Feb 11 (Thursday)

There seems to be a problem with one of my trainees arriving late. She has not arrived on time to a single class of mine yet - not even in Writing. I spoke to her on Friday about it again, so I hope she will finally begin arriving at 4pm and not 4:40 or 4:50.

For OPP, then, two trainees discussed the Observation readings they'd been given. C summarized the information and gave us handouts; M talked about it but without a lot of direction - he had gotten confused with a reading from a different module - and E, not having turned up on time, was not able to give hers at all, so I did it in her absence. The main points of these observation readings are the purpose behind them, the ways of recording information, and the ethics behind observation. I think they all came out well from each reading. Next Tuesday we're going to begin methodologies - perhaps a little early, but as M comes from Interlingua training he is having difficulty working through his own teaching style compared to the way I teach, so hopefully having a better understanding of the different methodologies will help him. It's important for them to see the "principled eclecticism" that prevails these days.

The 612 class went well. I gave them a follow-up activity on quantifiers and countable/uncountable nouns. The actual reading text was probably too easy for them so I should modify it to make it more "level 6" standard. One of my students asks a lot of questions; they are good questions and show that she's working hard to understand the logic of the grammar, which obviously is not always logical nor consistent. Her question for two weeks was "why 'their mother' when there is more than one mother, and then in another text it's 'their lives' when there is more than one life?" I had to answer that both can be considered correct, both are British texts so it's not a matter of regional differences.

The rest of the class was basically spent on working on reading with more speed, and the reading comprehension text in the book. Some of the students have good strategies in place for reading, and were also able to give websites of interest to help with vocabulary questions. I'm also encouraged by the use of the blog by a number of students. The last entries have not only been helpful and interesting, but show their openness to share of themselves and what they know to help others.

The trainees were asked to observe something specific of the class, using Wajnryb's observation tasks. I don't think they had enough time to prepare a specific format or diagram based on the reading, though; although V was able to create a diagram of the class and hear/learn some of the sts' names. M had some difficulty with "language of feedback to error" - I think he was looking for the way he would correct errors, which I hardly did; although I know I corrected other errors, particularly as I was monitoring the sts' talk in small groups. C's observation with "questions" was that I ask most of the questions and sts don't ask so many. Again, I know that a number of sts did ask questions throughout the class - of vocabulary, of "why is it like this" and of each other when they were discussing the questions. E observed "motivation" and noticed a high motivation of sts in small groups and one st whom she considered to be possibly insecure. V observed "attending to the learner" and noticed the same things he had mentioned the week before - that I smile, nod, and use eye contact, and call on sts by name. I hope that as they go on they'll "see" more and notice more. Perhaps because it is such a large class it can be difficult to see what I see from the front of the class. I can't say I'm omniscient but at least I can see their eyes, facial expressions etc. This may make a difference.