Practicum Day 2

On day 2 I actually did not participate in the class. For the entire class I sat and observed how Kim managed her class time. Which is what I will be writing about here. She began with a quick lesson about email etiquette noting that students were being impolite in their email submissions. She wrote out an example on the board and complimented those students who do well with their emails. Kim then went into the grammar lesson for the day, which was covering past tense modals. She handed out a packet to the students to assist them with learning the differences between ‘must’, ‘should’, ‘could’, and ‘ought.’ Kim began by showing them the grammar structure for past tense using the modals; Subject + Modal (have) + Past Participle, was the primary form. She then pulled up some pictures and asked the students to create a sentence that made both a past/present prediction of the situation and then provide some advice/criticism about it. For instance, she showed a picture of a sunburnt foot – the students replied with things like; “He must be in pain”, “He must have stayed out in the sun to long”, and “He should have brought sunscreen!” This activity continued until breaktime. After break, Kim had the students work on their listening to practice for an upcoming listening test on Thursday. To accomplish the lesson, Kim handed out a worksheet about good sleeping practices in college, and called attention to bolded vocab in the paragraph. She had the students make educated guesses about the meaning of the words through clues, such as context or the root. Afterwards she would cover the actual definition of the new word and the contexts in which it is typically used. We did some matching of the words to their definition, and afterward Kim handed out two sheets of paper – one for note taking and the other with a list of questions to answer. She played a lecture video about the topic of sleeping habits in college and asked the students to first take notes. Once the video was finished she made note of some key points and played the video one more time asking the students to continue their note taking or answer the questions. After the second play through the students had time to answer their questions and were informed of extra listening practice to do while at home. And, that was pretty much how class went down on Tuesday. I wanted to write out from my recollection what happened in the class so I could start thinking about the processes that occur within the classroom. It helps me organize in my mind the everyday management of a classroom, and understand further the responsibilities of a teacher.