Jackson_CO2

Today I had the awesome opportunity to sit in on Vicky Ledbetter's group 1A speaking class. If you haven't had the chance to meet Vicky yet she may look familiar because we watched video from one of her classes. Since it was a speaking class, she began by having each student (there were seven in total) introduce themselves as well as any questions they had for me. Since they are group 1A students there introductions were limited to "Hello my name is _____ and I am from ______. Nice to meet you." One student, however, said that I was very handsome and it was very flattering. Vicky, however, expressed to her that saying this when meeting someone for the first time can come off as too direct, but I'm not sure the student comprehended what she did "wrong." After a brief introduction of my own, Vicky started off the lesson by doing something that I thought was fantastic: asking the students to dictate their own rubric for a presentation that they will be giving tomorrow. As a class, they decided that they would be graded on visuals, confidence, a time limit (three minutes), grammar, and their delivery/memorization. Allowing the students to choose for themselves what they would be graded on is a great way to make them comfortable with an assignment that they may be nervous or anxious about. Next in the lesson, Vicky split everyone in to pairs and, since there were seven students, I got to participate in the activity! She handed everyone a work sheet to get the students brainstorming and thinking about what there presentation will be on: a hobby. Instead of every student individually filling their sheet out (this is a speaking class, keep in mind) , Vicky had the students interview each other in a question/answer type of format. I had the opportunity of pairing up with a student named Cedric who's from a country in West Africa that boarders the Ivory Coast. We discussed his hobbies and I learned that he's a fascinating kid. He expressed to me an interest in learning how to wakeboard and I told him I would look in to if they offer that at the Rez and email him. With 7 or so minutes left Vicky asked the students to go around and tell the class what they learned about their partners. All in all, the class was perfectly structured for a group of students who are in the very beginning stages of learning English. If any of you have the opportunity to observe a class with Vicky I highly recommend it!