Alex CO 3

   Yesterday I observed Jennifer’s class. It was a smaller class then I have ever seen before, only six people, yet interestingly enough, was in the largest room I’ve seen yet. The first thing Jennifer did was go over vocabulary she predicted to be difficult from the reading they were about to read. Then she allowed the students to read the passage independently to themselves. Afterwards she asked a few basic comprehension questions just to make sure the students understood what they read. In addition to understanding the passage about Theodore Roosevelt, it was clear that the overview of vocabulary at the beginning of class was helpful for most. Then she went over other words not in common English but in the realm of politics and government such as “committee” or “congress” and then split the class allowing students to discuss these words and there own interpretations of their meaning. Finally they listened to an audio about the history that was closely related to the Roosevelt reading. This second outlet utilized some of the new words and repeated a lot of the older ones. Then they listened to the audio again as they independently answered true and false questions. For the last few minutes of class they chatted until when one of the students said “I want to hear him speak” pointing at me. I introduced myself and he asked me a couple of questions before class ended. I forgot his name but I could tell he tried hard in the course and was kind of hilarious. I enjoyed the lesson except, while I feel the brush with American government is important, I feel a lot of it was confusing, especially the part about committees, the creation of the Panama Canal, and so on. Other than that, I thought it was very well orchestrated and with the multiple sources of media and the objectives clearly stated, a very good overall lesson.