TESOL Observation Field Notes

Class Observation #_eng107___

Teacher

__Sarah_Hynes___________
Date/Time____

Class

____ENG107_______________

Location______Coor L1-34____________

Effective Principles of Observation:

Wipe away preconceived notions before starting your observations.

Collect observations under different circumstances and from varied perspectives.

Take thorough notes, including quotes and details about the setting and atmosphere, and collect
important class documents.

Engage in active listening using a detached observer approach.

Keep systematic track of observations that surprise you or contradict your prior beliefs.

Pre-Class Notes (e.g., what are the teachers goals for the lesson? what are the demographics [e.g., student population,
class size, proficiency level] of the class?)
Talking about withdraw the class information and international education project.

Description/Observation of the class

Reflection on/Interpretation of the class

Topic : International education

Students first time work interview questions as a group.

They share their ideas and talk to each other about how
to figure out the answers, what kind of answers the
interviewee will answer.

(i.e., what is happening?)

Whole project about 3 interviews

Example topic visa issues

Questions: How does course failures
Affect students visas. How do these visas affect
students live?
How many teachers know about those issues?
What the school does?

(i.e., what does it mean?)

My class teacher and I walking around and help students

answer the questions. They do have lots of concerns
about the questions. Students are very activated to share
their opinions.
I noticed few students dont have a group. So I suggest
them to join other groups let them can share their ideas
to others.
She explain the answer step by step. Very specific and
help students to understand them really well.
Finally she explain the homework to students.

Interviewee # 1 ISSO
Interviewee # 2 INS autor/border
secondary research
Interviewee # 3 international students
Interviewee # 4 teacher of international students

Doing an activity
Answer 12 questions
2

Work as a group2-3students, use 10-15 minutes

She share the answers to students. She explained

every step to student why should we put this
sentence in here.
Specific tell students interviews need conclusion.

Tell students what they need to do in continent

Post-Class Notes (e.g., are there follow-up questions for the teacher? does anything need to be clarified?)

Class notes 3-30

Review the topic proposal (purpose of research questions? Its your job to figure out how to answer those questions:
what are your options?)
What do you think youll do next?
How many interviewees?
They all need to have different backgrounds/experience/expertise and offer a different perspective on the issue.
Example: My subtopic is visa issues for international students and I want to know how students failing classes
3

affects their visa status and how that affects their lives. I want to know if teachers are aware of this and how they
respond. I want to know what the university does to respond to this possibility.
Who could I interview to answer these questions?
Activity:
Here are several questions for a student interviewee. There are lots of different kinds of questions
(who/how/what/how much/etc., hypothetical questions, asking for examples/stories). However, right now they are
disorganized. Why is it important to organize your questions logically?