Kathy’s Bayview Chinese Lesson:
by: Andrew Sansone
Getting to observe this class was a lot of fun, and very different from the typical observation experience. Kathy did a great job of getting the students into the lesson- they seemed to really enjoy participating! The students also did a good job of focusing on the TL- in this case, animal vocabulary. Kathy used PPT slides of the various animals she wanted to focus on, and verbally drilled the pronunciation of each animal with the class. Students then reviewed the TL in tandem with the PPT, and provided various adjectives in L1 to describe the animal vocabulary in L2. Throughout the lesson, the students seemed really interested in the novelty and fun involved in this lesson. The activities were really creative and engaging, and I thought the instructor did a good job and had paid careful attention during the LP phase. Lesson transitions were smooth, seamless, and were carried out quite well. The final activity involved students creating their own zoo filled with the animal vocabulary which they’d just learned- a really nice freer practice activity!
Andrew’s Bayview Chinese Lesson:
by: Kathy Yang
On the field-teaching day at Bay View Academy, Andrew and Kim co-taught a beginning-level Chinese class in fourth grade. There were 28 students in the class, and they were sitting in three rows. Starting this class with greeting kids, Andrew didn’t use English at all but in Chinese. He used higher pitched voice with exaggerated gestures, saying “nihao, xiao pengyou” (literally means: hello, little friend). He repeated the phrase several times, and asked students to guess the meaning. Students recognized “hello” instantly and “little” after he used body language showing them what is big and what is small. However, kids had trouble with “friend.” Kim and Andrew held hands to show they are good friends so students figured the meaning afterward. After greetings, Andrew began teaching numbers in Chinese. He spoke the numbers aloud in Chinese while showing the students the hand gestures for counting numbers. Kim, standing on the other side of the classroom, also performed the hand gestures to the class. Andrew managed to relate the Chinese sounds to English; for instance, “five” in Chinese sounds to “woo” in English. He slowed down a little bit after number six because he wanted the students to realize the difference in hand gestures. After teaching all numbers, Andrew guided the lids to review for three times. The second and third times went faster as the students picked sounds up better. Then, Andrew instructed the students to apply the new knowledge into counting off groups. After finishing the counting activity, Kim started to lead the second half of the lesson.
During the whole class, students were highly motivated by Andrew’s passion and fully engaged into class activities. I should say, although Andrew isn’t a competent Chinese speaker, his confidence, abundant teaching experience, spontaneous reactions and effective classroom management contributed to this successful and impressive language class.
