Observation 1

I could sum this up with one word - Stressful - but I will elaborate.

This observation was in two parts. A 30 minute lesson that was designed for my assessments which didn't take place and is needed for my PTLLS to be finalised. As it seemed pointless for my boss to observe for only 30 minutes and I had a 90 minute lesson anyway we decided it would be best if I expanded the lesson to make it into a full 90 minute session.

The topic was crime and punishments, the students were one of my favourite groups that are comprised of a couple of graphic designers, a salesman/personal trainer and a hippy repairman who smokes way to much pot! They are an excellent group who work hard and they are ridiculous.

The lesson got of to a bad start. The salesman was late, one was missing and the other two were nervous and consequently took much longer to do a warm up word description game than they normally would. Also midway through the first game one of them went out to answer the phone, which was awkward.

They completed their vocabulary sheets with relative ease and we moved on to the discussion topic which is of course when their ridiculous nature came out and they started to have a bit of fun. I however, was still really nervous and incapable of giving proper instructions without getting confused about what I was trying to say.

So after a discussion about whether the man who killed the old ladies dog because he was driving drunk should go to prison or just 'serve the old lady' we moved on to the grammar. Which in the general nevrousness in the room everyone got wrapped around their neck - including me. Hanging from the ceiling by the past perfect with you boss watching is not exactly a pleasant situation.

Anyway thanks to the graphic designer who never says much but has an exceptional grasp of grammar we all survived if a tad jaded and I instructed them - probably not clearly - that they were going to use their new words and think about their grammar and do a small court room role play. This is when my favourite students came back to themselves and invented some incredible elaborate fantasies about bangs on the head, clown noses and other complete nonsense. And their grammar was not horrible and they used some of their new words which I guess was the point.