https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Niel3vqgwrU
Seen above is the video I observed.
I saw many good qualities to how the teacher taught the class material. Firstly, since I’m assuming this was a speaking class, she utilized the student pairing system very frequently in order to maximize the students’ time speaking. It was interesting that she was squatting while she was listening to the pairs discuss, even though she could very well have been standing up. I realized that that kind of body language was still important – not just to kids, but also to post-secondary students, and I would like to adapt that as part of my classroom teachings.
Secondly, I liked how she presented five word sentences and used her five fingers on her hand to mark the position of each word. This made teaching contractions of “I would” to “I’d” simple. Whenever the students forgot to contract them, the teacher just pinched two fingers together to show the contraction. She didn’t even say a word, and the student corrected themselves! I don’t know how significant it is to teaching efficiency and effectiveness, but I appreciate the little details that I can pick up as a teacher.
I did not like how low the enthusiasm of the entire class was. The students stayed in their seats for the whole hour, and some looked bored. The teacher even realized this problem and mentioned the low energy to the students. If she had planned activities that were more physically active, I believe this would not have been a problem. I understand that the classroom size was small, but it should be the teacher’s responsibility to be creative and keep the students engaged.