Zola CO #1

     For my first observation, I attended Riley Michelin's 1A Listening class. The first thing which struck me about the class was the small class size. This class only had four students in it. Another thing I noticed was the all-male composition of the class, though the instructor told me that was just happenstance, and that the program is typically more mixed.

    The class I attended broke down the four aspects of listening - pre-listening, active listening, post-listening, and understanding. Pre-listening was a surprisingly thorough process, taking up the whole class period.

    I was curious about how an instructor would handle instructing a class whose students were all quite new to English. The instructor handled this by speaking slowly and precisely. When class first began, the way she was talking sounded strange to me, but as I adjusted to the flow of the class it began sounding more natural.

    It was interesting getting to see the way the instructor incorporated concepts we are learning in TEFL, for example, integrating visual learning by having her students discuss pictures.