Trisha CO #2

For my second classroom observation, I was able to observe the director of CIES, Dr. Kennel. He was filling in because Calyn Stringer was ill and unable to teach. It was a group two class and so I took notice on how to get lower level students speaking. Dr. Kennel began the classroom by allowing me to introduce myself and it seemed that every student understood my introduction, especially when one student said "good luck" when I finished explaining my plans to travel and teach English.  Dr. Kennel continued on with the class seamlessly and began conversing with the students about the recent cultural integration workshop and continuing with the theme of learning about different cultures' ways of doing things. Dr. Kennel asked questions to the students, sometimes specifically calling on them (some students were more vocal than others) to ask them how things were in their home country. He would usually say something about American culture and have them share how it was similar or dissimilar to American culture. I liked this a lot because he made it so easy for them to speak. The tone was very conversational.  He also added a lot of humor with personal stories and emotive tone of voice and facial expressions. A lesson came up for me when a student asked what a t-bone steak was (we were talking about food differences/similarities) and he singled out to me how wonderful Google images can be to explain what something is. He said that the images were useful because they relate many different feelings and experiences a person has had with the image and they learn the association to the word more fully. He also said in a very nice way while laughing, "speak English in my classroom" when someone spoke another language to a friend. In terms of correction, he wrote down on the board a sentence someone said incorrectly on the board in conversation and the class figured out the correct form.