On Monday I observed Joshua Valentine’s class for group
three speaking. He used an inductive approach by showing a video first and then
proceeding with the lesson. The video consisted of lots information that we
ourselves have covered in class such as interactionism, behaviorism, and
language acquisition devices. Students were allowed to take notes during the
video in order to prepare for the quiz at the end of class. They were allowed
to use said notes during the quiz, so the better the notes the better outcome
in your quiz may be. Every once in a while he would stop the video to ask the
class a question that they should pay special attention towards. He would first
pose the question towards the whole class. This allowed the more confident students
to speak up first. As a follow up question, he would call on by name to the shyer
ones in the class. After the video he asked the students to review the
differences between acquisition and learning. There were an odd number of
people in the class so I was paired with a student as well. Then we all came
together and discussed the different types of teaching methods and theories. He
asked the class if they could pick any teaching method, what would they pick.
Most students agreed that a combined method or certain strategies were more
appropriate for different levels. For instance, interactionism is probably not the
best idea for beginners because they do not know how to respond to even the
simplest of questions yet.
Finally at the end of class the quiz was handed out and
Joshua sat at the front of the class in order to monitor the students’
progress. During the discussions he would sit with the students. As he likes to
sit with the students rather than above them in order to have a round table
feel. Even in high school I always enjoyed this method better; it makes the gap
between unapproachable instructor and student less wide.
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