In this hour I observed an online video on giving advice to a class of intermediate adults.
Initially, I was surprised at the speed of the teacher’s pace. He talked the same speed I would to a native English speaker. However, the students responded well to this and seemed to be able to understand him clearly. The pace would be what the students would face in conversational English.
The student’s engagement is really high. They all seemed to want to participate and enjoy participating. I would love to have that in my lesson. I don’t know if it’s the teacher’s classroom persona and the mood he sets in class, or just the students he has, or what exactly it is.
In the video it was hard to judge his timing since there were pieces cut from the lesson for the video’s sake. I would have liked to see the lesson in its entirety. From what I could see he was capable of sitting in silence to allow the students a chance to respond. He also didn’t lead the students by the hand when he asked for responses.
I liked the amount of student-student interaction there was in the class. They spent a lot of time working together throughout the lesson. He had the students getting up and talking with a multitude of students in the class, not just their regular partner or friend. Along with getting up and moving, he encouraged a physical addition by clapping for pacing. I really liked this idea and will try to incorporate this into my teaching.
His error correction appeared to be effective in class. He didn’t make a big deal about the errors, simply addressed them as a class and went over where the error is. I think I would allow the students to try and solve it themselves a bit more before giving the solution.
Overall, I really enjoyed this lesson. His technique to engage students was very effective and something I hope to have one day. Also his laid back yet effective attitude throughout error correction was something I would like to have as well.
