Before I observed this class, I researched for information on the English Language Program (ELP). The ELP program is designed for people who wish to better their English skills for the purposes of communication, study, business, etc. This program offers four core courses and the one I observed was Intermediate Reading and Discussion, which meets every Tuesday and Thursday from 1:00pm-3:15pm.
I met the ELP instructor before class to discuss the overall goals of the course, as well as goals for that day's lesson. The overall goal is to improve reading comprehension skills, increase vocabulary, promote a higher reading speed, and develop discussion skills. The goal of that day's lesson was to work on reading strategies: scanning, identifying main ideas, and understanding details. The instructor mentioned that there are only 10 people in the class and almost all of them are between the ages of 18-20 (with the exception of one man who is about 25 and one woman who is in her 30's). All the students are on the same English language level. .
The instructor started the class by collecting an assignment that was due and then the class reviewed three other assignments together, with the students calling out the answers in unison.
Then, the teacher handed out strips of paper with five discussion questions that pertained to the topic of bullies. For example, "Why do you think children become bullies?" and "What would you do if someone bullies your child?" Students got into groups of two to discuss their opinions on these questions. The instructor walks around from group to group and listens. She elicits more responses from the students and scaffolds them as needed. It seems as though she employs an integrated focus on form approach to error correction because "the learner's attention is drawn to language form during communicative or content-based instruction" (Lightbrown and Spada, 2008 p.