Tanya Cowie 9/22

            In this beginner’s class of around 13 adult learners, the objectives were to become familiar with the dialogue for shopping at a clothing store and to learn related vocab. The students learned sentences for asking for help when shopping and vocabulary for basic clothing items.

            The lesson began with the teacher asking “How are you?” and practicing with each student, giving them the correct response when necessary. When practicing with each other, the students formed two lines facing each other, then went down the line to switch to the next person to practice with. This was very streamlined and efficient for the type of question and answer practice. The teacher spoke slowly and sometimes even omitted words from sentences to make them simple and straightforward for the students’ level. Before the first activity, she elicited the target language by asking “What do you say when someone comes into your clothing shop?” etc. before going in to introduce new phrases. She also used gestures to elicit the sentence “Belts are over there.” Other techniques used were repetition and the information gap. The students practiced as a class and were then instructed to practice with a partner four times. Then the teacher erased some words on the board and had the students say the sentences, and finally erased all the words during the last time, showing the students they had learned the sentences already. A card game “Go Fish” was played as a communicative activity. The instructions were very clear and the students had the dialog with question: “Do you have a (pair of shoes)? “ and answer: “Yes here you go.” or “No sorry. Pick up.” The teacher goes to the different groups and helps out during the game. At the end the class reviewed the clothing items on the walls before the teacher proceeded to pull out items from a big bag, asking what each item is called. Students learned more vocab as well as using the plural form for clothing items, counting syllables, and the pronunciation of “r” sounds, which were very useful for this level. For the closing activity, the teacher reviewed one of the key points they learned from the lesson by asking each student “What are you wearing?” and the students had to name the clothing items they were wearing such as “I am wearing a black jacket.” as they were leaving the classroom.

            I really liked that the teacher used the students’ names throughout and the fact that the lesson had a good flow. She was very engaging and used props in emulating a real life situation. At the interview she talked about how she also tried to connect what they learned in the previous class (parts of the body / illness) by saying things like “the hat goes on your head” etc.  

She says one of the challenges for this group is that for many of them, academic training had stopped a long time ago, which may make learning difficult for some or even have them frustrated enough to want to quit. The repetitive practice needed for this level is tiring for some learners after a long day, which is why she uses games and has a relaxed environment for them to use the language. She also tries to teach really essential language and students’ first language is only allowed when translating for another student.