Tanya Cowie Videos

 

Lesson Part 1 

The teacher uses a clothing store, a familiar setting, to peak the students’ interest and have them relate to items they see regularly. There are many different teaching techniques used in this lesson. Tanya uses verbal strategies, writes on words the board, asks questions, provides group work and so on. When students are put into groups to practice dialogue, they have already seen the material and reviewed it with the teacher. This makes it easier for the students to engage with each other, they already have a sense of what to say.   

 Lesson Part 2 

This part of the lesson has student more actively speaking, the approach here is with an A and B speaker. The teacher is light-hearted and helps students relax when talking in front of the class. The students are then less anxious to speak aloud. She is encouraging their language development. It can be nerve wracking even for students with perfect English to speak aloud in front of the class. Tanya does a great job of setting the environment as friendly and none judgmental. She gives each student a chance to speak and guides them through with patience.   

 Card Game 

Here we see an activity where students are able to speak English to each other in a game like scenario. This is a fun activity and you see lots of social interactions between students. I like seeing these kinds of activities because it is a way to keep students entertained, or provide a mid-class pick me up when energy is low. After the students have played for a few minutes, the teacher reviews common mistakes she heard while observing the groups.  

 Review Activity  

The review activity ties in all the language learned and spoken throughout the lesson. In the classroom, there are clothes hung all around. At first, I was confused about why they were there. After watching the lesson, it makes sense now. They are a great visual and easy to recognize items for the students. The teacher asks the students to name the clothing, she corrects them on specific cases of when to pluralize the clothing. The teacher brings a bag of clothing in and students name the pieces. The teacher is personable with the students and you can tell she has shared information about her life with them. She asks the students who the clothing belongs to and they are able to name her son or husband.  

 Closing Activity   

Students speak one-on-one to the teacher as they exit the classroom. This is their exit ticket, to name the pieces of clothing they are wearing when asked. This really allows for immediate assessment from the teacher. She can speak directly to them and hear the response. The teacher can determine if the students has learned anything about clothing today.