Observation Report 4

In this opportunity, we will analyze a lesson at a fifth grade.

Context: Literary contexts. Topic: Postcards.

Language practices: greet each other, narrate.

Tasks: Read different types of texts (letters and postcards), match pictures with texts, and write different types of texts (postcards).

Lesson:  (50 minutes)

The teacher entered the room and greeted the students.

Teacher: Hello children!

Students: Hello Maria Marta!

Teacher: How are you today?

Students: Fine, thank you.

They checked a true or false exercise that they had to do as homework about different postcards.

After checking the homework, the teacher wrote on the board the day and date.

Teacher: What’s the day today? Monday, 19^th October.

Teacher: What`s the weather like today?

Students: Cloudy!

Teacher: It`s cloudy. And how do you feel today? Write on your notebooks: I am ______ today. (happy, sad, angry or tired).

And the teacher wrote the date and the weather condition on the board.

She also explained and wrote the different parts of a postcard, and asked the student to think as homework to which person they would like to send a letter and look for the address of that person.

1)      MANAGING THE PACE OF THE CLASS
A.      Managing time	The teacher gave plenty of “wait time” for students to answer.
B.      Managing activities	The teacher had already prepared simplifies instructions for the activities.
C.      Use of transition activities	She did not used  attention getters nor brain breaks.
2)      MANAGING BEHAVIOUR WITH ROUTINES
She started the class with a greeting. She checked homework given the previous class. She established the date, day and weather (she wrote it on the board). She gave the lesson. She gave homework for the following class.
3)      MANAGING BEHAVIOUR WITH RULES
A.      Enforce school rules	“Chewing gum into the dustbin, please” she said to one of the students. Chewing gum is not allowed in class.
B.      Rules are clearly communicated and constructed	“When you are absent, you have to ask a classmate what we have done in class and ask if you have some homework to do”.
C.      Consequences for positive and negative behavior	“I will give you feedback (marks) on the homework you had to do for today”. Apart from that, as some children did not listen to their classmates, she told them that she would give them homework.
D.     Enforce rules consistently and fairly	Since the children continued talking and not listening to the rest of their classmates, she finally gave them homework.
E.      Involve parents in managing YL’s behavior	No.
4)      MANAGING THE CLASSROOM CLIMATE
A.      Physical environment	The way in which the classroom is set up makes it possible for the teacher to walk through the room in order to check on students and monitor their progress.
B.      Emotional atmosphere	The teacher was a supportive adult that treated all students equally and fairly.
5)      MANAGING THE LANGUAGE USED IN CLASS
The teacher used L1 to explain instructions of the activities.

Observation Report 3

In this opportunity, we will analyze a lesson at a thirsd grade.

Context: Me. Human activities. Topic: Toys.

Language practices: Greet each other; ask for information, sing, describe.

Tasks:

Lesson:  (50 minutes)

The teacher entered the room and greeted the students. After the teacher`s counting up to three, children started singing the Hello song:

“This is the way I say hello, say hello, say hello.

This is the way I say hello, I say hello to you”.

Teacher: What`s the weather like today? Is it rainy/ cloudy? (She used some pictures to make input comprehensible).

Children: No! It`s sunny.

And the teacher wrote the date and the weather condition on the board.

She asked the children to copy some news on their notebooks so that their parents could be informed.

“Familia: El próximo martes 6 realizaremos la pruebita de inglés. Por favor, ayudar a revisar nombres de los juguetes, materiales con que se fabrican, It´s here/ it isn`t here. Notif:”  

She continued to write an exercise on the board:

What are they made of? Guess: 1)     It`s a plane. It´s made of_____________. (d- o- o- w) 2)     It´s a robot. It´s made of _____________. (l- m- t- a- e) 3)     It´s a doll. It´s made of ______________. (b- f- i- a- r- c)

After completing the exercise, children took their notebooks to the teacher, who corrected them. (Teacher: “what color of pen do you want me to use when correcting your work?” Student: pink!).

ASSESSING LISTENING ACTIVITIES
1.       Prepared teacher talk	Yes
2.       Acts that reflect real-life listening	Yes
3.       Developmentally appropriate	Yes
4.       Techniques for comprehensible input	Yes
5.       Check comprehension with response types	No
6.       Active listening (LTG with a purpose)	Yes
7.       Guesswork strategies: ·         Prediction ·         Discourse markers ·         Background knowledge ·         Listening for the main idea ·         Listening for specific details ·         Listen for key words ·         Nonverbal cues ·         Guess unknown words	Yes No Yes Yes No No Yes No
ASSESSING SPEAKING ACTIVITIES
1.       Build classroom routines	Yes
2.       Acts that reflect real-life speaking	Yes
3.       Developmentally appropriate (interactive and presentational)	Yes
4.       Classroom interaction: ·         Repetition ·         Question and Answer ·         Paraphrasing ·         Giving examples ·         Personalizing	Yes Yes No Yes No
5.       Active speaking (no corrective feedback)	No
6.       Negotiation strategies (in chunks)	No

Observation Report 2

In this opportunity, we will analyze a lesson at a fourth grade.

Date and time: Monday 21^st, September, from 13.05 to 13.50 P.M.

Context: Poems and songs. Topic: Spring.

Language practices: To recite a poem.

Tasks: To enjoy reading poetry; to recite a poem about Spring; to transfer a text into an illustration.

Lesson:  (50 minutes)

The teacher entered the room and greeted the students.

Teacher: Hello children! - Students: Hello, María Marta!

And then she started the lesson checking the homework she had assigned the previous class. Children had to solve some riddles based on an activity they had done in class:

1     1) It can run. It has got four legs and it is yellow. What is it? It`s a lion. 

         2)  It can swim. It has got a yellow peak. It has got wings. What is it? It’s a duck.

She continued to explained that as it was a special day (The beginning of a new season: Spring), they would do a special activity. “Today we are going to copy a poem about Spring”.

Teacher: What’s the day today? - Students: Monday.

Teacher: What’s the weather like today? - Students:  Cloudy. Teacher: Yes, it’s cloudy and windy.

The teacher wrote on the board the date and the weather.

She started copying the poem on the board:

Spring

Spring clouds bring rain now and then,

But watch the sun came out again.

Flowers grow and birds lay eggs.

Let’s ride bicycles, stretch those legs!

Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall.

I like Spring best of all!

She gave some directions on how to copy the poem on their notebooks.

At first, she read the poem aloud and they analyzed what the poem was about and what it said. Then, she asked the children to repeat after her. And finally, she asked some students to read a verse each.

She asked the children “Do you know what a rhyme is?” and then they underlined the words that rhymed (then- again, eggs- legs, fall- all).

She asked: “What would you draw in order to illustrate what the poem is saying?” and children gave their opinions. She asked them to make a drawing on their notebooks.

Chart for the analysis of the observation of this EYL class:

CONNECT	YES/NO	DESCRIBE THE LESSON
1-      Connect delivery with characteristics of YLs
a-      Fun b-      Active (learn by doing)	No
2-      Connect learners with a variety of interactions
a-      Individual work b-      Student to student in pairs c-       Students to students in groups d-      Student to teacher one-on-one e-      Teacher to students whole class	Yes	In this class the interaction was mainly between the teacher and the students as a whole class. The only moment in which children worked on their own was when copying the poem on their notebooks and making their drawings.
3-      Connect learners to different learning styles
a-      Spatial-visual b-      Audio-visual c-       Musical d-      Bodily-kinesthetic e-      Logical-mathematical f-       Linguistic g-      Interpersonal h-      Intrapersonal i-        Naturalistic	Yes	Visual: The teacher showed a picture to the children which illustrated the message of the poem and then asked children to do their own drawings. Linguistic: the lesson was based on a poem, a specific type of text. The teacher explained how students should copy it. Musical: they teacher encouraged children to find words rhyming with others.
4-      Connect language with meaningful/ relevant contexts
a-      Use authentic contexts/ situations b-      Use realia c-       Encourage personalization	Yes	In this lesson, the teacher uses a real situation (the beginning of Spring) to revise vocabulary and to work on a different type of text: a poem.
5-      Connect learners with culture
a-      Learners to own culture b-      Learners to target language culture (English-speaking) c-       Learners to international cultures	No
6-      Connect learners to success)
a-      Give plenty of comprehensible input b-      Use techniches to make input comprehensible (i.e, visuals, realia, gestures, repetition, rephrasing) c-       Break down long or difficult tasks into achievable tasks d-      Model tasks and clarify expectations e-      No explicit grammar teaching	Yes	The teacher broke down a difficult activity into achievable tasks: first, she read the poem; then she asked the children to repeat the verses after her; and finally children were able to read the poem on their own. She used different techniques to make input comprehensible: repetition, rephrasing and she used the Spanish language a lot.