TESOL Certificate Programs

Observation Notebook

Observation Report Form

Name of Observer: Geraldine Odiakosa Observation #: 1

Date Observation Environment* Class Skill/Content Level Teacher
11/02/18 Classroom-Face to Face Low- Reading & 300 Samantha
Intermediate Writing St. Claire
Grammar

*Include the URL if the class was online

WRITE THE OBJECTIVES ACCORDING TO THE OBSERVATION GUIDELINES:

STUDENTS WILL BE FILL IN THE BLANKS WITH THE APPROPRIATE ADJECTIVE FROM WORD
BANK WITHOUT MISTAKES.

Notes while observing:

Warm up
1:24PM
T- “How was your midterms? Everyone seems so tired! You must have studied so hard!”
S- “There was, it was 17 pages!”
T- “Wow that’s a lot of pages! Well I know you all are tired from studying for your
midterm, so that’s why I didn’t give you guys homework. We’re going to continue the
activities from yesterday’s class. Let’s turn to page 155.”
T- “Go ahead and finish out this activity that we only started yesterday. Work as a team,
help each other out”
T- “Everyone has their workbook out and not their cell phones? Thank you very much
good.
T going around to students to signal them to pair up. Some students have already
completed the activity before class. T going around checking to see if students are
struggling with the fill in the blanks.

Practice - 1:24PM
T- “Okay from it looks like everyone look at the screen. I’m not going to use the marker
board because the markers aren’t working, so everyone look at the screen.”
T- “Ok they already gave us the first answer. Sally what is the answer to the 2 nd
sentence?”
S- “Long?”
T- “Yes, even knew employees get a long vacation. Very good” T is writing the answers
to the fill in the blank using Microsoft Word which is broadcasted on the television
screen in the classroom.
T- “Yoon, how about you? Number 3.”
S- “Interesting.”

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Observation Notebook
T- “Interesting? What do we think? Students do you think this is correct?”
S- “It’s fantastic.”
T- “Ah, fantastic, why do we use fantastic?”
S- “Because the sound. That sounds.”
T – “Yes that sounds fantastic. Very good.”
T- “So whenever we say the words sounds, or we are listening to someone talking, we
normally don’t say that they are saying sounds, ‘interesting’. We normally respond to
them and say, ‘that sounds fantastic’. Fantastic is more of a word that expresses our
opinion about what they are saying”
T- “Ok Sara, how about the next one?”
S- “Ugly?”
T- “Yes Ugly. ‘He is wearing an ugly sweater.’ And we also know that because ‘an’ is ‘a-
n’ so we know that the next adjective is going to start with a vowel.”
Teacher continues with the activity and asks the students to move on to section B.
Teacher asks students to work a team. The teacher and students resume discussion at
1:37PM.

Wrap Up – 1:46PM
Teaching concludes by praising the students on their participation. Teacher assigns
homework due the following week on Monday. Students are to complete the rest of the
chapter using adjectives in the word bank to complete the sentences in the story.

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Observation Notebook

What did you learn about teaching or learning from this lesson as it relates to the
theory you have studied in your TESOL classes? Include at least one reference (with
an in-text citation) to support your response. (250-500 words)

I observed a face-to-face ESL intermediate English grammar course. The class

comprised of approximately 15 students in their twenties. Students were representing

many countries from around the world in the class. The instructor for this class was

Samantha St. Claire. The class is held Monday through Friday for 50 minutes. For this

observation, I focused on the use of technology in the classroom.

The topic of lesson was Adjectives. Since the class meets every day, the

presentation of the lesson was given the day before and observation focused on the

continuation of the Practice section. The objective was for students to fill in the blanks of

a story that describes a person starting a new job. Students worked in pairs to complete

the three activities for the entire class. The teacher stopped in between activities and

paused between activities to check answers. During observation, the teacher often used

the students’ previous knowledge, which is used in scaffolding, as well as new supportive

information in order to emphasize the correct answers. According to Mcleod,

“Scaffolding not only produces immediate results, but also instills the skills necessary for

independent problem-solving in the future” (McLeod, 2012).

The teacher attempted to use the whiteboard to write the student’s answers on the

board. However, the markers were not working. The teacher resorted, on the fly, to

Microsoft Word to display the students' answers which was displayed on the TV monitor

mounted to the wall. The teacher wrote the sentences on the word document and referred

to the screen when typing incorrect answer. If the answer was wrong, the teacher

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Observation Notebook
highlighted the response and used the strikethrough option to show the answer was

incorrect and then solicited correct responses from students.

In this digital age, we often use technology first as a means of communication,

and if it does not work, we resort to a more stand way such as handwriting or use of pen

to paper. In the case of this observation, the teacher used technology as a second line of

defense.

Last Updated: 3/18/2019 10:46 PM

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Observation Notebook

References

McLeod, S. A. (2012). Zone of proximal development. Retrieved from

www.simplypsychology.org/Zone-of-Proximal-Development.html

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Observation Notebook

Last Updated: 3/18/2019 10:46 PM