Chris H. CO 3

My final class observation was a low intermediate listening class with Vicky Ledbetter. At the beginning of class, the instructor incorporated the pertinent vocabulary into a picture drawing activity, in which the vocabulary was communicated in an interpretative context that challenged both speaking and listening skills. The teacher spoke informally but with authority to the class, and seemed to foster a sense of camaraderie and acceptance among the students. The activity itself involved a picture of a living room, in which one student would describe what he or she saw in it to their partner, who was facing in the opposite direction and unable to see the picture’s contents. This was a good activity because it motivated students to use English practically, deducing images from the picture, connecting them to relative vocabulary definitions, and then describing them to their partner. For the partner who recreated the scene through listening, the main challenge was recognizing oratory commands and vocabulary and then drawing it onto a piece of paper. Remarkably, most of the papers were very close to the original photographs being dictated, revealing positive feedback to a multifaceted exercise. So far as improving upon this method, I see potential for group and classroom endeavors of a similar fashion, in which the game of charades is carried out with one (or several) students drawing on the white board to the specific directions of their peers. This exercise had many different applications and I thought that it all around was successful in motivating students to participate and engage use with the language through its structuring.