This is the following hour to the observation post Online Classroom Observation, Hour 6. This hour was primarily students working in groups and the teacher going over the assignment for next week.
The instructions the teacher gave were very clear and easy to understand. However, I was surprised at the content choice of the assignment. At first glance, it seems like a difficult concept to grasp, and would be difficult for me, given in English my L1. However, after talking with the teacher at a later date I realized his reasoning and it made much more sense. I think my struggle was that it is a difficult subject matter to approach, when looking at it in depth as one would in their L1. But really, the teacher is not looking for a great philosophical moment but the process of finding the information and going from there. That is something I know I will have to work on when picking topics for my students once I start teaching. I think it’s easy as a university student to forget that we are introduced to a lot of topics in grade school as we are learning, they are just simplified. We get an extensive exposure to topics throughout our school career. While in the English classroom the topics are simplified to a greater extent than they would be in the students L1, it is still acceptable to have the students discussing these topics in their target language. In the future I will be sure to do this.
As the class continued, the students were broken up into groups to discuss a video they were shown. Students were given rules for the study rooms, such as having their camera on. Is it to increase their engagement? Or to increase their comfort level with each other a grow a deeper relationship? Maybe it is a mix of both. When asked to present their discussions the students still needed a lot of prompting from the teacher. I really wonder why they are so quiet and how to break down that barrier. It will take more investigation on my part. It probably is subjective to the class, so I will have to monitor this in my own and respond accordingly.
