Classroom Observation: Report 1 Teacher Observed: G Observer: Alejandra de Antoni Date: May 19 th 2009
Observation Table taken from “Tasks for Teacher Education” (Pearson Education Limited) Class: 1st Year Intermediate (C School, Buenos Aires City, Argentina) Number of Learners: about 25 Age: 12/13 years old Length of Lesson: 40 minutes Level: Elementary+ / Pre-intermediate Pre-intermediate Observer: Alejandra de Antoni Teacher Observed: G After observing a 40-minute lesson, I will answer the questions in Class Observation Table Table A (see Appendix) in order to analyse the collected data. 1. Mate Materi rial als s use used: d: o o
Blackboard Coursebook (Energy 2, Pearson Longman)
The There re were were also also visu visual al aids aids on the the wall walls. s. Some Some were were crea create ted d by the the stud studen ents ts (posters) and some others were provided by the teacher. However, they were not used since they were not relevant for the current lesson. 2.
Aim of the lesson (what the observer believes was the aim of the lesson): o
To carry out a speaking activity (Who’ve done it?) in pairs to practise/revise the past continuous. If the aim was to practise or revise this tense, it was not achieved because the students didn’t use the tense themselves but they only listened to it (they understood the teacher perfectly when she paraphrased what what they they said said usi using ng past past contin continuou uous) s) or read read it (from (from the cours coursebo ebook) ok).. However, it is also true that, when helped and guided by the teacher, some of them managed to rephrase their sentences using the past continuous.
3. Talki alking ng Time: ime: o o
Teacher: 60% Students: 40%
Students’ talking was not generally done in English unless the teacher pushed and guided them to do so. (Some of the students, however, tried to use English most of the time even though it was a really tough job for them) 4. Use of English English (vs. use of of Mother Mother Tongue) ongue) o o
Teacher: 90% English – 10% Spanish Students: 90% Spanish – 10% English
5. Lear Learner ners’ s’ Parti Particip cipati ation: on: o
Most of the students were not very active. They were not carrying out the activity and were talking about something else. The rest of the class was doing the activity but most of them were not using English. We know it’s very difficult to make such a large course solve an activity without their using their mother tongue. It’s very difficult to monitor all of them and to make sure that they are using English. I think that this is generally the case with information gap activities in which one of the students has the information and can hand it
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Classroom Observation: Report 1 Teacher Observed: G Observer: Alejandra de Antoni Date: May 19 th 2009 over to his partner without using English (showing it, for instance). However, there are activities, such as opinion gap or reason gap activities, in which what they have to provide is not given by the activity and therefore they are forced to interact to find a solution to the problem. In this way, we can be certain that they will have to interact and, therefore, use the language in some way because they know they have to give their answers in English. However, these activities have a very important drawback: we cannot control or restrict their answers and, therefore, cannot be sure that they will use the language form we want them to practise. Consequently, we need to resort to these three types of activities and to be ready to face the risks that using each of them imply. The learners were always called upon by their first names. It is compulsory for us to talk to them as people with whom we can have a conversation about any topic, if we want them to be in a communicative classroom. When we talk to our friend friends, s, relat relative ives s and acquai acquainta ntance nces s we always always use their their names names and, and, therefore, therefore, we do the same with our students. As regards volunteering, only a few of them would raise their hands asking for answe answering ring questi questions ons or speaki speaking. ng. It’s It’s not someth something ing surpri surprisin sing g at all. all. It generally happens that some students feel more at ease to speak in front of the class and they are generally the “risk-takers” because they do not care much about making a mistake in front of the rest. 6. General General Behavio Behaviour ur and Attitude Attitude of the Learner Learners: s: o
In general and especially at the beginning, they were very restless. They showed, through their body language and face expressions, that they did not want to carry out any activity. activity. However, as the lesson went by, some students really got involved in the search for the criminal and participated actively as a whole class to try to get to a conclusion.
7. Asserts Asserts and and Mistak Mistakes: es: how how were were they handled? handled? o
Asserts: when students did something right, instead of praising them in the “normal normal” ” way, way, what what the teach teacher er did was was showin showing g that that she was was perfec perfectly tly following what they were saying (just like we do in conversations). I think that this is a great way of showing the students that they are using English not to be tested but to engage in a natural conversation with the rest and with the teacher about a certain topic (in this case, finding the criminal). For example: Teacher: eacher: Congratulations Congratulations!! Some of you can be very good detective detectives! s! (She never talked about language or forms!)
o
Mistakes Mistakes:: the teacher handled them using guiding guiding correct correction. ion. Instead of saying “no” or “it’s wrong” the teacher would rephrase what the student said using the proper form or she would ask them guiding questions for them to get at the proper form on their own. For example: Student: “some persons was…” Teacher: Teacher: “How many people? people? Student: “four people was…” Teacher: “four people…” Student: “were!!!”
8. Sketc Sketch h of of the the classr classroom oom:: There were three rows of students facing the blackboard. In each row, there were about seven lines of two students.
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Classroom Observation: Report 1 Teacher Observed: G Observer: Alejandra de Antoni Date: May 19 th 2009 On the walls, there were some posters made by the students. For example, one called “Labour Day.” There were some others provided by the teacher, for example, the Phonetics Symbols one. Most of the time the teacher is walking from one place to another so as to be able to talk to and monitor different students. She was not sitting at her desk!
Teacher’ s Desk
S–S
S–S
S–S
S–S
S–S
S–S
S–S
S–S
S–S
S–S
S–S
S–S
S–S
S–S
S–S
S–S
S–S
S–S
9. Language Language activit activities ies carried carried out out througho throughout ut the lesson: lesson: o
There was just one activity (a pair work): students were asked to carry out an activity from the book in which they had to find out where were the different characters at the time of the crime so as to see who the criminal was.
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Classroom Observation: Report 1 Teacher Observed: G Observer: Alejandra de Antoni Date: May 19 th 2009 APPENDIX:
Class Observation Table A (from Tasks for Teacher Education)
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