Teaching Observation
When I came into the classroom, teacher Lillian had already asked the class to stand up. Each student was assigned a number randomly and formed four groups in the class. Obviously, we were having a lesson which had lots of group work. The lesson was about GM food, and the objective of this class was to review the text. Teaching materials were PowerPoint and textbooks.
From the very beginning, students were informed that there would be a play, and the objective was to review the text, even though they might not have any idea about the play. Students were settled in four groups. When forming groups, students were relaxed. They went to the group with some noise. Soon after everyone had their seats, teacher Lillian then asked the students some questions on the PPT. The questions were all related to the textbook, and the answers could be found in the article or by student’s own experience both. Students, as group members, had few minutes to discuss before answering; therefore, it would not be a challenge which caused anxiety. At the same time, teacher Lillian came to us and told us that the first hour was static, and so this hour they would have an activity. They would have a play to review and perform what they had learned. After discussion, teacher Lillian asked students from different groups to answer the questions. Immediately feedback was given. When there students gave a wrong answer, teacher Lillian said “He’s ok,” “He can try a little bit harder.” Once a correct answer was uttered, teacher gave the reinforcement- verbal reward. In this opening, students were mostly getting involved in the session.
After 10 minutes of the above warm-up session, as in the main activity, teacher Lillian gave directions of the play. To facilitate students’ comprehension of the activity, the direction was stated in English first and Mandarin again. Students were selling the GM and non-GM food in a supermarket, teacher Lillian was the customer. Groups stated the advantages of their own product to urge the customer to buy it. Then students started to discuss what they knew about the pros and cons of GM food. The discussion continued a few minutes; teacher Lillian told them the time limit. To make it clearer, teacher could tell them before the discussion. Further, for making the conversation fluently, teacher Lillian invited the students to write down their opinions without giving them worksheet. A piece of work sheet in each group would help. Moreover, through their discussion, teacher could stay in each group longer to help them, at the same time, to make sure that everyone worked in the group. Teacher Lillian gave them more directions during the discussion time, the advantage of it was to enhance students’ comprehension of the activity; however, it could also interrupt the discussion. There was a student asked a question, the teacher answered in front of the class and wrote it on the blackboard which assisted students’ working.
Still 10 minutes past, the pattern of interaction changed from within group to intergroup. Students presented to the customer and their opponent, each of the members had to say something. Some advantages were from the textbook, some were creative thinking from the students. Teacher Lillian restated the viewpoints to class or asked the students to repeat if the opinions were good. But some students chatted when the else interacted with the teacher and the class. If teacher ordered some students to repeat their peers’ opinion, they might draw more attention to the activity. Further, when group three and four did the performance, the focal attention came to the back of the classroom; group one and two lost their attention accordingly. Teacher Lillian could stay in front of the classroom and asked students to speak louder so that students in the front could still join the discussion. But mostly, students enjoyed the class. The whole activity cost around 25 minutes which was appropriate.
In the period of closure, teacher Lillian asked us to assess students’ presentation. The best one would have some reward. Next, teacher read the vocabulary, students repeated. Teacher Lillian briefly reminded students what to do in the next session and called it a day.
The class went on fluently. Most students volunteered to answer the questions, interact with the group members, and willing to tell the class about their viewpoints. Teacher Lillian built rapport by having eye contact with them and memorizing every student’s name. The relationship of teacher and student was admirable. Moreover, the way of the assessing students’ comprehension of the text would not raise students’ anxiety. Error correction was done only when meaning wasn’t conveyed explicitly; that is, covert error was disregarded. The non-disturbance action in the class was ignored; therefore it saved more time to the rest. However, a few students made some noise and lost their attention but they were not stopped immediately. They possibly would bother someone else in the classroom. The noise in grouping could disturb the other class too. All in all, the objective of this class was achieved, and the interaction between teacher and students, students and students were excellent. I really enjoy the class.
The second class was teacher Mimi’s. The class started with three students went on to the board actively. They wrote short poems. Teacher corrected each poem soon after they finished writing. The error of the vocabulary was corrected by its part of speech which focused on the form. While the three were writing the poems, the else got their handout. This 10 minutes opening didn’t relate to the coming activity, but it seemed like a daily routine which the students were all familiar with it.
Next, students were grouped by their seats. The process of grouping was calm which made me amazing. There were six groups, and they would be graded by the group performance. The first activity was information gap. Students had to ask their classmates questions on the work sheet1. Teacher Mimi directed in English and translated into Mandarin again. Native language was seldom used in both class, and the function of the native language was to facilitate students’ understanding of the activity. When filling in the blank of information gap, students talked in both native and target language. It cost around 7 minutes, and teacher Mimi gave time limit before the discussion began. Thus, students were aware about the time and paced themselves faster. When time was up, students went back to their seat soon. Teacher Mimi gave them points when they raised hands to answer; therefore, student voluntarily performed what they collected. This was operant conditioning which the response was facilitating by the reward. Using complete sentences was encouraged. One wrong usage was appeared; teacher Mimi gave some direct treatment like” I have, you have, he has,” to make sense. They performed only around 3 minutes.
The above questions for information gap were all related to the text and students’ experiences, those questions were guidance for students to get into the article. Then they opened the book to read the vocabulary. One thing made me a little bit shock was that each word was pronounced for less than twice, and only six words were taught one session. The example sentences were read once and the key terms were picked out to explain. Grammar of the vocabulary was explicitly and deductively taught. Teacher Mimi wrote down the form on the blackboard and gave one more example. The forms and examples were spoken once. It was a little bit too fast to me, but the students seemed content with this. 5 minutes after, there came to be the second activity. On the hand out were some blanks of sentence starters, students had to discuss with their group members and figured out the answer. The leader of the group was picked out right now, the one who sat in the front and right side of the group. The leader should collect the answer from the group. After that, one student went on to the board to write down the answer, and she won her group some points. The else corrected if there were mistake, and got points, too. This time, the correction was also on the form. Activity 2 cost around 8 minutes, and then they went back to the text. Teacher Mimi initiated some questions of the picture and textbook and mentioned some related to students’ lives. Following the questions, teacher Mimi played the CD, students read two paragraphs with it. The questions on the worksheet then answered.
The last 10 minutes came to the closure part. They went on to look at the handout of the studio classroom. Questions were still raised this time after silent reading of paragraph 1. Teacher Mimi named the group with the lowest grade to answer primarily; then students risked choosing plus or minus five points after answering the question. Teacher Mimi said its purpose was for motivating the loser work. Finally the lower became higher, and the group with highest grade could get the Easter eggs. At the last 1 minute, teacher Mimi reminded some other things and assigned some homework on the textbook then finish the class.
This class was very different from the first one. Teacher Lillian’s class was student-centered, full of students’ sound while teacher Mimi’s was teacher-centered, full of teacher’s explanation. Though it was a teacher-centered class, teacher Mimi initiated lots of questions to catch students’ attention. Teacher Mimi used hand out to facilitate students’ learning which made students understand what they were going to do, it was time saving that there was no need to write down the questions on the board. Moreover, she used student’s name on the worksheet, students liked this kind of worksheet. Though the whole class was arranged tightly, the students were all in control. Since teacher Mimi was the tutor of the class, they students cooperate with the teacher and the class well. The only thing to be improved was eye contact. Teacher Mimi sometimes spoke with looking at the ceiling. I wasn’t sure if she realized that, but if I were the student, I would feel better when teacher had eye contact with me.
All in all, I enjoyed these two classes and I do believe that observation makes the class better, mine and theirs. Thanks to these two teachers, their contribution to their students motivates students in learning English. That’s how teachers make students’ lives different.
