This lesson was given at the English Language Institute (ELI) on the campus of California State University, Sacramento. ELI’s intensive program consists of 8 levels in each of the language tasks of Listening and Speaking; Reading and Vocabulary; Pronunciation; and Grammar and Composition, with varying electives for students to choose from for additional practice in the language, such as a board game class and creative writing classes. Classes are held four days a week, Monday through Thursday for 50-minute increments. The class that I taught is a level-4 Reading and Vocabulary class, so these are approximately low-intermediate level students. Students placed in this level began with a placement test to the Institute, or have been in the program for at least one term already. My host teacher, teaches this and other classes at ELI. For this Reading and Vocabulary classes he has decided to emphasize vocabulary building and is teaching various learning skills, such as vocabulary skills, study skills, annotating, paraphrasing, etc. I taught the lesson on identifying verb suffixes, emphasizing the concept as a skill they could use as word learners.
The host teacher and I decided that I would be teaching the week prior to my class time. We arranged for me to teach the lesson verb suffixes because the host teacher would be teaching the lesson on Noun suffixes two days prior. They have a vocabulary building book which they are following along in, and the lesson was loosely based on the lesson 22 in that book, however I did not feel that the activities in the book were user-friendly enough for the students so I adapted their content using the four affixes they introduced as verb affixes, while sticking to a theme that emphasized this lesson as a tool they could add to their ‘toolkit’ as word learners. It was important to me to emphasize the reason for the activity so students would see the value in the lesson as a skill that could be used life-long and not just for Reading and Vocabulary class. The host teacher liked the idea of introducing the concept of ‘word learners’ and supported the activities I developed. We e-mailed back and forth after our initial planning meeting to hone the lesson to something he knew his students could accomplish. Part of this task took into consideration that the host teacher has recognized that this class learns a little bit more ‘slowly’ than previous classes and so while I kept all of the activities as part of the lesson, I knew we would most likely not accomplish all of them since I had to shorten the one that we actually did.
The activity and the concept of word learning were very well received. Students asked ample questions and I took my time answering them to ensure the activity would be successful for their future learning. This was particularly important to me, because modeling was something I had not quite developed fully the last term in my TLEs and I wanted to ensure that I was certain they understood. I did, however, manage the time on the activity poorly. While I had lowered my expectations for this level of class per the host teacher’s suggestion, he did point out that this was something I could have cropped even more so that there could have been a more solid culmination of the lesson. As it turned out, only 2 groups were able to share out of 5 because we ran out of time, and none of the other activities were used. The students did express enjoying the activity and seeing the benefit for themselves, while the host teacher followed up the next day with a chart I had planned on sharing. In the classes following my lesson, I could see evidence of students absorbing these skills through their responses to other activities in class, so that was encouraging.
I ended the lesson by handing out a short paragraph using the suffixes studied in class attached to nonsense words for students to identify the fake words based on their knowledge of verb affixes. This was something they could do for fun as follow up on their own. I felt very unsure of myself through the lesson, whether because my health was not optimal or because I was uncomfortable teaching this content, I am unsure because I was recovering from illness during the lesson, however my peers offered complimentary feedback of my instruction and modeling which was encouraging. I was able to hear some great ideas regarding potential affix games that I will be sharing with my host teacher.
The host teacher and I decided that I would be teaching the week prior to my class time. We arranged for me to teach the lesson verb suffixes because the host teacher would be teaching the lesson on Noun suffixes two days prior. They have a vocabulary building book which they are following along in, and the lesson was loosely based on the lesson 22 in that book, however I did not feel that the activities in the book were user-friendly enough for the students so I adapted their content using the four affixes they introduced as verb affixes, while sticking to a theme that emphasized this lesson as a tool they could add to their ‘toolkit’ as word learners. It was important to me to emphasize the reason for the activity so students would see the value in the lesson as a skill that could be used life-long and not just for Reading and Vocabulary class. The host teacher liked the idea of introducing the concept of ‘word learners’ and supported the activities I developed. We e-mailed back and forth after our initial planning meeting to hone the lesson to something he knew his students could accomplish. Part of this task took into consideration that the host teacher has recognized that this class learns a little bit more ‘slowly’ than previous classes and so while I kept all of the activities as part of the lesson, I knew we would most likely not accomplish all of them since I had to shorten the one that we actually did.
The activity and the concept of word learning were very well received. Students asked ample questions and I took my time answering them to ensure the activity would be successful for their future learning. This was particularly important to me, because modeling was something I had not quite developed fully the last term in my TLEs and I wanted to ensure that I was certain they understood. I did, however, manage the time on the activity poorly. While I had lowered my expectations for this level of class per the host teacher’s suggestion, he did point out that this was something I could have cropped even more so that there could have been a more solid culmination of the lesson. As it turned out, only 2 groups were able to share out of 5 because we ran out of time, and none of the other activities were used. The students did express enjoying the activity and seeing the benefit for themselves, while the host teacher followed up the next day with a chart I had planned on sharing. In the classes following my lesson, I could see evidence of students absorbing these skills through their responses to other activities in class, so that was encouraging.
I ended the lesson by handing out a short paragraph using the suffixes studied in class attached to nonsense words for students to identify the fake words based on their knowledge of verb affixes. This was something they could do for fun as follow up on their own. I felt very unsure of myself through the lesson, whether because my health was not optimal or because I was uncomfortable teaching this content, I am unsure because I was recovering from illness during the lesson, however my peers offered complimentary feedback of my instruction and modeling which was encouraging. I was able to hear some great ideas regarding potential affix games that I will be sharing with my host teacher.