For this hour of observation, I watched a recorded adult ESL class. The class had six students, all of which had different native languages. The lesson had an emphasis on grammar, specifically parts of speech and verb tenses.
The first thing that stood out to me while watching this class was the organization of the classroom. The tables in the classroom were set up in a ‘U’ shape. This set-up allowed the students to see each other and the teacher. As the lesson progressed, it became clear that the class was purposely arranged in this way to encourage students to participate in conversations. I had never considered before that the physical arrangement of the classroom can be used as a teaching tool. This is something I plan to incorporate into my own lesson plans.
Throughout the lesson the teacher used a variety of correction techniques. The teacher frequently used recasting to correct minor errors in pronunciation and word choice. Often the teacher rephrased what the student said, with emphasis on the correct pronunciation or word choice. The teacher also used elicitation to get the students to correct mistakes in which she was confident they knew the right answer. I noticed that this teacher didn’t seem to provide direct correction. I believe that using a variety of correction techniques throughout the lesson is important because each student has a different learning style. Overall, the teacher provided a lot of corrections. I believe that the volume of corrections was because the focus of this lesson was accuracy. If the focus had been fluency the teacher most likely would not have given the same amount of corrections. However, I thought that the teacher provided enough correction, without overwhelming the students.