The focus of my observations for this week was the use of "teacher talk" and the general rapport between the students and the teacher (Sue). Sue is awesome, by the way. I really like her positive attitude and her ability to keep the class motivated at all times. The students really seem to like and respect her, and I can tell because when they come in, they always say, "Hi Sue! How are you?" and they have conversations with her about their families or funny things that their kids did, and she has conversations with them about her own husband and kids, which I think is really nice. It shows that she is approachable and that the students can feel comfortable talking with her about personal issues and she told me before, anything to get them talking in English is fine by her. Her morning class is really good about speaking in English and conversing with each other; the Spanish speakers tend to fall back a little at the beginning and end of class and conversing among each other, but most of the other students are varied in their language, so they do not have too many people to speak with, which I am sure is a blessing in disguise. As I mentioned, Sue uses a lot of personal anecdotes and stories to get her point across; like when the students were confused about what a boulevard was, she explained the abbreviations for all the streets and what they look like, showing them pictures and explaining the type of neighborhood she lived in, etc. Usually then the students have that look of recognition on their faces and they can move on with the lesson. I like that she is really able to slow down for them and allow for that class time to discuss things rather than them be totally bored about the grammar things they have to do.
I noticed that she also does a lot of repetition and paraphrasing of their speech; when a student has difficulty trying to get their point across, she listens very patiently until they finish and then she thinks about it and says, 'Ok, so you meant...this?' and the student will either say yes or they will try to explain it in different words, which I think is really helpful for improving their strategic competence. When she is speaking, she also highlights or emphasizes certain words that she wants them to focus on, especially if they are a vocabulary word for the chapter or unit. I know my foreign language teachers would do things like that, like in Spanish when we were going to learn commands or the subjunctive, the teacher would say those verb tenses louder so that we would recognize when they were using them and I personally think it is a very effective tool for the students so that they can hear it in real context. She also demonstrates some concepts by using facial expressions and gestures, sometimes even completely doing the action even if it makes her look silly or they laugh, but I know they laugh because they think she is funny, not because they are laughing at her. I think as teachers (especially ESL teachers) we have to make fools of ourselves to get our point across and we have to look stupid once in a while. It's part of the job! Something else that I really like that she does is if they are talking about something unrelated to class, she will make it part of the lesson, like this one girl was saying to her friend, "Ugh, I feel sleepy" and Sue said, "You feel sleepy? Guys, what part of speech is sleepy?" I think that is pretty clever! It is a good way to get everyone back on focus for the lesson. I will definitely remember that for the future.
Another little thing that I have noticed in my observations during this whole experience is that ESL teachers have to, in a way, be history or science or math teachers too! I think that we do not always realize that that is part of our job, because the students come in not totally understanding everything that we are using in our lessons because everything is so culturally bound. The students during their grammar lesson were talking about 'east of the Mississippi River' and they were very confused because they did not understand the historical context of it, and some did not even know where the Mississippi River was, so Sue pulled up a picture of a map so that they had a visual aid. That is something else very important for ESL: visual aids and cues. They need all the help they can get in that area. There are literally 50 or more moments I have seen so far that Sue had to use a picture or her own gestures to get them to understand a point she was making. I will keep looking for other teacher talk strategies but for right now, this is all I can report on!
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