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