Ali-Observation #2

Another class that I observed last Tuesday was Ryan's grammar class for advanced level students. They did an interesting activity with noun clauses where the students asked a question, and no matter what, their partner had to respond with "I don't know". The students had fun with it and Ryan later said that he enjoyed the activity and that it keeps the students on their toes when coming up with questions to ask.

The students also created a survey with their group members and Ryan walked around the class while they were working and chimed in when he felt like help was needed or the group was getting off track. He seemed well-liked by the students and was not thrown off task when students kept asking difficult questions concerning the grammar rules that were not on the original agenda. Ryan mentioned that he made a mistake with one of the example sentences because it had a second possible answer that he hadn't considered and the students brought it up, so he said that if he could do it over, he would have considered the sample questions more carefully.

He provided me with some good grammar resources like: EnglishPage.com and Practical English Usage by Michael Swan, because I asked him how he develops a successful grammar lesson with diverse examples. He also uses the CIES book that he helped develop and it seems pretty extensive and inclusive of all the information that the students would need for basic language building. Overall, it was a good class.