Isabelle CO#4 Dr. Rios' Group 4 Speaking Class

Date & Time: Thursday, February 6th, 2025, 1:00 PM - 1:50 PM

Topic/Skill: Speaking Skills

Teacher Presentation: For Dr. Rios' speaking lesson, he gave the students two different articles about COVID-19 vaccines (one with the benefits, one with concerns; integrated reading) and asked them to record themselves speaking about the similarities and differences between the articles (compare and contrast activity). The students were given 40 minutes to learn about the activity, hear Dr. Rios' explanation, read the articles, and take notes. Then in the last 10 minutes of class, the students could go and take their recording for Dr. Rios to review and give feedback on.

Classroom Management: Dr. Rios managed the class by providing very clear instructions for the students that included his expectations (in addition to an extensive rubric, which he made sure to repeat and remind the students throughout the class to keep them focused). Any time a student needed assistance or had a question, Dr. Rios made sure to provide them with plenty of clarification and linguistic support. He also provided a lot of visual aids that weren't distracting (a timer on the projector for students to track their time, and a Venn diagram example on the whiteboard to demonstrate a compare and contrast framework). 

Materials: Projector, laptop, students' laptops, students' recording devices, access to assigned readings, timer

Student Participation: The students participated by reading the assigned articles and making their recordings based on what they understood. They also asked Dr. Rios for help whenever they needed it. but otherwise were very focused on their in-class work.

Feedback Provided: Dr. Rios offered students linguistic support, samples, examples, guidelines, etc., any time a student was confused or misunderstood a concept/idea. He also plans to listen to the recordings made by the students after class and grade them based on their performance according to his rubric (which the students have access to).

Lessons on teaching you learned: I learned a lot about the preparation involved in teaching. Dr. Rios talked to me about how AI is becoming a threat to ESL/EFL teaching, especially when it comes to reading assignments because students can translate the passages using this technology. He said he tries to pick readings that are formatted in a way where using that technology would become more difficult in addition to understanding the AI technology for himself so he can recognize when a student has used it. Not to mention his careful consideration for every single part of his lesson plan. I was very impressed to learn all of this from him!

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