TESOL Certificate Programs

Observation Notebook

Observation Report
Forms for inclusion in the Observation Notebook must be typed

Name of Observer Tomomi Yuma

Date October 3
Observation Environment

Observation # 6
Class Level/Number (Beg./Int./Adv.) Beginning (200 level) Teacher Shirley Kolta

(include URL if the class was online)

Class Skill/Content

Classroom

Oral skills

Focus on relevant areas from the What Can Be Observed handout. Notice how the teacher handles these areas during the class. OBJECTIVE OF THE LESSON: Students will recognize and demonstrate air talk used by Americans. Notes while observing:

Another paper

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Last Updated: 11/5/2013 8:04 PM

TESOL Certificate Programs

Observation Notebook
What did you learn about teaching or learning from this lesson? Discuss your observation focus, and the theory you have studied in your TESOL classes. Consider the three levels of teacher reflection (surface, pedagogical, critical). (100-200 words)

The focus of this observation was the way of error collection in oral skills. In this lesson, I found three types of errors; grammar, word choice, and pronunciation. The teacher corrected these errors in the same way. The teacher said a correct sentence or word immediately after students said it incorrectly. The teacher repeated the correct one several times until students noticed and corrected by themselves. The teacher responded to students errors in the manner of the Audio-Lingual Method, where teachers think that student errors are to be avoided if at all possible (LarsenFreeman and Anderson, 2011, p.46). The teacher always provided students with correct examples. I think the teacher was afraid that students would learn wrong English expressions. Feedback was given to students in the form of recast. The teacher just said correct ones without explaining what was wrong and then students repeated the words. It seems that students understood errors and reconstructed their knowledge, but Gass (2003, p.236) pointed out that students might be just mimicking or repeating without true understanding. Only one time recast might not be enough for students to learn a correct sentence or word. Teachers need to give an explanation with correction and opportunities to practice the target again in the classroom.

Last Updated: 11/5/2013 8:04 PM

TESOL Certificate Programs

Observation Notebook
What activities/techniques from this class do you want to remember for your own teaching practice? Discuss specific ways in which you could apply the techniques and methods you saw. Discuss your future teaching environment and your students needs and goals. (100-200 words)

In this class, students learned how to start a conversation when they meet a person for the first time. Not only language expressions like nice to meet you, but also the way people behave politely in the conversation was instructed. Students gave ideas about questions which they cannot ask at the first meet and learned which was impolite. The teacher also explained the importance of showing excitement to the answer in the conversation and how to show it. After students gained this information, they practiced the conversation with a partner. I think it effective to provide students with sociocultural knowledge in English class. Even if they know phrases or chunks used in the conversation, they cannot use them correctly without knowledge about the conversation. They might behave impolitely or cannot convey the meaning correctly. When I teach conversational language in the future, I will explain how to use the target phrase and how to behave in the conversation. I want to ask an American teacher at school to describe how they feel in the conversation and practice speaking with students in my class.

Last Updated: 11/5/2013 8:04 PM

TESOL Certificate Programs

Observation Notebook
References Gass, S. (2003). Input and interaction. In C. Doughty and M. H. Long (Eds.), The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition (pp.224-255). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Larsen-Freeman, D., and Anderson, M. (2011). Techniques and principles in language teaching. New York: Oxford University Press.

Last Updated: 11/5/2013 8:04 PM