board to show a group of people and the students had to describe what they were wearing and what they were doing.

Leslie also informed them that they should study particular pages for their quiz.   I really liked observing her class because I could see how the students benefited from all of the linguistic support.   I also realized that the pre-acivity is very important.   The students have more material and exposure to model phrases that they will need for the activity.