Tanya starts off the class with a warmup where she goes through the basics of How are you and the different replies. She makes it very basic and uses many tools to help them understand. Such as the use of faces to show the emotion behind the word. Which seems like a good idea since it is probably universally recognized and with the emotion it gives a more personal context. She also writes the phrases on the board as well giving the students to see the words and follow along with her as she goes through the small dialogue. When teaching Tanya is very loud and clear which is good because it makes her very easy to understand for her students. After repeating the dialogue of asking someone how they are she then goes to students individually and asks the question. This allows for a more intimate relationship but also connection with each student. For example, Tanya remembered that one lady had a sick daughter which shows that she cares about their students. This could make students feel more invested and more likely to listen. She does correct the students when they are wrong but also explains what the mistake was and the correct use or grammar. I find she has great explanation without getting too technical and uses the mistakes as moments to teach the entire class. She also is not demeaning when someone makes a mistake, she is firm but also kind. One of the other things I noticed is that she uses hand gestures and facial expressions to help students understand adding another layer to help them with understanding the vocab. She ends the Warmup by getting the students to practice on each other, This additional repetition allows for them to use what they have learned. Her have a turn with each student gives her that one on one time allowing her to make sure that each student is correct and understanding the material. To me this is a great idea for a warm-up allows for students to learn some real basics that they will need in everyday life. It also allows them to get to know their classmates better and gets them connecting. At the same time, it gives the teacher a way to connect individually with each student. It gets also gets them out of their seats which I think is always good for a class and helps keep their attention.
After the warm-up we are shown an activity that the teacher has planned to teach the students on how to go shopping. I never learned this while learning a language and I feel like this is actually a great way to teach vocab because it gives it purpose for the students. Shopping is something that they probably all do almost everyday and this gives them good practice for real life situations. She starts by going through all the different articles of clothing that she sells. What I think is smart is that she brings the articles of clothing allowing the students visual clues for the vocab. She then gives them a dialogue and writes phrases while providing different options on what they can say or might hear in the situation. She continues with repetition while reminding the students of the grammar. She finishes this part of the activity by allowing her students to practice the dialogue on each other. Again, this allows her time to go to each group and listen to her students individually. Giving her a chance to correct mistakes and to help individuals who might be struggling a bit more. The second part of the activity lets students recreate the dialogue which she changes it a bit. By this point students sound clearer and more confident. She starts testing them increasing the difficulty by taking words away. She then hands them a piece of paper with I suspect is the dialogue and she asks them to fold it each time they complete a section. This challenges them while allowing help to be accessible and the teachers encourages them that its there if they need it. This could provide a safety net making students more confident to try it out. This activity also allows student to practice writing out the sentences and more memorization of the phrases. She ends the activity by letting the students roleplay on each other. This again gives her a way to correct and help individual students again. What I really like about this activity is that it is something they will use a lot, which could give them motivation to learn. It also is basic stuff, but it is something that can be built on by adding vocab like colours and numbers.
Next, she uses a card activity this gives the students a change of pace which is nice. With the cards she teaches them the game of go fish and all the cards are vocab words. She first demonstrates the game and gets them to explain what she is doing. This makes sure that they are paying attention and are understanding how to play the game. I think she is clear on directions and explains well very with simple instruction. This game is a great idea as it teaches a variety of things like listening, vocab, and how to ask for something. While she does put phases on the board to help but it is very basic giving the student the ability to use their memory. She joins in with each group to again provide one on one help. She ends by teaching multiples adding to the vocab giving them the ability to increase their knowledge without overwhelming.
She ends the class with some review getting the class to answer questions using what they have learned, and she goes through multiples and plurals again. She hands out a sheet that explains the phonetics of the vocab they already know. I thought that was smart because at this point, they are confident in the vocab and this allows them to just focus on the phonetics. Again, she gets the students to repeat and we have some of them looking at the board and some at the sheet. She goes through the clothing vocab one more time and reminds them of the gender constructs of each clothing item. She really starts to stress pronunciation at this point and asks them individually again. Before they leave, they have an exit ticket which is her asking what they are wearing and them replying. This gives her that last one on one time with them giving her a chance to correct and help before they go off into the world and possible use it.
The last thing we see is an interview with Tanya as she reflects on the class we just watched. This allows us to see her thought process behind much of her lesson planning. We also learn more about the class like what level they are as well as their nationalities. I found it interesting in hearing her reasoning for choices she made in lesson planning. It made a lot of sense and made me admire her teaching philosophy. She seemed to really care about her students wanting to help them make it easier to communicate in their lives. I think that with adults it would be tough to learn because as she mentioned most of them have worked all day and are tired. She notices things like this and puts real thought into activities that allow them to be reinvigorated. Watching Tanya teach was interesting and I felt that I learned a lot that I will bring into the classroom when I teach.
