Classroom Observation: Report 5Teacher Observed: O

Observer: Alejandra de AntoniDate: September, 3rd 2009

Class: 2nd Year (Level 4A). School P (Buenos Aires City)Number of Learners: 13Age: 13/14 years oldLength of Lesson: 40 minutesLevel: IntermediateObserver: Alejandra de AntoniTeacher Observed: O

Observation Task taken from “Learning Teaching: A Guidebook for English Language Teachers” (Heinemann)

General Comments:It was, to me, a very particular lesson because, even though it was a school’s classroom, there were only 13 students, they were all girls and they all had the same level. It was a very interesting and, most importantly, favourable atmosphere to teach English. Most of the girls were really keen on working and had a very positive attitude towards the lesson and the teacher. In this report I am going to make an overall analysis of the different options available and the decisions that the teacher made.

In this observation task several aspects of classroom management are considered and analysed in terms of the decisions that the teacher took and the other available options that, for some reason, were not chosen.

Liceo Cultural Británico Teacher’s Training College. Methods II. Classroom Observation Reports 2009.

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Classroom Observation: Report 5Teacher Observed: O

Observer: Alejandra de AntoniDate: September, 3rd 2009

Students’ Participation in the Lesson

Situation: it was a post-listening activity in which students had to talk about what makes a good holiday. Action: the teacher decided to conduct the activity herself. She asked the students the different questions provided by the activity and students had to answer them to her. It was a teacher-student interaction.Other Options: the teacher could have asked them to ask and answer the questions in pairs to share previous experiences and opinions and to give all of them the possibility of talking. Because of her decision to have a teacher-student interaction students were not keen on listening to each other’s stories because they all wanted to share their experiences and they ended up talking to their nearest partners in pairs or very small groups without listening to the student that was talking to the whole class (the teacher asked a question and then chose one of the students at random to answer it for the whole class to listen). It would have been great to make good use of the students’ eagerness to speak and share their experiences. If they had been put in pairs to do the activity on their own it would have been more realistic (you talk with your friends about your holidays’ experiences in real life) and, at the same time, all of the students would have been both speaking and listening to someone else instead of being forced to remain silent while listening to one of the students. I really believe that, especially with this group in which all the students had more or less the same level and were perfectly able to talk about their experiences in English, it is always better and more realistic to foster student-student interactions rather than student-teacher ones. If what the teacher wanted was to make sure that they use English all the time or that they make use of some specific language form the only thing she had to do was going around the

Liceo Cultural Británico Teacher’s Training College. Methods II. Classroom Observation Reports 2009.

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Classroom Observation: Report 5Teacher Observed: O

Observer: Alejandra de AntoniDate: September, 3rd 2009

different pairs of students monitoring them. Since there were only 13 students, monitoring them effectively was definitely not an impossible task.

Grouping of Students; Arrangement of Seating

Situation: when the teacher entered the classroom, students had already arrived and sat down in three parallel lines facing the front. Action: the teacher started the lesson and made no changes of the seating arrangement.Other Options: since it was a small group, the teacher could have asked them to sit in a semi-circle facing the front so as to allow constant eye-contact not only between the teacher and the students but also among the students themselves. I think that, whenever possible, it is more relaxing and not so classroom-like to let the students sit in a semi-circle, especially when it is such a small class. It is true, however, that for the students to sit in such a way they had to move their desks and chairs and it would probably have been really disruptive. What could be done to avoid this disruption is to ask the students to prepare the seating arrangement every class before the teacher enters the classroom (if they have time to do so, of course, for example during the break). This, of course, has to be a stated agreement between the students and the teacher. Having such a seating arrangement is not a must but is desirable in this particular context because the conditions are perfect (a small number of students, there is a break before starting the lesson and this classroom is only used for English lessons, which means that such a seating arrangement may as well be used by other students).

Setting up Activities; Instructions

Situation: the teacher presents a speaking activity.Action: the speaking activity was a post-listening one (which is done to “personalise” the topic of the listening activity). In a post-listening activity, students are generally asked to talk about the topic discussed by means of taking it to their own lives. In this case the topic was holidays. Even though it is a moment in which students are supposedly talking meaningfully and without actually thinking about “learning English,” the teacher started out the activity by saying “this is similar to the part 3 of the FCE oral paper.” If the teacher’s reason for saying so was to let the students know that they were going to do the activity to get an idea of what the part 3 of the oral paper looks like, such an objective was not fulfilled. Instead of dividing the students in pairs (to actually resemble the exam) the teacher decided to have a teacher-student interaction. Instead of asking them to carry out the activity in pairs, the teacher started to ask the questions herself to the whole class and students were told to raise their hands and wait for the teacher to let them speak. Other Options: the teacher could have asked the students to carry out the activity following its original purpose: to have a post-listening activity for the students to talk about the topic at a personal level. Students could have worked in pairs or small groups sharing personal experiences about their holidays while the teacher went group by group monitoring and helping them with any difficulty that might have aroused during the activity. They could even have been told to find out and decide on which the most amazing and funny stories were and to share them, later on, with the rest of the class. If the teacher did want to let the students know how the oral paper goes, it would have been necessary for her to group them in pairs (because the paper is done in pairs) and to let them speak to each other and not only to her (in the exam students talk both to their partner and to the examiner).

Board; Classroom Equipment; Visual Aids

Situation: one of the students made a pronunciation mistake (she pronounced “sink” instead of “think”)Action: the student said: “it was amazing to sink…” and the teacher said immediately after her “it was amazing to…” (Giving it a rising tone showing the student that she was interested, for some reason, in the final word of the student’s utterance) and the student said again “sink” and finally the teacher said “it was amazing to think.” By doing so, the teacher provided the correction herself instead of helping the student become aware of her mispronunciation of the verb “think.”Other Options: it would have probably been more helpful for the student if the teacher had used a visual aid. When the student made the mistake, I would have written on the board what she actually pronounced (“it was amazing to sink”) and asked her to tell me if that was what she wanted to say and, if not, to tell me what she actually wanted to say. I would have done it in this way both to help her see and correct her mistake instead of my doing it for her and to raise students’ awareness of the importance pronunciation has in English and how it can change the meaning of what we are trying to say if used wrongly.

Dealing with Unexpected Problems

Liceo Cultural Británico Teacher’s Training College. Methods II. Classroom Observation Reports 2009.

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Classroom Observation: Report 5Teacher Observed: O

Observer: Alejandra de AntoniDate: September, 3rd 2009

Situation: the teacher tells the students that they are going to do a listening activity and, after that, a speaking one. Some of the students complained and said “no, no, no”.Action: when the teacher saw that reaction she did not get angry or tell them off but simply asked them what they were learning English for. Some of them said “to travel, to get a good job…” and, in response to that, the teacher asked them if, when they travel, they were going to take a notebook with them to write down everything they wanted to say and expected people in other countries to write down their answers. The students’ answer to such a question was, of course, “no”. So the teacher asked: “How are you going to interact with people, then?” and one of the students said: “speaking”. “Well,” said the teacher, “you need to practise then. And when and where are you going to practise if you don’t do it in class?” and, finally, one of the students said: “well, yes, you are right,” and they all opened their books and started to work.Other Options: I couldn’t think of a better way to solve such a situation! Instead of getting angry, telling them off or simply forcing them to do the activities because “the teacher says so,” she guided the students with her questions to get at the conclusion that, if they were going to travel abroad or if they wanted to get a good job, they had to make good use of the English lessons and practise as much as they could. The teacher could have decided to simply ignore the students’ complaints or she could have told them off and forced them to do activity regardless of what they wanted. However, she decided to make an effort to try to show them the importance of practising listening and speaking if they want to be able to interact successfully in English outside the classroom with native speakers of the language. She helped them to find a reason for doing the activities!

Teacher’s Role and Participation

Situation: one of the students asked for the meaning of “sightseeing”Action: the teacher explained its meaning instead of providing its Spanish translation. By means of providing the student with the explanation in English, instead of the translation, the teacher gave the student the possibility of making use of her previous knowledge to make up the meaning of the new word. Instead of being just an “explainer,” the teacher was an “involver” in the sense that she tried to “involve” her student in the understanding and formation of the word’s meaning. One of the students, however, provided her partner with the translation and the teacher asked her please not to translate. She told the students that they should try to speak in English and use it to understand new words.Other Options: the teacher could have simply provided herself the translation or she could have accepted the other student’s translation, which would have been definitely easier options for the teacher to choose (being an “explainer” is always easier and less demanding than being an “involver”). However, this teacher was really keen on fulfilling the involver’s role and, therefore, encouraged her students to use English as a means of understanding new words and to analyse the language instead of just memorising it.

Liceo Cultural Británico Teacher’s Training College. Methods II. Classroom Observation Reports 2009.

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