Ali-Observation 3

The third class that I observed was Maria’s Reading class for Level 2 learners. The class had a pre-planned practice TOEFL reading test that day, so I wasn’t able to observe any instruction, but I did have a chance to talk to the teacher while the students took the practice test. I received a copy of the test as well and did notice that the level of the reading passage was much higher than the fluency level of the majority of the students in the class. They were given 30 minutes for one section, which is much longer than what they would get on the normal test, but it was only practice. Maria old me that even though most of those students were not going to take the real TOEFL yet, they needed to practice and see what the test will really be like so that they can prepare themselves and not be shocked when they take the real test. Some of the students seemed to be doing fine during the test time and some of them visibly gave up in the middle of it, saying it was too hard and they didn’t understand. Much of the language used in the reading was on a higher educational level, so it was interesting to watch them to see how they continued to react. She got responses after the test time was over, and made sure to clarify why they had taken it and they would need to continue practicing to succeed.