TESOL Certificate Programs

Observation Notebook

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

Name of Observer:_Ye Ran _

Observation # Reading and writing_
Date

Observation
Environment (include

URL if the class was

online)

02/10/2015 R432

Class
Skill/Content

Class
Teacher
Level/Number
(Beg./Int./Adv.)
Intermediate
Craig

Reading and
Writing
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 discuss some issue topics about advertising with their partners.
Students will preview the text through reading the title, the picture, and a few sentences.
Students will learn and utilize ten new vocabulary words from the text.
Notes while observing:
Warm-up activities (15 minutes)
1. After collecting students writing papers, T starts to introduce a new unit which is
about advertising. T asks a few questions to arouse students interest. For instance, what
things have you bought because of an advertisement? Has an advertisement ever helped
you in some way? What kind of ad was it? How did it help you? Can I advertise anything?
2. Students are put into pairs. They are supposed to talk with each other about those
questions in hand within 5 minutes. Students talk a lot. While they are discussing, T
walks around and picks up some ideas from talkers. After 5 minutes, T calls time and
invites 7 students to present their answers in front of the class.
3. Following that, T shows a picture, which is full of advertisements, in the textbook. T
goes on to ask that does advertising help or harm us.This time, T puts students into trios
so that they can share their ideas with group members. Students in one group keep
different and even opposite opinions so that they have to argue with each other.
Previewing activity (10 minutes)

TESOL Certificate Programs

Observation Notebook
4. T lets students turn to page 117 in the textbook and asks students to read the title of the
passage- Happiness is in the shoes you wear. Then students could look at the picturediamonds are forever in the middle of the passage.
5. T asks students what you think the passage is. Students state that it is to sell products
by advertising. Then, T asks students to guess what kind of text it is after reading the first
sentence of each paragraph and the last paragraph. After the reading, students are allowed
to talk to their partners. Finally, students make a composite idea that this passage is to
argue that advertising steals money fromcustomers.
Vocabulary building activity (15 minutes)
6. After students preview the text by reading the title,the picture, and a few sentences, T
elicits the main idea of the passage. Then T is going to preteach some words and phrases
from the reading passage.
7. T firstly hands out the explanation list of the nine useful words to everyone. Students
could understand the parts of speech and the meanings of those words. T will also
illustrate some words by analyzing the word parts such as unpredictable.
8. A few minutes later, T passes out vocabulary exercise to help students remember the
words meaning through context. Students have 5 minutes to finish the exercise and check
answers with their partners. At this point, T walks around and notes down some huge
mistakes students made.
9. T double checks the answers. Students are supposed to tell the parts of speech of the
word and the reason why they chose a certain word.
Wrap-up activity (10 minutes)
10. T concludes what they did in the class: activatingbackgroundinformation, previewing
the text, and Learning useful vocabulary.
11. Then T provides all the information about the mid-term exam two days later.

(continue on back)
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)
One thing I learnt from this class is to provide students some useful reading skills, such
as previewing. T leads the previewing activity through four steps. Firstly, read the title.

TESOL Certificate Programs

Observation Notebook
Then look at any pictures. After that read the first sentence of each paragraph. Last but
not least, read the last paragraph or at least the last sentence. Following the steps, students
develop their top-down processing ability which is defined as the development of pattern
recognition from general to specific. According to Mikulecky (2011), Previewing and
predicting are the reading skills that involve tapping prior knowledge, thus activating
mental networks of information that will enable students to comprehend what they read
(p. 49). Previewing skill help students develop reading fluency. Once aware of the topic,
the students aroused their schema knowledge that allows him or her to read for meaning,
even if many of the words in the text are unfamiliar.

Mikulecky, Beatrice S. (2011). The short course in teaching reading skills. New York ,
NY: Pearson Education ESL.

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)
One teaching technique I would like to use in the future is to plan some activities for
activating students background knowledge in English class. For example, if I am going
to teach students American culture such as styles of communication, I will firstly ask
students to come up with the styles of communication in china so that they will not offtopic in class. Students also can compare and contrast the styles of communication both
in China and America. Besides, students emotionally feel more confident about the
unfamiliar topic and they might want to be involved in the class discussion. Ideally,
students will realize the importance of their prior knowledge in making sense of a text.

Handouts are attached below

TESOL Certificate Programs

Observation Notebook

TESOL Certificate Programs

Observation Notebook

TESOL Certificate Programs

Observation Notebook

TESOL Certificate Programs

Observation Notebook