Jennifer- Classroom Observation 3- 9/20/10

This morning I observed Marilyn’s AE-LI Grammar class. Marilyn started out the class by writing the agenda up on the board and passing out a worksheet that the students were going to use for class today. During this time she was also answering any questions that the students might have and writing and pertinent information up on the board. For the most part the students were relatively quite during this first part of the class, and Marilyn had her back to the students as she was reading the instructions aloud for them. As the class progress, Marilyn seemed to warm up and become more interactive with the students; giving them positive feedback for correct answers and encouraging them to continue with their work. Their assignment was to create boarding house rules using modal verbs. She had the students work together in groups (they already seemed to know which group they belonged to without her having to say anything) to create their own rules using the different verbs. I noticed that most of the students in each group were from various international locations which I thought was a clever way to ensure that they primarily spoke in English since it was the only common language they shared. The students wrote their rules up on the board and they reviewed the list as a class- any corrections were done as a collaborative effort of the entire class.