Bethany Deibler LIN 4365, C.

Stuart November 17, 2009 Observation Report

Beginning French class Taught by Andrea Taylor

Observed on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 Part 1 Early in the morning at 8 AM, students meandered into the classroom. Andrea spent the time passing back previous homework or quizzes and asked students questions in French. At the beginning of the class time she asked a student to write the date on the board in French as the last stragglers showed up to class. She began with a picture of four friends using some site or CD related to the textbook. She asked questions about the picture and called on individual students to answer. Then she clicked on the sound button and they listened while a speaker read the dialogue. She went looking in her bag and pulled out a pointer so she didnt have to keep gesturing to the picture that was far above her reach. After the dialogue was read, she continued asking questions about the picture to cement the information given. She took time to teach the abbreviated words so the students could recognize it. A student then asked what a word meant from the dialogue. She asked the other students to help her out and answer the question for her. She then taught them a new word by writing it on the white board and using it in several sentences. Then she asked the students to make their own sentences with it. They talked about what the people are wearing in the picture. Andrea made the mistake of saying the word for house instead of the word for hat. She laughed at herself and used it jokingly with the students asking if they have a house. A student then asked a question in English to clarify a word. At 8:15, Andrea switched over to a power point she made about French friends. The first slide was of a beautiful lady. She asked the class to describe her and later asked who she was. No one knew so she showed the following picture beside it and the class discovered that it was the French president and his wife. Then they described him. The students joked among themselves in English. There were four more pictures that they were asked to describe. She added a side note about what is respectful in asking the age of a person. A student asked how to say something and she responded that they should try to stick to the words they already know. She also reminded them to use the correct article for referring to people instead of objects. At 8:40, she told the class to turn to a partner and describe his/her roommate to each other. They could invent things if necessary. During this time, Andrea circulated through the class and stopped with each pair to ask if there are questions and help with any problem. When she had finished visiting each group she asked them to write one thing that the partners roommate is not. When the students had finished writing on the board she went over each one individually asking the class if it was correct. If not she corrected them with a marker. Next, she had the class go over the masculine and feminine forms of several words as the masculine form is rarely used in class due to the one male student. They repeated after her both forms of each word. She also asked them to describe their fathers to implement the use of masculine adjectives as well. At 9:00, Andrea told the class that they would be working on pronunciation next. She used the text reference again and played a script. A man described the pronunciation of the ending of French words on the recording. She touched on the subject of French names, such as the use of Michelle for both men and women.

Bethany Deibler

The last activity was in pairs. The groups did an activity out of the book and once again Andrea circulated among them helping with any questions. At 9:20 the students begin packing up their things even though Andrea was still helping someone. She briefly reminded them of a quiz on Friday and passed out the rest of the quizzes from before. She stayed a bit after to discuss catching up on homework with a couple of students. The students seemed rather focused on the lesson and enjoyed it as well. Andrea was relaxed enough to make fun of her mistake one time as well as joke with a couple of other vocabulary words asking students if they owned a house or had white hair. The classroom was set up with the chairs in rows and students seated in random places wherever they desired. Andrea had a relaxed way of standing off to the side of the screen pointing to the objects she wanted named or described. The students often had their fingers in the back of the chapter marking the page with vocabulary. While the pressure wasnt overwhelming to get the correct answer, they were expected to know the vocabulary. When students asked questions in English, Andrea would either answer in French with minimal English or ask the students to answer questions for each other.

Bethany Deibler LIN 4365, C. Stuart November 17, 2009 Observation Report

Part 2 This beginning French class was taught quite well and used a variety of exercises to help the students learn. The class was based mostly on speaking and listening. The students also had a lot of interaction with both the teacher and their classmates. For a beginning French class, there was only a small amount of English used in the classroom. The broad method of teaching utilized in this class was the direct method that is described in Omaggio Hadley (ch. 3, p. 108). From the six points mentioned, this class matched up specifically with four of the points. The first, which states that language learners should start with the here and now, was implemented when Andrea used common things such as students, friends and roommates for discussion. The students could relate to the language talking about school, friends and roommates as well as learn about some of the French culture and popular people. It was a good blend of subject matters and could potentially help students, if they were to study abroad in France, to know about some of the culture as well as communicate information about people. The second, which states that the teacher should avoid the use of translation by using things from the culture of the target language for discussion was also used. When a question was asked in English, she either had other students help explain or used the whiteboard to explain in French as much as possible. Her error correction consisted of asking for it to be repeated. The students understood that if she asked for it again, they had an error and needed to fix something. If the student could not figure out the problem, she would ask another student. The third, which states that complete and meaningful sentences should be used the entire class period, was also put to good use. The book suggests using a question and answer technique to accomplish this. Andrea also used questions and answers to get complete sentence replies from the students instead of one word answers. The fourth, which states that correct pronunciation, is

Bethany Deibler

an important part of language learning was important in class as well. She insisted on correct pronunciation and had students repeat when incorrect. The other two, which state that grammar rules are not explicitly taught and that readings are to be done without dictionaries or any translation were not specifically shown in the class. However, I suspect that these are not normally used in this class as it is very difficult to accomplish correct and efficient use of the language with these methods. Hypotheses 1 and 2 from chapter six in Omaggio Hadley were also demonstrated in the class. Both of these hypotheses deal with the idea of simulating target culture practice and experience. The first hypothesis states that there must be opportunities for using language in a range of contexts. There was a variety of contexts that were taught to the students, as well as several different tasks that were accomplished. The different contexts the students worked with were both structured and free. They did activities from the book that were very structured with precise details as well as create some of their own ideas. The exercise when the students described their roommates to each other was a good example of a sort of free context to use the language in a creative way. The second hypothesis mentions that the students should practice a range of tasks. This was also incorporated in the lesson as the students wrote, talked, described and listened to instructions. Describing people and listening to instructions is probably one of the key things to learn in a target language if the student was going to be in the culture for any amount of time. While reading the text, it focuses on the teachers point of view, and while observing the class it is more from the students point of view. Was the lesson interesting? Did she actually teach something or was it a waste of time?

Bethany Deibler

However, the theory of teaching is a completely different aspect than the actual teaching in the classroom. In creating a theory, the teacher cannot predict how well the students will understand, how well they will focus, or what questions they will ask. This can sometimes cause a disruption in the class room when a student asks a question that is off topic or on an unpredictable subject. It is up to the teacher to decide whether to talk about that subject more in detail, since it has the interest of the students, or to continue with the planned lesson. However, studying these methods and theories can help teachers decide which they think will work best with their students. Also, the research done on each method can be helpful in deciding which to use. Teachers decide personally what kind of error correction they want to use as well as which of the four learning areas they want to work on most. Each classroom is a personalized environment. A teacher should also create an environment that not only works for the teacher, but also for the students as they are the ones who are actually learning the language. In my opinion, following one method entirely would not be the best way to teach a class. Picking and choosing bits and pieces from several methods would get both the teacher and the students a wider variety of thought processes. As was seen in this French class, Andrea followed four of six points of the direct method. This worked well for her class as the students would be overwhelmed if grammar was not taught and readings were done completely without dictionaries or translation help. The most efficient way for teaching a class is to pick and choose and create a personalized method for teaching.