ELP High Beginners/ Reading & Discussion

Erica Kim

ESL Services at UT

ELP High Beginners/ Reading & Discussion

10/7/ 2010

My first observation class was a Reading and Discussion class for high beginners. I met the instructor before the observation to ask her about the class goals and what they usually did to achieve them. She stated the goals of the class were as follows.

· Increase reading comprehension

· Increase reading speed

· Use effective reading strategies

· Discuss reading material

· Summarize

· Use an English-English dictionary

· Read authentic materials

· Expand vocabulary

To help students acquire these skills, her students used the textbook and novels. Students were also to learn real life expressions by reading “News for You,” a newspaper written in plain words for English learners. In an effort to help students expand their vocabulary she made a vocabulary log and had students make eight sentences using newly learned words every week. After our pre-observation conversation, I became more excited at the chance to visit the class and the day came at last.

Learner variables and participation

There were ten students with two being absent the day of my observation. The students were from different countries. Four were from Korea, two from Saudi Arabia, and the remaining six were from UAE, Taiwan, Libya, Turkey, Mexico, and Kazakhstan, respectively. More than half of them came to the U.S. this summer, so it was a new experience for them to be living here. They had positive attitudes about the American culture, reflected in their smiling faces and eagerness to learn more about the language and the culture. Such attitudes would surely increase their motivation to learn (Horwitz 2008, p. 9).

Most of them were young adults wanting to get into U.S. colleges; some were here through company sponsorships. Since their native languages were different they naturally spoke English among themselves. They were eager learners who seemed to enjoy the class a lot. They were supportive, listening carefully to others’ opinions and laughing at their classmates jokes. This positive and mutually supportive class atmosphere would surely promote successful language learning (Richards, p. 238). They seemed very comfortable and confident when they spoke English in class and had no trace of anxiety while answering teacher questions. They cared little about making mistakes since everyone in class including the teacher was focused on the content not the correctness of their speech. They tried hard to express their opinions and remember words or expressions they had learned in previous classes.

I was amazed to see how students at the beginner level were so active and eager to express themselves with confidence and enjoyment. I put the main reasons down to, 1) the friendly atmosphere created by the teacher and, 2) the students’ positive attitudes toward learning English. The tremendous importance of motivation on the learning process was evident.

Lesson Design, Activities and Materials

The objective of the day was for students to understand the climax of a novel and how to write a book review on Amazon. The teacher designed her lesson to meet each goal through a well-organized class structure. The first 20 minutes were spent on teacher evaluations. So the instructor and I left the classroom for students to freely write down suggestions for the class. I thought it was great for the institute to receive feedback from students in an effort to meet the needs of students. After the survey the class started.

The class lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes and was divided into two parts: the first half was novel sharing and the second half was discussion of the textbook. The teacher first reviewed some words taught in the previous lesson. Students were eager to recall those words and the teacher encouraged them to explain the meaning of each word. After the review of vocabulary, the teacher continued to introduce that day’s new words. These included words for such important concepts as climax and character analysis. She wrote down new and important words on the board so that students could pay attention to those words. Giving new words both verbally and visually did seem to be effective for beginning level students. She chose words appropriate to students’ level and was good at explaining some difficult words with easy phrases.

The students were then engaged in group work talking about the climaxes from the books of their own choice. They had just learned what climax meant, so now they could explain the climax of their novels to other group members. They had a genuine interest in what other students had to say about their stories because they all had different books. This activity helped them to summarize the most important part of their stories. I thought it was a good way to expose students to various English novels. The experience might stimulate them to read more books. One of the most effective measures to improve reading skills is to read as much as possible and in this regard, the teacher chose an excellent strategy.

The most interesting activity the teacher brought that day was “Writing a book review on Amazon.” She wanted her students to engage in more real-life experience. She had some sample reviews from the Amazon website. She explained what students ought to write in their reviews. She asked the students to persuade their readers why or why not they should read the book they were reviewing. This was their assignment for the next class. She said she would read their reviews and give comments so students could actually post their reviews on Amazon. I thought this activity fostered students’ sense of achievement by publishing their comments in English on such a famous website. I would definitely like to use this kind of authentic activity in my class, too.

The second half of class was spent understanding the textbook, For Your Information, by Karen Blanchard & Christine Root. This book was used to foster students’ understanding of reading passages and discussion skills. That day’s topic was traveling and the teacher went over the vocabulary first. While explaining the meaning of words, the teacher tried to use not only the words appropriate for their level but also those they had learned previously. She did a good job connecting pre-knowledge with new knowledge. This pre-reading activity was followed by group discussions in which students interacted with each other discussing questions from the textbook. They first went over discussion points in the book. Later, when the teacher asked them to, they shared their personal experiences. In this way, the teacher personalized their learning to reflect their experiences.

In the last stage of class, the teacher assigned homework. She gave them elaborate guidelines on how to do the homework, giving them a handout that contained the descriptions and outlines of the assignment. This would give students clear ideas on what they were expected to do and how to fulfill those expectations.

Teacher Talk

The teacher succeeded in explaining new concepts and giving directions in English appropriate to the students’ level. She sometimes drew pictures on the board which also helped students grasp the meaning of words. Students did not seem anxious about understanding the teacher; they knew from her language level and speed that she was quite understandable. The teacher did not correct students’ errors explicitly. She let them speak and the conversation flow. The she would rephrase what students said in a correct way which helped students to learn correct expressions without being embarrassed.

Conclusion

It was a great learning experience to observe ESL classes. I observed that the teacher used effective strategies to facilitate the students’ learning process. She was successful in lowering learner anxiety by using the English language that matched to students’ level and facilitating interactive communication between the teacher and students as well as among students through pair/group work. Through expansion of vocabulary words, she presented good challenges for students to overcome. In this way, students were provided with comprehensible inputs. This is something Krashen emphasized as being one of the most important ways to acquire a language. The use of authentic materials would encourage students to function as members of society and culture here.

What I learned most from this class was how effective and enjoyable the class can be when the teacher puts all her efforts and time into coming up with a well-organized class structure. Every activity and piece of material fit into the well-structured class flow: they were organized in a way they would develop into a final achievement. This enabled the teacher and students to focus on class goals. I could see the class itself being a result of the teacher’s thorough preparedness and responsibility. It was a wonderful learning as well as challenging experience for me.

References

Hadley, A. O. (2001). Teaching language in context. Boston: Heinle and Heinle.

Horwitz, E. K. (2008). Becoming a language teacher: A practical guide to second language learning and teaching. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.

Richards, J. (1996). Teachers’ Maxims in Language Teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 30, 281-296.

ESL Services at UT

ELP Low Advanced Grammar

10 /15/ 2010

Two thirds of this grammar class was devoted to grammar and the remaining one third to idioms. Learning grammatical rules and idioms entails a considerable amount of memorization, which might result in boredom. The teacher, however, did a great job in encouraging students to put the given grammatical rules and idiomatic expressions into practice in a contextualized and communicative way. What I learned from this class can be summed up in two aspects: 1) integrated approach and 2) communicative language teaching

1) Integrated Approach

Even though it was a grammar class, the teacher incorporated listening elements by playing CDs and having students pay attention to the grammar points of the listening passage. They were supposed to fill in blanks with active/passive voice while listening to stories and dialogues. This way, students could understand not only the grammar rules but also their usages while also improving their listening skills.

2) Communicative Language Teaching

The teacher had groups of students engage in role playing, using idiomatic expressions. Each group made their own story utilizing idioms and presented their skit in front of the class. This activity promoted communicative aspects of language learning. Students were able to communicate among themselves in a more contextualized and authentic way.

I was amazed to see how grammar class can encompass integration of listening and speaking aspects as well as communicative approach and this is definitely what I want to apply to my class in the future.

ESL Services at UT

ELP High Intermediate Listening & Speaking

10/ 15/2010

The teacher taught listening and speaking skills in a very effective and interesting way. A third of the class was given over to speaking. The topic was genetic engineering and students brought a short essay on whether they were for or against it and why. The teacher had students exchange their opinions with partners before brainstorming pros and cons about the issue with the whole class. The pair-work fostered students’ confidence to speak up in class in the brainstorming session, presenting interesting reasons why they took a particular stance on the issue. They were supposed to have a debate the following week and the brainstorming activity provided a foundation for it.

Another third of class time was allotted to listening skills. What was most notable was that the teacher drew a blank outline of the listening passage, explaining what students should focus on when listening to the CD. It was a good strategy for helping students know what they should pay keen attention to in order to be able to understand the main idea and supporting details of the story. After listening to the CD the teacher asked students to come up to the board and write down what they heard. Each student wrote his/her answer to different questions of the outline. All of them had correct answers. In the post observation talk, the teacher told me that while circulating the class she saw who had the right answers to a specific question. She assigned each question to the student who got the right answer. This way the teacher lowered students’ anxiety level, boosting their self-confidence.

The last activity of the day was to record an “audio journal.” The teacher took students to the computer lab and asked them to record their opinion on genetic engineering, which was the topic for that day’s speaking session. The teacher would record and upload her feedback for each student. This would be very effective since it would give comments for each student on their own strengths and weaknesses that needed to be dealt with. I found that a variety of activities provided students with ample learning opportunities and the personalized feedback helped them tackle problems for each individual student, helping them to move further up to higher levels.

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