TEYL observations

  For Susana we did two observations. I decided to observe two amazing teachers. I really learnt some interesting things from them and enjoyed being in their classrooms because I did not only jot down what I needed for my reports but I also got to learn some useful strategies for classroom management and for keeping students on task and engaged. Here are the results of my reports.

TEYL OBSERVATION REPORT 1

            The observation was carried out on April, 11th at Colegio Padre Claret. The level of the students was beginners and they were in 5^th grade. The students were 10 years old. The teacher in charge was Natalia and there were 35 students in the class.

            The class started with the usual greeting. After that the teacher took 10 minutes to recycle some items of vocabulary that were taught in the previous class (subjects, parts of school). The teacher did this by playing hangman on the board and asking different students to say a letter in English. It was a kind of competition between the teacher and the students. It is important to mention that instructions were in Spanish and that students spoke in Spanish too. Although the alphabet letters were mentioned in English which was what the teacher expected them to do, they resorted to Spanish all the time. After that, the teacher asked students to open their books and to pay attention to the images they had there and asked them “Where was Harry?” “Where was Ben?” these two questions were in English and students answered in English too. Then she explained that they had  to listen to the song and complete with the missing words. They listened to the first part and she stopped the track to explain what the word “easy” meant and to check they had  written that. This was followed by questions  like “is Maths easy for you?” to which they answered  yes or no. They listened to the rest of the song and she explained the meaning of the word difficult and asked them the questions “is IT difficult for you?” and students answered. Correction was done like this by asking students questions but the teacher did not write or elicit from the students the missing words thus I think that this was not effective since some students could not listen or were lost. It is worth mentioning here that this was the last lesson students had and they were really noisy and talkative, some of them started doing other things and did not pay attention. Moreover, as some students did not have their books they got in groups and this increased the noisy atmosphere. The teacher called their attention but she couldn’t achieve a nice classroom atmosphere. She played a song of the days of the weeks with the Adams’ family tune and she managed to get students calm for some minutes. Nevertheless, when she had to explain homework, she had to explain it several times because students were not paying attention.

            This observation was very useful for me because I realized that classroom management is essentially important when teaching young learners because if the classroom atmosphere is not quiet and warm, learners find it difficult to learn and to be engaged. Therefore, habits and rules need to be established from the very beginning. Another important thing that I realized is that as a teacher of young learners it is important to explain, correct and show new items of vocabulary in the L2. It is crucial for students to be exposed to the language at the very first moment because they will be challenged to pay more attention and will try to understand what the teacher is saying. Thus they will be engaged in the learning process.

TEYL OBSERVATION REPORT 2

            The observation was carried out on April, 16th at Instituto Santo Tomás. The level of the students was beginners and they were in Children 3. The students were 8 or 9 years old. There were 17 students in the class and the teacher in charge was Laura.

            The class started with the usual greeting followed by a prayer and some students’ intentions. As it is a religious school and we are in the Holy Week, the class was devoted to the 14 Stations of the Cross. It was a very nice class and I could spot all the requirements for this report. The teacher asked students what they knew about the Stations of the Cross or Via Crucis in order to brainstorm some ideas and activate their schemata. Students were very enthusiastic and most of them wanted to participate or say something. They raised their hands and used Spanish to express their knowledge. The teacher repeated some key words in English. After that she explained that they were going to work with the Stations of the Cross, stuck a poster with the different Stations on the board and gave students a copy with the Stations. Students copied the date and had to cut the stations and paste them on their folders. While they were working some students spoke in L1 among themselves but used L2 to ask something to the teacher or to say they had finished. In order to have all students on task and to time the activity, the teacher started writing on the board the remaining minutes like 5’’ then she erased and wrote 4’’. This was very effective and students, who were talking or were falling behind, hurried up. What is more, she wrote the names of the first ten students to finish the activity and they were the ones who read the Stations first. In so doing, students were motivated to finish on time and to hurry up. While different students read the Stations, the teacher checked pronunciation and grammar. The former by saying the word, say third, in the correct way and making students repeat and the latter by asking questions like Jesus…? and students realized they did not pronounce the S in the verb, for example in the sentence “Jesus falls for the third time .” The teacher also asked why it was important to pronounce the S and a student answered “because we are talking about another person.” Consequently, the teacher praised that student and they continued reading. When this activity finished, the teacher called some students to act the stations. Students were really eager and happy to participate and personified Jesus, Pilato, the soldiers, etc. They asked the teacher to participate in English “please miss, me!” During the representation, some students started pushing each other and the teacher immediately told them off and asked them to be respectful. The last activity was to colour the Stations and the teacher told them she would choose  the best work next class and will give that person a surprise so students really worked hard.

            I found this observation very useful because I realized that it is very important to keep students engaged in the activities and this is done by being a resourceful teacher and by preparing engaging and appealing activities. Therefore, it is important to keep students motivated most of the time because their attention span is very short so they get bored very easily and if they are bored, they start misbehaving. Moreover, I consider checking students’ pronunciation on the spot very useful since young learners learn by repetition and rehearsal and if their pronunciation is not corrected they will end up saying a word in the wrong way. Thus I believe that Laura did a good job in checking not only students’ pronunciation but also their grammar which I think it was an important thing to do because she could integrate what they saw in previous classes with this activity. Last but not least, I liked the way Laura engaged students in the different kinds of activities and how she kept them motivated.