Katie CO #2

Today I observed a speaking class. The instructor began by writing the schedule of the day on the board. Today, three students presented powerpoint presentations for the rest of the class, and then there was class discussion about a reading the students did. The teacher had her own rubric for the oral presentations. It included grammar and word order and whether the mistakes made hindered the audiences' ability to understand the speaker. The rubric also covered the content of the speech and the speakers presentation such as whether or not they made eye contact and whether or not they engaged the audience. In between the second and third speech, the instructor mentioned a "beautiful mistake" that she noticed. She noticed that students were using "He is born" instead of "He was born." The topic of the power point presentation was to get to know a classmate and describe that classmate in the presentation. I liked this idea because it allows students to get to know enough and therefore be more comfortable speaking around each other. The second activity the instructor did was to discuss a reading from the previous class period. The instructor asked students a lot of questions to ensure they had a comprehensive understanding of the reading. Then the instructor gave a new reading that was related to the reading from the last class period. Once the students finished the reading, they discussed the questions on the board with a partner. The instructor included culture in the lesson because the topic of the reading was health. The topic of the second reading was about converting the food in vending machines in schools to healthier foods. I liked this topic choice because it is very relevant in America right now.