HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

METHODOLOGY 6A

TEACHING JOURNAL

Instructor: Le Pham Hoai Huong Student: Ho Van Ket Group: 1

Journal 1:

Hue, 10/2016

The first class I decided to observed that is class 10C of a high school in a mountainous area. I

was really happy when I came back my old high school. Before observing, I called my old

teacher and asked about the schedule to have appropriate time. It was a morning of Monday,

October 3rd. I went into the class to observe at 9 a.m. This class 10C had 42 students. I sat down

in the last row to follow the whole activities of the class and the teacher easily.

First of all, the teacher had a quiz to elicit the topic. It was a word having 5 letters and she

showed a picture in the slide. Immediately, a student raised her hand to answer: "piano" and the

teacher showed her feedback that was a correct answer, and the teacher led the new lesson. I

think this activity is a good way, but it is short and simple for "warm-up". Instead of showing a

picture, she should show many pictures which relating to "music", and ask students "What is

this?" and call some students go to the board to write it. It will help students can learn

vocabulary through pictures.

After warm- up activity, she moved to pre-reading, the teacher followed the activity in the

textbook. She asked two questions and asked students answer the questions. Next, the teacher

turned to teaching vocabulary. She wrote a list of new words on the board and required some of

the students write the meaning and read it out. After that, she checked it again, read it out and

required class read it 3 times. She did it because she asked the students to prepare new lesson

before going to school. It was a good idea for the students to remember new words when they

looked up the dictionary. However, it was not the same with what I learned in college. She did

not use some of the techniques to elicit some new words and follow step by step.

In while-reading stage, the teacher read the text out and all students listened. After that, she

divided the text into three smaller one and asked three students to stand up, read one by one and

translated into Vietnamese. I thought time-consuming for translating and it did not enough time

to practice 3 tasks. She used both task 1 and task 2 to teach at this stage. The teacher asked

students to work in pair and do two tasks at the same time for 5 minutes. In this stage, I like the

way teacher calling the name of each student in the class to answer the question instead of

calling "you". I think the teacher can remember all names of the students in a class. It was a

good way to lead students in the lesson. Besides, I think that she taught quite fast because of

limited time. She accepted the correct answers and forgot that she should ask some evidence for

each answer. In general, the teacher should have appropriate time for each part. The teachers

should use more time for the important part and less time for the unimportant part. Sometimes

she got some words with wrong pronunciation, but she had a clear voice and a cheerful face. It is

easy for students to listen and feel comfortable.

In conclusion, she is very confident, friendly teacher. She always smiled and willed to answer

any question from us as well from her students. She as well as her teaching's style is a good

model for me and for my job in the future.

Journal 2:

On Friday, October 7th, I came back my high school again and the second class I observed is

class 10A of Mr. B. That was the first time I met him and I had to ask for teacher's permission to

attend to observe his class which was started at 3 p.m. My first impression of him was that he is

a young teacher, so I thought that he did not have many experiences. However, when I observed

his class, I changed my mind completely.

First of all, he prepared PowerPoint carefully and used a projector to show the slide of the

content of the lesson. To begin the lesson, he organized a game for the whole class. The teacher

divided the class into 4 groups. He showed 2 questions on the slide and asked students

answered. Three minutes later, a leader of each group would present in front of the class, all of

them had to listen and added more information. The group had the correct answers was a

winner. The game helped students improve the listening skill and make students more confident.

After that, he moved to teach vocabulary. He used a lot of ways to elicit new words such as

mine, explanation, antonym, give an example, etc. He taught step by step very well. It was the

same with what I learned in college.

In while- listening, he asked the students to read through the statements and keep in mind which

information they need to look for. After that, the students listened to the first recording and

decided whether each statement is true or false and called on students to give the answers and

elicit explanations for their choices; he asked the students to listen to the recording again to

check. In my opinion, he should let students guess the statement was true or false first. It helps

the students understand the reason why they guess the statement is true or false and easy to

check it. Furthermore, I hope he can replace task 2 into a new activity which is more interesting

and communicative, and it perhaps makes the atmosphere of the class happier and more active.

Next, the teacher divided the class into 2 groups. The group, which could answer the most

questions is the winner and received a gift from him. I like the way he made the students feel

comfortable and he knows that his students like candy. For me, it is also an interesting idea

because of the stressful atmosphere in the class; he talked with the students' something, it is not

in the lesson like some activities or events happening in school.

The last stage of the lesson was post-listening . The teacher let the students work in pairs and

play a game. It was named "Information-gap". A student A was given a text on birthday

celebrations in some places and a student B its gapped version. Within pairs, Students asked

each question to fill in the gaps. In this stage, the way teacher managed class was very good, he

went around the class, listened what his students talk together. He used more time for important

part and help them when they were in trouble. Furthermore, he has the strong interaction with

students, he has better ways to control the class and to encourage student involving in the lesson.

However, he got a problem with some words because of wrong pronunciation.

After observing 2 classes at high school, I have realized that: firstly, I have to prepare a lesson

plan carefully. Secondly, I have to predict some sudden situations may happen in class to deal

with. Next, I have to use English fluently and know how to balance between English and

Vietnamese in the class. Next, I must be smiling, friendly. Finally, to be a good teacher, I need

to try a lot and practice more.

HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

METHODOLOGY 6A

OBSERVATION SHEET

Instructor: Le Pham Hoai Huong Student: Ho Van Ket Group: 1

Hue, 10/2016