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Class Observation Report

Observer: Patrick Mose Level: 23-(101) (102) Elem. Reading/writing Content: Reading and writing

Ling 685
Teachers Name: Tanya Bovkun Date: 4-26-2012 Number of Students: 12

Recapitulation
A very friendly, warm and welcoming atmosphere is what we experienced in our observation classroom. Students sat keenly as they waited eagerly for their teacher to arrive. Consequently, our host teacher ushered us in and showed us where to sit. The beginning of the class was marked by a general catching up talk. I thought that was a good approach to setting up the mood and creating a good rapport with students before engaging them with the days activities. As a result, this was precedence to a very conducive environment for learning. Having captured the mood of the class, the teacher checked students homework and actually asked them if they experienced any problems. Generally, I thought all activities were carefully planned and executed. Learners enthusiasm was evident throughout the entire lesson. For instance, in one of the class activity involving interviewing a partner using when structure in a sentence, one student used really funny but correct examples. By and large, our host teacher connected her class activities synchronously. Her well-crafted transitions from one activity to another left the students and us yearning to continue with the lesson despite the fact that the lesson was over.

Main activities
The objectives of the lesson were reading short passages for details, scanning for specific information, and writing target forms and speech.

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Class Observation Report


Activity 1: Reading a short passage

Ling 685

Students were asked to read a short passage in a timed reading. Then the teacher asked them to answer true or false questions after the text. I think the text was chosen because it had a lot of related vocabularies that required students to associate facts and decode some information in order to identify the main idea. I thought it was a suitable choice because it required students to know prepositions and how they are used in the related vocabulary. The passage had vocabulary related to body parts, and hospital emergency. To help students decode, the teacher asked follow up questions that enabled them to identify tricky details. Activity 2: Writing- sentences with when This was an interview pair activity full of fun. Students really enjoyed the activity as witnessed by the way they were giving interesting and really funny examples using when. I think the teacher chose this activity because it aroused learners interest in participation. Also, when they practiced asking and answering questions with when, the process reinforced other grammar points such as word order, parts of speech, vocabulary, and writing when recording their partners response. Actually, I thought this activity catered for speaking to some extent. Activity 3: Working with text (Scanning) This was a pre-reading activity, through the teachers questions; new key vocabulary was introduced before students read actual text. I want to believe that asking student what they know first was a good idea; then a build-up from their knowledge consequently led to constructive learning. Although the entire activity was not concluded because of time, the teacher gave learners a matching activity to prepare them to read.

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Class Observation Report

Ling 685

From my observation, the learners liked the second activity more than the other two. I thought learners were uncomfortable with the teachers questions as it was evident that they had difficulties answering questions.

Conclusion
In my opinion, this was a real model class that I may want to imitate in my future teaching. Not only will I want to adopt the technical aspects of teaching reading and writing, but also in learning a few tips in regard to connecting well with your learners. There are a number of things I learnt from this observation. Top on my list is how to motivate students to take charge of their writing journals. It was commendable to see students noting new vocabularies in their journals without their teachers cue. Secondly, choice of activities in a lesson is a very important issue. A teacher may have a wonderful lesson plan but the lesson may be ruined as a result of poor choice of activities. Time management skills, well-crafted transitions and connection of activities are other skills I learnt from my host teachers teaching recipe. Finally, a good rapport with students is the key to a successful implementation of a teachers objectives. Likewise, this rapport will motivate students to work very hard in their academics. More importantly, with a good rapport students can do more reading and writing assignments, all it takes is an external motivation from the teacher.

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