My first observation class made me smile as it reminded me of my own teaching stint as a fresh ESL teacher with no prior teaching experience. All students were labelled as intermediate/advanced English language learners. The classroom environment itself was very warm and welcoming. The teacher was a Caucasian women with three years of teaching experience. The teacher allowed students to work co-operatively in groups to discuss problem solving strategies. Students appeared to be very much engaged in learning through interaction with peers. The teacher was very active in using the think-pair-share strategy to promote thinking and oral communication. During her writing lesson of editing a sample story, she asked students to think about what corrections they thought needed to be made, then asked them to share their thoughts with a partner. I thought this strategy was very much appropriate and effective for promoting students’ language acquisition, especially for her class of early intermediate language learners.
My first observation – ESL Intermediate/Advanced Communication class (video)
