A&H 5301 Crosby A&H 5301 Integrated Skills Practicum

Self-Observation: April 4, 2016

Teacher: JikKam Yong No. of students: 6 Level: Intermediate 3Seating arrangement: Students seated around a large rectangle

ANATOMY OF AN ACTIVITY Grammar Activity: Questions with First Conditionals

1. How was the activity introduced? What were the teacher’s exact words?The teacher listed down the objectives of the lesson at a corner of the blackboard and made an announcement, “today, we are going to work on Questions with First Conditionals…”

2. How did the teacher “prepare” the students for the activity (activating schemata)? Was this activity tied to something done previously? If so, how did the teacher do this?Before introducing Questions with First Conditionals, the teacher brought up First Conditionals which was introduced in a previous lesson. He asked about a song they sang during the previous lesson, and for examples of First Conditionals from that song. He wrote the examples on the blackboard, highlighted parts of the sentences, and asked students whether it contained the condition or the result of the condition. Then, the students made examples in pairs before sharing them with the class. This was done to reinforce what was taught in a previous lesson and to prepare for the activity where students had to ask questions with first conditionals and answer them.

3. How were students seated/grouped during the activity? Did the seating arrangement/grouping change from the beginning to the end of the activity? Students were seated around a large rectangle. The seating arrangement did not change because there were only 6 students in the class and most of the activities were either pair or class activities.

4. Did the teacher interact with students throughout the activity? Was there student-student interaction? If students were engaged in pair work/group work, what was the teacher doing? There was both teacher-student and student-student interaction. The teacher elicited responses from the students and answered queries. The students were also engaged with controlled practice with each other. While the students were engaged in pair work, the teacher observed, listened, and provided corrective feedback when necessary.

5. Did any error correction take place during the activity? Was it during group work or whole group? What type(s) of error correction was/were employed (recast, explicit, etc)? Give examples.Yes, several examples of error correction took place during the activity. The teacher employed explicit correction, but mostly recasts. For example, when a student attempted to make a sentence with “What if I…”, the teacher first attempts a recast “If I” which failed to uptake so

A&H 5301 Crosby A&H 5301 Integrated Skills Practicum

the teacher employed explicit correction explaining to the student that she should make a sentence beginning with “If I”, not “what if I”.

When a student mispronounced “clothays”, the teacher recast with “clothes” which was successfully received as the student responded with “ah… clothes”. Additionally, a student missed an article in “I will buy big house”, the teacher recast with “a big house” which was received successfully as the student responded with “ah… I will buy a big house”. Finally, when a student was struggling to find the appropriate preposition, “if I enroll er… er…”, the teacher responded with “enroll at” which was also successfully received as the student responded with “ah… if I enroll at college”.

6. What were students expected to do (what language were they expected to produce) during the course of the activity? Did they seem to be “set up” to participate successfully (i.e., teacher modeling, examples, scaffolding, dialogue, etc.)? Be specific.The students were supposed to ask questions with first conditionals “what if” and answer those questions with first conditionals “if”. The teacher set them up for success by explaining the targeted forms early in the lesson and provided them with examples on the blackboard before proceeding into the activity.

During the activity, he provided students with plenty of think time when he noticed that one of them was struggling to produce a sentence on the spot. He would also confirm the students’ answers by repeating them, and being generous with positive feedback and encouragement, like “that’s right”, “you got it”, and “uhuh”.

7. Were students assessed? How was that managed?Teacher constantly observes the students and seeks confirmation of their understanding by asking them for examples and to discuss with a partner whenever he sees them struggling.

8. If students were expected to report back to the whole group, what did the teacher do to ensure that the other students would be attentive? In other words, were the other students held accountable for the language that others produced?The class only had 6 students so both teachers were in close proximity to them so there was not problems with keeping them attentive. Those who checked their phones were usually looking up terms in the dictionary. Also, the teacher designed a controlled-practice activity which requires students to listen attentively to what their classmates were saying in order to participate.

9. Summarizing: (a) How would you label the different parts of the activity (pre, during, and post) Pre-activity: Revise first conditionals and introduce questions with first conditionals.During: Controlled-practice of asking question with first conditionals and answering them with sentences with first conditionals.Post-activity: Homework for further self-directed practice.

A&H 5301 Crosby A&H 5301 Integrated Skills Practicum

(b) At what points in the activity did T-S and S-S interaction occur?T-S and S-S interaction occurred at pre- and during activity.