ESP OBSERVATION REPORT 1
I carried out my first ESP observation at the Law
School (Universidad
Nacional de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales[MSOFFICE1] ).
The ESP practitioner in charged[MSOFFICE2]
was Stefanía Tomasisni and there were approximately 25 students in the class.
This was a reading and comprehension course.
To
begin the class, the ESP practitioner wrote on the left side of the board the
topics covered the previous class and the topics for that class. She began by
making a brief but very concise and useful revision of the previous class. She
did that by asking students to explain in their own words the specificities of
the present simple and the genitive case, students seemed to have a good
command of the two structures. Consequently, they started checking homework.
They had to read a text and find examples of nouns and adjectives and
classified them according to their suffixes and they had also to detect the
verbs, their subjects and translate them. The ESP practitioner wrote the words
under the correct suffix on the board and checked understanding through
pedagogical questions like “¿Qué va a ser si termina en -al? ¿cuál es la raiz? ¿Para qué sirven los sufijos?” among others. When they
finished checking homework, the ESP practitioner explained the differences
between a lawyer, a solicitor, an attorney, a barrister and a counsel and asked
students to give possible translations for each term. This activity and the explanations
were very useful for the activity that followed. Students had to read about the
requirements for being a solicitor and a barrister and to establish the
difference between both. Once students were familiar with the new terminology,
she wrote some markers sentences [MSOFFICE3] of
anaphoric reference on the board “they work at a law firm,” “his decision is
controversial.” She explained in a very organized and clear way the referential
elements “they” and “his” and their uses. It is important to mention that
explanations were in Spanish and that the ESP practitioner always resorted to
examples in Spanish to establish a contrast between L1 and L2. I believe that
contrasting both languages was a very effective strategy because students got
the chance to see how referential items work in both languages and their
differences. This was followed by a chart completion of other referential items
like possessive adjectives and subject pronouns. After that, they worked on an
example they had in the book which was very enlightening because the ESP
practitioner could see that students understood the topic through their
thoughtful answers. After this, the practitioner asked students to read a text
but only the title and subtitles first in order to make predictions on what it
was about (it was on solicitors and barristers) and what possible vocabulary
item they could find. Students had to read in English but complete the chart in
Spanish. After that they checked the activity on the board.
In
this particular class, the rationale was made explicit since the ESP
practitioner wrote on the board the topics they were going to deal with during
the class. Therefore, I believe that the rationale of this class was to
introduce and practice anaphoric reference, to work on vocabulary items, which
would be very helpful for students in the future, and to reinforce previous
topics. What is more, it is my opinion that the practitioner’s purposes were to
give students some strategies for text comprehension since she did not
only explained [MSOFFICE4] the
topics but also helped them realized [MSOFFICE5] through
pedagogical questions what the reference of a particular word was or what its
root was in order to get the meaning and its function in the sentence.
As an observer, I have learnt a lot
from this class since I did not have the opportunity to watch nor to give an ESP
class. [MSOFFICE6] I think that ESP practitioners need to have some level of expertise about the
ESP course they are in charge of [MSOFFICE7] but at the same time they need to explain new vocabulary and structures
in a simple way. In this case, Tomasini’s explanations were very enlightening
and concise and she always added a touch of humour in order to keep a warm and
friendly atmosphere. Additionally, humour and her dynamic way of teaching kept
students awake and focused on the activities. I mention this because the class
started at 9 pm and finished at 11 pm so she really needed to keep the class
motivated and alert to the examples, explanations, and particularities of the
different tasks. Furthermore, there was an exchange of meaning[MSOFFICE8] between the practitioner and the students since the students sometimes
explained some topics to her because they are experts on the field. Therefore,
there was genuine communication in the classroom. At the same time, the ESP
practitioner acted as a teacher since she provided the necessary structures and
vocabulary students needed to understand the material. In some cases, she also
acted as a facilitator and in some others she was more a provider of meaning
and explanation. I really believe that the practitioner should focus on the
students’ needs when selecting and designing material because it should be
based on what students need to know and acquire and what students already
handle.
Strengths of the report
- Good use of language, in general, although
there are some basic mistakes.
- Same comment as to
metalanguage. Check the items marked on the text
- Deep reflection : ability to
link theory and practice
- Task completion
[MSOFFICE8]Check
this expression
The second ESP report was carried out at Dentistry University. I also observed the class with Virginia. The teacher had a completely different methodology from the previous obsrvation. But I learnt a lot form it too.
The second ESP report was carried out at Dentistry University. I also observed the class with Virginia. The teacher had a completely different methodology from the previous obsrvation. But I learnt a lot form it too.
ESP
OBSERVATION REPORT 2
I carried out my second ESP observation at Dentistry
University. The ESP teacher in charge was Luis Ortiz and there were
approximately 15 students in the class. This was a two-hour reading and
comprehension course.
The ESP
teacher started the class by reading a text about infected teeth in English and
he asked students to translate orally into Spanish sentence by sentence. Students
also had to find the verbs, transparent and unknown words in each sentence
before translating them. On the while-reading stage, the ESP teacher briefly
explained the simple present 3rd person singular, interrogative and affirmative
forms with some marker sentences on the board. He explained the importance of
the “s” added to the verb and called students’ attention to the difference
between English and Spanish structures in the present tense. The medium of
instruction was Spanish. Furthermore, the ESP teacher explained different
vocabulary items like the different ways of saying “ganar” in English and its
collocations “earn money, win a game, gain experience. At this point of the
class, the ESP teacher suggested the creation of a glossary to keep record of
the different words and their translations so that it would be easier and
faster for them to find those words when they sit for the exam. It is important
to mention here that there was exchange of meaning between students and the
teacher throughout the class since in many instances the teacher asked students
questions about a technical term or a particular procedure, for example, he
asked “¿alguien sabe cuáles son los canales?” and they answered with their
knowledge on the field. Therefore, there was a genuine communication between
them and their collaborative role and their role as active builders of their
knowledge were appreciated. Once they had finished working with the first text,
they moved to a second one and, in this case, the ESP teacher fostered reading
by asking different students to read and to find the verbs, unknown or
transparent words. By doing this, he engaged students in the process of reading
and also in paying more attention to the task.
As
regards the rationale of the activities in this class, I believe the teacher
wanted to provide students with useful strategies for reading a text in English
and also to further develop them. I think that by making students indentify
different elements in a sentence and analyze them he was enlarging students’
reading skills and vocabulary. As a matter of fact, he encouraged students to
create a glossary which, in my view, was another tool for learning lists of
vocabulary in an unconscious way. What I mean is that by building a glossary
they are already rereading words which will no longer be unfamiliar. The
teacher also highlighted the different collocations of a word and their
occurrence in a sentence. This was very important because he helped students
understand that although some words may have the same meaning they don’t always
collocate with certain words. Furthermore, the teacher fostered students to find
L2 equivalents of some particular lexical items. In doing so, he was activating
students’ schemata of the topic and allowing them to establish a connection
between the text in English and their knowledge of the topic. Therefore, there
was an exchange of meaning between the teacher and the students. Taking into
account everything I have mentioned, we could say the teacher also encouraged
students to scan the text, that is to say, to pay particular attention to the
elements in a sentence in order not only to understand it but also to translate
it.
As an observer, I could learn a lot of things related
to ESP during my observations. First, as I discovered during the previous
observation, I realized how important it is to be very competent in the ESP
field. In the case of Dentistry, I could notice that some words are transparent
for the students and, therefore, easy to understand. Second, I have also
realized how important it is for students taking the reading course to be in
the last years of their course of studies since they are already familiar with
many technicalities of that particular domain and also they can apply their
specialized knowledge in the reading they are carrying out. Last but not least,
as these are reading and comprehension courses it is very important as teachers
of English to train students in the development of reading skill so they can
develop different strategies to understand the texts and be able to cope with
any unfamiliar word or structure they may find. Furthermore, teaching important
grammar structures that are relevant for a particular reading is also vital for
the understanding of the text in English like the formation of questions in the
present simple or the “s” added to the verb in the present simple 3rd
person singular. As these grammatical structures are uncommon in Spanish, they
should be explained so that students are aware of them, their meaning and form.
Comments:
Strengths of the report
- Very good use of language and
metalanguage.
- Deep reflection: the link
between theory and practice was improved in this second version.
- Task Completion.
Well done!
The third and last report was on an Intercomprehension class in Germanic Language. I really enjoyed observing this class and found very useful.
The third and last report was on an Intercomprehension class in Germanic Language. I really enjoyed observing this class and found very useful.
ESP Observation Report 3
On September, 25th I observed an intercomprehension class in Germanic languages at Departamento Cultural. There
were more or less 15 students in the classroom and the class was team taught in
Spanish by the teachers of English and German. This report consists of two
parts. The first is a description of the most relevant instances of the class;
the second is a reflection on the class aimed at describing the perceived
rationale for the activities observed, and my own learning outcome.
The English teacher started the
class by handing out the units they were going to work with and by checking
homework. Students had to look for examples of negative statements in a text. The teacher checked the homework
through checking comprehension questions like “¿qué palabras se agregan para
negar en alemán?" or "¿cómo se forma la negación en neerlandés?" [I3] After that they started working with
the new unit. As a pre-reading activity, the teacher asked some questions to
activate students' schemata, for example, "¿qué conocen a
cerca del origen del jean? ¿dónde y cuándo se creó?" and asked students to write down
some ideas about their knowledge of the history of jeans in groups. Once they had finished[I6] , they all mentioned their
ideas. Then the teacher drew students’
attention to a picture they had in their worksheets and asked them "¿qué ven en la
foto?" By activating the students’
background knowledge, the teacher anticipated possible information students
would find in the texts they were going to read. Therefore, when they had to
read the three titles and predict the content of each text, students didn’t
find any difficulties since more or less they had already anticipated possible
topics. During the while-reading stage students had to scan the three texts
(English- German- Dutch) and identified the common ideas present in the texts.
The teacher checked this exercise by asking students to say the answers and
show her the evidence from the text. Following this exercise, students had to
carry out a more specific search of the word “gold” in the three texts and then
match those words with their definitions. It’s important to mention that the
teacher asked students to read the rubrics and that every time they checked an
exercise she made them reflect on the word formation, on topics they had
already seen and on the justification of their answers. The exercise was
checked by eliciting the answers from the students and by showing the answers
on the wall since the teachers projected the answers of each activity once they
had done it orally. I believe this was done to support students who may have
been lost and also to make sure that everyone had got the correct answers.
Importance to the different pronunciation was also given, there were two
exercises in which students had to read the rules and complete them with a
word. In order to complete the rules, one of the teachers would read the words
out loud. Since it is an intercomprehension course students are not expected to
say the words or to produce sentences, they need to become aware of the
similarities and differences between the languages, of the word formations in
order to understand texts in the three languages. Hence the following exercises
were mainly on vocabulary. Students had to look for a particular word in the
text and provide the equivalent in Spanish. The numbers of the lines were given
to help students find the words in the texts. Students
were expected to provide the equivalent to support their answers with evidence
from the texts.
As regards the perceived
rationale behind the activities, some conclusions can be drawn. First, the
pre-reading stages aimed at activating students’ schemata in order to help them
relate their background knowledge with the information in the text and also
help them make some predictions based on their knowledge of the content or type
of text. These stages enabled students to develop efficient reading strategies
helping them become more competent readers focusing their attention where they
had to do it. In other words, according to Peter Doyé “teachers help[ed] the
learners to develop their interpretation strategies on the basis of their prior
knowledge[I9] .” The while-reading stages aimed at
giving students a purpose to their reading and at enhancing their reading
comprehension. Most of the activities done made students scan and skim the
texts in search of key words that helped them solve the exercises. As regards
the pronunciation exercises, these were the least developed because I think
there are many differences in the phonic representation of each language and
because as I mentioned before students are not expected to speak the languages.
However, there are sound correspondences between the languages (Doyé 2005:28)
and those were the ones exploited in the observed class. For example, the
sequence >spik> (EN) and the >spijk> (Dutch) are pronounced
similarly with the diphthong /ai/
To conclude, everything in the
class was done in a relaxed way, students seemed to be at ease and willing to
participate, they also seemed to be satisfied with the methodology of the
class. In fact, I believe students are challenged every class to retrieve what
they have learnt in previous classes which keeps them alert and also shows them
the improvements they made. Regarding my personal outcome, it was a really nice
experience to observe an intercomprehension class since as a teacher it showed
me another way of teaching and posed a challenge I would like to experience
once in my career; as a student it made me want to take a course like this one
and learn to understand three languages at the time.
Comments on this
report:
- Very good use of language and
metalanguage
- Good reflection on the theory
read , as realized in the practical context observed
Task achievement: Good job!
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