Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción Facultad de Educación

English Teaching Programme Teaching Experience I

OBSERVATION TASK 1: Focus on the learner.

Carolina Rojas

Teaching experience 1

Maria Lagos

Rocio Muñoz

Concepcion, September 2014.

Whiteboard

OBSERVATION TASK 1: The Learner:

a) Observe an English lesson. b) Draw a diagram with the seating arrangement in the classroom

Boy Boy

Gabriela …

Boy Boy

Boy Constanza…

Girl Boy

Girl Boy

Boy

Girl Boy

Girl Boy

Boy Boy.. Boy Boy… Boy Boy Mirko.

c) Make sure you are seated in a position where you are able to observe when

and how the teacher attends to individuals –by names, surnames , gestures, facing them or not, eye contact, or others.

d) For part of the lesson keep a record of every time the teacher interacts with the students. Mark the appropriate box (with a dot or X) each time the teacher attends to a particular student.

e) As the teacher’s use of names allows you to identify the learners, name each box on your diagram.

f) Make notes of the actual attending strategy used by the teacher (e.g. Attending strategies: name, nod, smile, eye contact, reprimanding look, touch or others)

g) Note on your diagram whether the students are male or female and any other distinguishing characteristics, such as difference in age, nationality…………………………………………………………….)

After the lesson: a) Reflect on your findings. b) Note the teacher’s position and movement.

- When and where does s/he sit? The teacher never sat down.

- When and where does s/he stand? Most of the time, she was standing in the middle of the classroom, or she was moving around the classroom.

- How near does s/he approach the learners at different parts of the lesson?

She had a close relation with students; she was very kind when she corrected their mistakes. Also, she was not rude toward Ss’ answers, even though they answered mostly in Spanish.

- When does s/he move around? While she was monitoring Ss’ work she was constantly moving around the classroom.

- Does s/he project to all the learners? Yes she did, she was standing in the middle of the classroom. That is why all the students could hear and see her.

- Can s/he be heard and seen clearly by all the students? Yes she was heard and seen by all the students.

- Does s/he make eye contact with individual learners? Most of the time she asked open questions without asking anyone in particular, but when someone asked something or gave an answer she always made eye contact with the students.

c) What have you learned from this observation that you could apply to your own teaching?

Something that caught our attention was the variety of activities that the teacher had prepared. As she mentioned, when students do not have too much interest in

the subject the key is to get them engage by doing different activities, specially short activities to Ss practice the target language as much as they can.