First Classroom Observation

※ Instrctor: Pamela
※ 2007/5/14, 1:00 ~ 1:50 pm, O-106, Language Center, NCU.
※ Teaching material (textbook): NorthStar, focus on Reading and Writing
(unit 9---the topic about immigration)

For the first ten minutes, Pamela distributed the students’ compositions with both her comments and other three students’ suggestions. That’s one of her ways to polish students’ writing skills. In other words, Pamela thinks it’s important for students to know their errors and also have the abilities to help others to know their errors. Students can upgrade their writing abilities in this kind of mutual (the teacher and students) correction process.

Pamela asked students to read the descriptions of the pictures, then, students had to tell Pamela what they read. Before long, students found out those pictures had one thing in common, that is, these were about immigration. Pamela also sang a song to make it easier for students to guess and know more about this topic. She successfully caught everyone’s attention and made the class much more active.

After that, Pamela asked students try to imagine a situation which was similar to what the textbook mentioned: if you were 16 years old, and you had to immigrant from Taiwan to New York, what difficulties would you encounter? Besides, Pamela also asked them to make a sentence by using “… while….” In this activity, students are free to discuss with each other. Nevertheless, students tended to figure it out by themselves. And also, when Pamela stood beside students to check whether they had any problem or not, students are pretty shy even though they actually had good answers. Regardless of students’ reactions to this activity, I still consider it could positively help students’ learning because it was an open question, which could provide opportunities for students to “brainstorm.” What’ more, since open questions do not have a specific answer, students might be more wiling to share their ideas. In other words, students could let their imagination run wild, and not be afraid of making mistakes.

The last part of this class, Pamela asked students to do the exercises on the textbook, and explained the first three questions for them. From question four, students had to be volunteers to read the questions and say his or her answers. But there was no volunteer at all; Pamela had to randomly appoint some students to answer.

That was the first time for me to observe Pamela’s teaching, I felt really amazed and excited because she indeed has a kind of charisma. However, I think the students in that class are toooooo shy just as what Pamela told me before my observation. Oh~ tomorrow, I am going to observer Pamela’s teaching again, I really hope I can see a better interaction between the teacher and students. Oh, students don’t be shy anymore!!!