For my fifth hour of class observation, I observed an online ESL class taught by Jack Massalski at Thompson Rivers University. It was a level 4 advanced oral communication class consisted of approximately 14 students from various cultures and backgrounds. The main goal of this hour of the class was to let the students practice class presentation skills about the perfect trips in their minds and prepare the students to have discussions about the arts.
Before the students started to do their presentations, the instructor listed in the shared notes some key points that the presentations should include. One of the students had a very short presentation, the instructor asked the student a few questions according to the key points and the student spoke much more. I found this is an effective approach to facilitate speaking classes. As ESL teachers, we should think about what our international students are interested in and what they like to share with peers from other cultures so that we can list these as key points to motivate our students to speak more.
In the preparation of the group discussion, the instructor asked the students to have the discussion language list handy, played a video for the students about the discussion topic, and provided students with a list of discussion emphasis. Before starting the video, the instructor asked the students to turn on the subtitles to understand the video better. I learned some important things in this preparation section. First of all, it’s essential for students to know how to put what they want to express in certain sentences correctly. Sometimes, students will stay quiet because they are not sure how to use the correct sentences. With a discussion language list, students can go back to the list and check the correct usage of their expression, which enables them to practice more and get more fluent with the usages. Second, whether students should keep subtitles on or off depends on the teaching goal of the class. If the goal is to enhance students’ listening skills, the subtitles should be off but if the main priority is to understand and learn language usages, the students should learn with the help of subtitles. Third, providing students with a list of discussion emphasis can be an effective strategy to enhance students’ participation in discussion and teachers can assess in a clearer way that whether the students stay quiet because of having nothing to say or not being familiar with the discussion language.
I observed some challenges to learning in this online ESL class. At the presentation part, the instructor emphasized that English is a stress language and he corrected a student’s pronunciation of the words “sixteen” and “sixty”. It is essential to let students be aware of the correct pronunciations on time. However, students may not be able to remember them. Teachers can assign more listening practices as homework. With more exposure to correct pronunciations, students will develop a sense of English language and remember correct pronunciations.
In this hour of classroom observation, I learned many effective teaching strategies. First, before starting a discussion, teachers should provide some key points of students’ discussion, which serves as an inspiration for ideas that motivate students to speak more. Second, providing students with a discussion language list is helpful for students to refer to when they forget the usage of some expression. Third, whether students should watch videos with subtitles on or off depends on the main goal of the class. Finally, a list of discussion emphasis can motivate students to participate more in discussions.