Adult English Education Program at Chinese Cultural University

7/11/2009

I visited Ms. Sarah Chen’s Basic English Pronunciation class for my first observation on Friday, July 11th. Only two out of ten students showed up during the first 15 minutes. Fortunately, three more students arrived later. The air conditioner wasn’t working properly. The room was extremely hot and humid. Although there was a fan to cool the air, they still tried hard not to fall into sleep during the first one hour and fifteen minutes. Therefore, Sarah suggested that they had a class outside of the room.

The students moved the big desk and the chairs outside. Then they played games in the hallway for one hour and forty minutes! First, they played a board game. They filled the board paper with many words they had learned. They placed the counters at “Start” and began the game. Then each of them rolled a dice to determine how many steps to move across the board. When they stopped somewhere, they had to sound out the word. The second game they played was silent and guesses. Sarah said each word silently. The students took turns to stare at Sarah’s month and guessed what words were spoken. I had a good time in Sarah’s class especially during the second part of the lesson. It was full with fun and laugher!

7/18/2009

I visited Ms. Sarah Chen’s Basic English Pronunciation class for the second observation on Friday, July 18th. This time, six students showed up. The air conditioner wasn’t working again because the room was under construction. Serena arrived to save us. She reported the problem and asked everyone moving to another room. Serena joined us throughout the lesson. Occasionally, Sarah asked me questions in class. I started chatting with some students during the break time today. I became more and more “involved” in the classroom.

First, Sarah led the students brainstorming all the words they knew that pronounced with ten consonants: p, b, k, g, t, d s, z, f and v. All the students engaged in this activity very much for a long time. They came up with many words (but, they sometimes didn’t know the meanings). Then Sarah broke the students into groups and gave them cards with words that had similar vowels. They pronounced those words to each other. Serena and I became part of the groups helped students pronouncing each word effectively. Later, they spent a lot of time practicing the tongue twister. They played a short game about vowels as well.

7/24/2009

It’s the third time I visited Sarah Chen’s class. Six students came, but I never saw two of them before. It meant some students were absent more than two weeks. We continued having the class on the eighth floor with a working air conditioner.

As usual, Sarah broke the students into small groups and gave them cards to practice words starting with pr, pl, bl and br. Again, I was glad to help the students pronounce each word correctly in the group. Then Sarah showed a power point slide about sentences related to p and b. Later, they read the book and listened to the CD. Last, they practiced Tongue Twister (also in the book).

Overall, the three-week observation was a valuable experience. The learners in this class spoke very little English. Although Sarah conducted the class mainly in Chinese, she didn’t give the learners many chances to chat in Chinese. She made them focus on the tasks with no waste of time. I learned some activities that I can use to help learners with their pronunciation. At the same time, I reviewed some pronunciation rules and how to explain those rules (especially KK) to the basic learners.

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