The class being observed today was an advanced English class with Grade 12 students from Cancun. The teacher identified the goals as being able to challenge students to speak, understand, and listen better than they did in the previous class.
The teacher started the class by asking each student how they were doing and what activities they were getting up to. This was a great warm-up activity to get students prepared to start talking. The professor then went on to discuss the lesson objectives for today. The professor clearly stated the structure of the class while advising the students on what material was needed to complete the lesson assignments.
The language skills that were integrated into this lesson were listening comprehension, pronunciation, speaking and the ability to initiate a conversation by understanding the material being taught. The professor introduced a Ted Talk video, the students were able to watch the video twice. During the Ted Talk video, students were actively listening to answer the required questions given by the professor. After watching the video, the first time, students were asked what they thought was the meaning of the story. This allowed for an open-ended discussion, students were comfortable talking because there was no wrong answer as it was an opinion. When watching the Ted Talk video, a second time, students were to answer True, False, or Not Given questions. This technique tests writing, understanding, and listening comprehension. After watching the video, a second time, students took turns reading the question and providing an answer.
The teacher provided flexibility for her students when it came to communication, the completion and the submission of assignments. The teacher provided a variety of technological resources for her students such as WhatsApp, WeChat, and Microsoft teams.
The professor provided a fun, engaging, interactive language learning environment for her students. She taught with enthusiasm and the students valued her time. This has been the most engaging and fun class I have observed as I was able to see how eager the students were to learn and how enthusiastic the professor was to teach.