Observation of Kristy's Classes

      We fifteen people were assigned the task of observing some teachers' clsasses of Yale FLI from Monday of the second week. 

     Last Thursday when Siggy gave us the name list of observation groups, I didn't find my name in it, so I was told to join Lily as group and we two would go to the same class to observe. 

     Monday and Tuesday we were in Kristy' class, the first class we observed. Kristy, who teaches reading and writing,  is a very responsible teacher for she goes to the classroom very early. Her lectures are also delivered in an most impressive way. She shows great passion for her work and there is always a kind of relaxing atmosphere in her classes. Furthermore, she treats her students including Lily and I in an amicable way. She smiles a lot in class, which would help relieve the stressful feelings among the students. Whenever some students have difficulties, she would go up and explain for them carefully and patiently. She is also very generous to praise her students, and we find that almost all her students could present themselves with confidence and fluency, which might be one of the positive results brought by her frequent praises. Instead of explaining the writing techniqes and grammatical rules in a complicated way, Kristy instructs the students to learn more efficiently. For example, after some students write their sentences of paraphrasing on the blackboard, Kristy reminds them of the  appropriate methods or grammar rules，so the students can find their own mistakes and correct them by themselves. In this way they would not forget the rules and techniques easily.

     In addition to her attitudes towards her students and her work, I find Kristy is very good at orgnizing her classes and applying the theories about teaching to classroom practice. Before the class begins, she asks the students who come early to read the articles silently, which may be called the reviewing or previewing process. In this process, she waits there for students' questions about the articles. When the class begins, realizing that there are some newcomers, she helps the students to do ice-breaking activities such as introducing themselves to each other and saying something about their countries. After that, she explains something about paraphrasing and asks the students to tell what they have done about their homework. After the discussion, some students are asked to write down their answers on the blackboard and the others are observing. She then helps them realize their errors in writing and grammar mistakes, and most of them are able to correct their mistakes. By means of this, Kristy tries to help the students improve themselves in a self-introspective way, which would be more helpful to them than being simply told about the principles.  

     All in all,  I find myself benefitted from the first observation class, and I am expecting to learn more teaching methods from other teachers at Yale.