LCB – TTC – Methods2

Tasks for Teacher Education, Taner and Green, Longman, 1999

Unit 2, Task 6 Telescopic or microscopic viewing?

Class Observation #1
Colegio C. (A-11)
May 12th, 2009

Class: 3rd year ............................................................. No. of learners: 30

Age of learners: 15/16-year-olds ................................ Length of lesson: 40 minutes......... Level: Intermediate
Observer: Yohana Solis ..............................................Teacher observed: GB

USE THIS SIDE TO ANSWER QUESTIONS 1-7.

1. List all materials and equipment used in this lesson (e.g. textbook, blackboard, audio-
visual aids).

• Copy of the test (see Appendix A)

• Blackboard
• Posters with irregular verbs

2. What do you think the aim of the lesson was? Do you think the teacher's objectives were
achieved? Give reasons.

Since the teacher had 80 minutes with the class and two different plans, she gave the option of what
to do first to the students. They agreed to have the test first and then to start working with the book.
It was really great to give the students the choice; this gives us the clue of the affective domain
teacher’s objectives. It was pretty clear that for her, lower the affective filter before the test, by
making them feel they are deciding whatever was best for them, was the most important goal in that
class.

As regards the cognitive objective for the first 40 minutes was to have them experienced a
communicative test. This could be observed not only in the test format, a fable as the ones they had
been working with in class, but also to the approach the teacher had at the end of the test. It was
clear that her objective was that the students react to the fable, so she started asking questions about
it:
• How many people were/ were not familiar with this fable?
• Do you remember the characters in the story?
• Did you get what the bear said?
• Do you agree with the moral?

Although students were not expecting this type of test, or at least they were not used to it, they could
handle it quite good. They were allowed to resort to the posters when dealing with irregular verbs. It
seemed as if it were the first time in their English classes they were going through a test that was not
evaluating memory skills as regards irregular verbs, but a comprehensive understanding of the use of
tenses. It is important to highlight that this was a success oriented test; they found it quite simple and
by the end of the test they were already calculating their scores. 

3. How much time did the teacher talk compared to the amount of time learners spoke
(e.g. 50-50%)?

Since it was a test, the time was not meant to speak; however, since it was a 15-minute test, there were
plenty of time for speaking warm up and test follow up. While carrying out the warm up activity, the
 teacher got most of the answers in their mother tongue or through body language. After the test, when
the teacher engaged in a more active role, they were eager to know the answers for the test and the
teacher managed well to get them say the answers aloud. All in all I could balance the talking into a
50-50%, considering the students as a group. It is important to highlight, however, that there were
some students that were willing to participate while there were others who got engaged into small
talks with their partners without paying attention to the teacher.

4. How much time did the teacher use English compared to her native language (e.g. 20-80%)?
How much time did the learners use English versus their native language?

Something that really caught my attention was that the teacher used English 100% of the time, even to
call some misbehaving students attention. Equally surprising was the effort made by the students who
used English around 60-70% of the time. Whenever they were not acquainted with the structure or
word they had to use, they risked themselves by inventing (e.g. Student to Observer “where do you
know her?” pointing at their teacher, instead of “where do you know her from” or “where have you
met her”).

5. Describe the learners' participation (very active for most of the time, etc.). How were the
learners called upon? Did any volunteer?

Regardless of the effort made by the teacher trying to get the whole class engaged to the post-test
activities, it was clear that their attention spam had been lost. Most of the students started talking
about personal matters, or to make the matter worse, referring to the subject just to calculate their
average score. However, there was a group, surprisingly the ones located at the back of the class, who
were very interested specially in getting the correct answers to their test. At first teacher tried to get
volunteered answers (i.e. oral correction) but since she was getting no response, she started to read the
story aloud and to ask comprehensive questions so as to get them back in track. Meanwhile, there was
a group of 5 students sit at the front of the class, near the door, that did not uttered a word during the
whole class, GB addressed them several times when asking questions but getting no more than
unsuccessful monosyllabic answers.

6. What was the general behavior and attitude of the learners during the lesson? What
was the general atmosphere of the class?

It was pretty clear that English classes were of their taste, considering that this class was planned
with a written test in it, students took it as a normal class. They showed typical behavior as stress and
anxiety, but it was less than expected (at least by the observer). They respected the teacher’s authority
regardless of the relaxed atmosphere once the test had finished. Students’ were listened to, and they
knew they could express their thoughts; this was clearly seen through students’ question after the test
such as “why were we able to check with the poster on the wall?”

7. How often did the teacher praise her learners? How were errors handled?

There was no much error focus, but surprisingly not much prizing either. The class seemed to run
smoothly, and lack of vocabulary and/or stricter was taken as an instance of incidental teacher, even
by a simple act of teacher’s correct repetition of what had been wrongly said before.

USE THE REVERSE SIDE TO ANSWER QUESTIONS 8-9

8. Use part of the reverse side to draw a sketch of the classroom. Notice what is on the
walls and where any equipment is located. How are the desks arranged (in rows
facing the blackboard, etc.)? Where is the teacher most of the time?
9. Use the rest of the back of this sheet to make notes on the different language
activities in the order that they occurred (e.g. review of homework, 5 minutes,
individual learners read aloud answers, teacher corrected errors).

• Warm-up 7min: teacher asked several questions to students as a class

• Test 13 min: individual work on given copy about an Aesop’s fable to work
on tenses

• Post-test discussion 10 min: class work with oral questions about genral
comprehension of the test, oral discussion with an active role of the teacher
as the one asking questions to the class

• Oral correction 10 min : after reading the fable aloud and stopping for each
individual answer, the teacher decided to read the whole text with the
correct options

The class didn´t finished but the lesson seems to have been planned differently for the
two different periods.

Appendix A