Some learning from observing ELI class

Last Fri., I went to observe Ms. Brown's Listening/Speaking class in ELI of UTA. I surely learned a lot from the class.

It was a level 5 listening/speaking class. There should be 16 students in the class, but two were absent. According to Ms. Brown, every Fri. is the presentation day. Students get topics or directions of topics every Tue. and they do presentations on Fri. Therefore, when I was there, I actually observed students' performances on their presentation skills and how Ms. Brown managed the class.

First of all, I felt that Ms. Brown created very pleasant classroom atmosphere. She is good at telling jokes and making fun so that students feel comfortable to talk or ask questions. Secondly, Ms. Brown provided wording recast whenever students got stuck on describing something after she negotiated meaning with them. Thirdly, Ms. Brown insisted students use accurate descriptions when they talked about details. She always said, "We are not monkeys. Talk to us. Don't say, "Then you do like this and this." Between the presentations, Ms. Brown got up the stage to remind the presentation skills to make sure the following presentors revise their skills. If the presentors still did not get it right or confused everybody, Ms. Brown got on the stage to help the presentors clarify their key points by writing on the board. There were at least five or six Chinese speakers in the classroom. When some of them talked in Chinese privately, Ms. Brown was not happy, but she just asked, "Jane, what did you say? What did you say? Share with the whole class." and she used the movement of her eyebrows to remind the students of the class regulation about speaking native language in the English classroom.

Ms. Brown was very easy going and flexable. She didn't mind sitting on the floor and she asked everybody to sit on the floor when one of the presentors presented how to do Yoga to relax the muscles. She made a lot of jokes during the Yoga presentation and everybody seemed enjoying the class very much.

Before ending the class, Ms. Brown clarified the attendance policies and let students know the consequences of skipping classes. When the students said some excuses about being absent, Ms. Brown said, "I can totally understand that, but you have to talk to Vickie, who is in charge of your attendance records."

Overall speaking, I really appreciate Ms. Brown's teaching skills, especially the way she invited students' participations and the way she created the pleasant classroom atmosphere. Her insisting on classroom policies also impressed me very much. A teacher can be demanding and easy going at the same time as long as he/she knows when to be easy going and when to be demanding.