Last night, Robin arrived in Stuttgart, Germany to begin her contract teaching English at an elementary school. She is fortunate enough to have an EU passport, as this allowed her to find a position in Germany, the nation of her ancestors. Her grandparents live in Stuttgart, so she will have an opportunity to visit with them and travel around the country while she works as an ESL teacher. Unfortunately, Robin missed her connecting flight on the weekend and she was unable to get to Germany until Monday night. That means that she will only get one day of shadowing an experienced teacher instead of the two days promised by her school. She will have to make the most of the time she has because starting tomorrow, she will be on her own at the head of the class. 

 

For today, she will follow Stuart, a teacher from the UK who has been living in Germany with his wife for the past six years. Stuart is an experienced teacher and he has promised to teach Robin as much as he can before finishing his contract and returning home to London. She will observe him teaching for the first half of the day, and then he will have her teach a few activities so he can give her some tips and pointers.

 

Question 97

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Stuart’s second class is a reading class. Robin took a seat at the back of the class and prepared to take notes on Stuart’s teaching. The text book for this class has proven quite engaging for his students throughout this term; it contains several short articles with full-color pictures. Each article is accompanied by a vocabulary list, and selected difficult and unfamiliar words are in bold print in the article. The book does not include any comprehension questions, so Stuart advised Robin to spend some time at the very beginning of the next term creating questions for all the articles. Putting in the work early would save a lot of hassle later in the term when her workload would be heavier. 

 

To begin the lesson, Stuart had the students open their books and look at the picture accompanying today’s article. This got them thinking about the article they were about to read. After a brief discussion of the picture, he then read the article out loud and had the students follow along. Next, he asked the students to read the article silently on their own and underline any vocabulary they were unfamiliar with while he circulated the room. Robin was surprised by this since the difficult vocabulary was already highlighted in the text. 

 

Why might Stuart have done his lesson in this sequence, first reading the article out loud, then having the students read it themselves and underline any unfamiliar vocabulary?

 

a. 

Stuart would have read the story aloud so the students could connect the spelling of the words to their pronunciation. This could help them to recognize words they have heard before but have not seen in print. Asking the students to underline unfamiliar words even though new vocabulary is already flagged in the text is also a good idea as it gives Stuart a chance to see which words the students do not know. Some students may be too shy to ask about an unfamiliar word that is not already highlighted in the text, but they would be willing to underline it. As Stuart circulates through the room, he can see which words students have identified, so he can later explain them to the benefit of the whole class.

b. 

He would have read the story out loud to appeal to auditory learners in the class. Not everyone enjoys reading, so hearing the words spoken would help engage those students who do not like to read. Asking the students to underline unfamiliar words is a way for them to highlight what they don't know. This will motivate them to study the new words, and later in the term when they look back at previous articles, they can see how much they have progressed.

c. 

Stuart would have read the story out loud as a means to engage his students. They can close their eyes and visualize the scene as he reads. This will activate their imaginations and help them to better understand the article when they read it for themselves. Asking the students to underline unfamiliar words helps Stuart to see which parts of speech are giving his students the most difficulty. He can then address this with focused grammar lessons during a future class.

d. 

Stuart would have read the story out loud so that the students could hear the correct pronunciation. Then, when they read the story to themselves, they will hear the words correctly in their minds. This will help them with their pronunciation. Asking them to underline unfamiliar vocabulary is useful as it helps him to see which words he should include on the weekly quiz.