OBSERVACIÓN Y PRÁCTICA DE LA ENSEÑANZA II

ESP Observation 2

Student: Juan Pablo Murúa

This observation task was carried out in a Módulos de Idiomas course at Facultad de

Ciencias Económicas, UNC. The teacher in charge was Gaciela del Federico and the group

was made of about 40 students, aged between 18 and 40 years old. The students’ level of

proficiency was intermediate and in order to do the course, they needed to have completed

at least 20 subjects. In this report I am going to provide a descriptive narrative and the

perceived rationale of the class and a final reflection.

With regard to the activities students carried out, they were mostly text and

grammar - based activities, the aim of which was reading comprehension. Students worked

individually in most of the exercises but they were allowed to work in pairs too. In one of

the activities, students had to read a text about the history of banks for general information.

Then, they were given some missing sentences and they had to order them in the text in

chronological order. The teacher asked the students “¿Qué tipo de texto es éste?”,

“informativo” students answered. The teacher then explained the importance of genre; “Es

una narración. Hay un énfasis en el orden cronológico, marcado por los concetores

temporales”. In another reading activity, students had to find in the text some terms

associated with banking such as “buck, coin, note, currency, bills” and provide some

similar equivalents in Spanish. Grammar was also dealt with in the class. The teacher

explained the main differences between active and passive voice. She used the blackboard

to point to the structure (all forms of be + verb in the past participle) and uses of the passive

voice (énfasis en la acción. No importa quién la realiza). Then, students had to read some

sentences in the passive voice in their activity books and translate the words in bold into

Spanish, such as “The coin was split into smaller units” (estaba dividida).

As regards the rationale of the class, students carried out mostly short reading

activities for the comprehension of written texts. The course is extensive, as it occupies

only a small part of the students’ timetable and it runs parallel to other specific subject

courses related to the students’ field of expertise. The course has also a narrow focus, since

it helps students develop the reading skill only and very few genres, such as narratives as I

explained above. Of course, this is related to the students´ target needs. That is, as the

learners´ time and needs are limited, the focus should also be limited (to develop only the

reading comprehension skill and the genres the learners will encounter in their work field).

But this does not mean the teacher should not include varied contexts. For example, she

used carrier content to introduce some grammatical items. She used the context of banking

in the text (carrier content) to introduce the passive voice (real content) so as to make it

more comprehensible and relate the new grammar item to the students´ subject area and the

students´ needs. That is, the teaching of the grammar item was also dealt with the purpose

of improving the learners´ reading and comprehension skills. The class was teacher-

centered and the role of the teacher was that of provider of input as she controlled the class,

the language to be used and the sequencing of the activities. As what I could observe, I

learnt many positive aspects and some I would possibly change about this ESP class. As

this course has very limited time throughout the year, and as students´ needs are also

limited, I think that the best option is to have a narrow focus course, as it happens in this

college. However, I would take into account the students´ wants at least once or twice a

month. Many of these students feel the need to communicate orally in the target language

(they told me this themselves); even when this may not be one of the main necessities of

the target situation the learners will function in. I would combine reading comprehension

activities with at least one follow –up speaking task. The focus of the course is the reading

and comprehension of written texts only, but maybe if we take into account what the

learners’ wants are, the course would be more motivating for them and they would be more

engaged in the activities they carry out. Using a text-based approach is not enough. Maybe

it would be a good idea to include some tasks students will perform in real- life situations

such as using balance sheets. These task-based resources relate to students in a meaningful

way as they are related to their work field, and thus aid to the learners involvement as a

basis for motivation.