Annalisa_CO2

I observed Whitney Harvey's Group 3A speaking class this Monday. I decided to focus on how different instructors teach speaking classes at different levels since I observed a Group 2 speaking class last week. Before the start of the class, she wrote down the plan of action for the day. I thought that was a great idea because it prepares the student for how the class is going to go that day. The lesson was a continuation of Thursday's lesson on speech acts. I had no idea what those were, but Whitney wrote them on the board seconds after that thought. (For the inquisitive minds, some speech acts are offering, apology, thanking, greeting, request, compliment, complaint, refusal, and invitation) I thought this was also a great idea because it was like a quick refresher on what was covered previously. The class was focused on the speech acts of refusing and complaint. Whitney would talk about how Americans like to apologize for every little thing we do so as not to offend others, which was great because the students got an insight on how Americans would use speech acts. The students were split up into groups of three and had to come up with scenarios of how to use refusal and complaints in a polite way. When the students acted out their scenes, the other groups would then guess which speech act it was. After the groups acted out their scenes, there was a quiz on all the different types speech acts. The quiz was a combination of providing a sentence and the student would write what act the sentence embodied and making up a conversation on negotiating. It was a clear and simple way of testing the types of speech. At the end of the class, Whitney showed me a way that she gave feedback. She wrote down mistakes that students made when they spoke on sticky notes and handed them out at the end of the class so that the student would be aware of the common mistakes they frequently make. I loved that idea! It was personalized help that catered to the individual's needs. It was a very fun class; everyone was comfortable with each other and the energy level was high throughout the entire class.