Carlton CO #2

Second classroom observation. Tuesday, March 4, 2-3pm
Debbie Caretta, Listening group 1, 5 students

Pace of Lesson: This group of students required the teacher to adjust constantly to accommodate the low level of conversational English ability in this immersion class. The lesson plan is a guide only. Ms. Caretta explained to me before class that there are three foundations teachers and they coordinate the lessons for each skill area to share content and scaffold off of each other. The students need a lot of repetition and practice in class, so the pace must encourage them with small successes to keep trying.

Teacher Presentation: I was introduced as a student teacher and my presence was a means to practice simple introductions with several students. My unprepared interactions allowed Ms. Caretta to help students strategy to understand and respond to some unfamiliar words and phrases. The lessons at this level include how to study the language and prepare for class at least as much as other teaching topics. In this class, going over the students "Engrade" reporting program online was a challenging task in English. The main lesson task was parsing a personal story of family relationships in order to answer direct factual questions: "My sister's name is Sue. She calls me Deb. Sue has a family. She is married. Her husband's name is Jeff… etc."

For listening skill, it is important for the students to take brief and accurate notes. None did so when asked. The story included 3 generations with names. Since none could recall the structure or remember the English relations without notes, they needed more cognitive scaffolding. So she shifted the lesson to demonstrate the Cornell note taking method (2 columns, key words and phrases only). Only some of the students bothered to copy her model. To check on learning, Ms. Caretta tried a new and simpler scenario with her pets types and names. Class time ended before this could be completed.

Classroom Management: This requires patience because these students are probably not used to an American classroom and can have very different expectations of politeness and discipline. They also cannot pick up the cues the teacher may send until they are more clear as to her expectations. This was apparent as some students are texting in class or even admitted to watching video. They know they are supposed to be using English only, but sometimes will ask classmates questions in Arabic. This behavior was noticeably irritating to other students. Ms. Caretta's tone and demeanor was always positive, if a little condescending, even if she had to repeat her requests.

Teaching Aids: Ms. Caretta used the projector and MS Word document to start. When she shifted to modeling the Cornell note taking skill, she used the whiteboard. Students all had a universal English picture dictionary but did not use it in class.

Student Production: Students asked to write paragraphs about family to be read aloud. Nothing is collected for grading in this class, but classroom interaction is easy to grade because there are only 5 students. Student productive work largely stopped near the end of the period when a rain of white dust began dropping from the air conditioning vents overhead, causing several students to shift seats and become alarmed. There was no explanation that could be provided other than to call maintenance.

Overall Impression: It becomes apparent that when working at the foundation level across cultures, the disparity in language skill levels has a pronounced impact on the classroom environment, even indirect study skills. It is so easy to overload one student while boring another with a particular task. The roles can be reversed in the next minute. Ms. Caretta is very sensitive to finding a balance between the lesson goals and the needs of each student.