Charles_CO3

For my final class observation I chose a group 3A reading class. Unfortunately, on the day I went the students were taking a test for the whole period. My time was not wasted, however, as I got to meet with the teacher one on one for the duration of the class. He explained to me what he has found to work and not to work. He also spoke with me about the students and how they have been reacting to the lesson plans. The teacher has the students do a weekly reading log that is 1 and 1/2 pages. On the reading log, the students must give a brief explanation of what they read, choose two words that they learned along with the part of speech, sentences, and definition. Each student presents their two words weekly and the class has a discussion about the words. From these words, the students create a list of vocabulary that grows as the class goes on. I really liked this concept as the students choose their own words and it really helps them retain the information. The teacher said that the test scores are usually really high and the students show determination to learn the words. 

The students are tested every two weeks on these new words. The teacher let me look at one of the tests and explained it to me. There is a list of words with definitions that must be matched. Each word also has a space next to it that requires the part of speech. I asked the teacher about part of speech being important in vocabulary acquisition and he said it is very important. I never saw much emphasis on part of speech during my language classes so this was new to me. 

The teacher also does some other word from the book, some reading passage exercises with comprehension questions. He told me that he focuses more on the reading logs but the book still offers pertinent exercises. He tried to use another book for extensive reading but it turned out that the book was too difficult for the students so he said he will choose an easier one for next term. He said that he has tried many other lesson plans but this one seems to work the best for developing reading skills and vocabulary.