Kyle CO #2

Today I observed Felicia's Level 4 Speaking class. She introduced me to the class and immediately one of the students asked me how tall I was. As it's a common question, I answered it my usual way, but I had to convert the height to centimeters so some of the students could conceptualize my height. Then they asked if I played basketball. But no. Felicia's class was pretty laid back, she was very friendly but authoritative and the students listened to her when she was speaking. The majority of the time the student's spoke English to each other, but every once in awhile they would speak their own language, Felicia would ask them to speak English in a friendly way. The lesson for today was colloquial reductions, an interesting subject that kind of questions the initial way that most students learn English. Typically, we speak them how to write and speak full sentences, but your average native speaker will say "Whatcha doin'" in place of "What are you doing?". The students found the subject material very interesting and Felicia would ask me if I said some of the more unusual phrases that were found on the list of colloquial reductions, it turns out that I do. After that lesson, we discussed customer service and ways to deal with irritating situations such as being on hold, complaints, and dealing with indifferent employees. Overall it was an interesting class, and it was enjoyable to become self-aware of the way that I speak and how I take it for granted.