October 31st Observation

During our last visit to District C, it worked out that I got to spend some time in all three English classes listed on the paper provided for us. The first class I went to was working on their common task in the library. They were an ELL level 2 class and I believe the teacher said that most students had been in the country for two years or under. We were encouraged to walk around and talk with the students about what they were working on and even help them out if they needed it. I actually felt a little unsure of what to say considering it was an ELL class and the last time I had tried to talk with an ELL student, it had been somewhat uncomfortable for both of us. But as the teacher ended up bringing up, it takes time to be able to feel more comfortable and to easily communicate with these students, which applies to not only many other parts of becoming a teacher, but almost anything new in life. There will surely be moments of awkwardness and discomfort and moments where things don’t go perfectly. But as time goes on you can only get better. 

The second class I visited was an inclusion class. When we got there, the teacher had a few minutes left of her lunch break, but she allowed us to wait in her classroom until her break was over and her new class began. She let us look at copies of the book the students were reading, which was called Things Fall Apart. The copies she let us look at were very interesting because they looked like normal books, but there were vocab words bolded and then defined at the bottom of the page. There were also questions at the end of every chapter about things like the theme. The teacher did mention that this particular class was an inclusion class so I felt that those types of additions to the book would be helpful to them. When the class began, the students did not seem very interested in participating. She would ask if someone would like to read and she would be met with dead silence. It appeared that not every student had their book with them either. While I found the teacher likeable, there was just no excitement in the class and this was actually quite the opposite of other classes I’ve seen where the students are very eager to read out loud and share things with the class. 

The third class I visited just so happened to be one of those full-of-excitement classes. I had never visited this class before and I really loved the energy in the room. They were discussing different types of irony and filling out a sheet as a class. Students would volunteer to read a scenario that illustrated a certain type of irony and then students would identify what type it was. Everyone was very eager to participate, read scenarios, and discuss certain aspects of what they had read and/or what they thought the answer was and why. At one point, a scenario was read about Eminem swearing in his songs, but not allowing his children to swear. It ended up sparking a sort of debate over whether or not Eminem was really being hypocritical. I think this energy really did have a lot to do with the fact that the scenario included a rapper that the students would be familiar with at the very least. It would have been different if the scenario had talked about a singer that the students didn’t know or enjoy. This shows how important it is to know your students and what gets them excited and eager to talk and participate. People are always more comfortable talking about what they know and like, so being able to tie interests into the lesson is so beneficial.

 Of the three, the third class was definitely my favorite. It seemed to me that she had found that balance we talked about where she had a good relationship with her students, but there was also learning going on. The students were excited and eager to participate and from what I heard, nobody was getting an answer wrong. It is definitely what I would like to see from my future students one day and hopefully I will be able to take what I saw and be able to effectively use it just like this teacher did.