ICELT Semester: 1/2016

Assignment 1: Evaluation of teaching

Candidate Name: Ligia Cristina Lima Santos Balbino Candidate Number: 01

Introduction

This assignment aims at analysing and evaluating a systems lesson given to an

elementary level group in what concerns achievement of learning objectives, design and
implementation of tasks and activities, classroom management and teacher and learner
language.

Successful aspects of the lesson

The main aim of the lesson was to develop speaking skills talking about life experiences
and the subsidiary aim was using the present perfect for that. They had already been exposed
and guided through the discovery of the meaning form and use of such tense and were now
expected to better appropriate the structure and produce it both in written and spoken form,
being the latter the main focus. This aim was achieved as they had the chance to practice the
language in different ways and were able to produce it as expected for the given moment, which
is not completely naturally, but in a controlled way.

As for the objective, when it comes to implementation of tasks and activities, I believe
they were coherent and easy to follow in general, as they were gradually demanding more from
students. Concerning learning styles, the lesson catered to as many as possible, considering
visual, kinaesthetic and auditory learners (game, “inner-outer circle”, song activities).

When it comes to my managing of the class, I can say that I a warm atmosphere was
created, which I believe it is vital for effective teaching and learning, and is also stated by Brown
(2007, p. 324): “our job as teachers is to provide the kind of warm, embracing climate that
encourages students to speak”. Also, I believe that I was alert at all times and giving them the
support necessary so that the tasks were achieved and so that their efforts were recognised and
valued. I agree with Scrivener (2012, p. 120) when he states that “By creating an overtly
supportive environment, you help your students to feel valued and in doing so, you help them to
value themselves.” Because if a student feels valued, he/she will be more open to participate,
take risks and therefore learn. I could monitor my students and also demand the use of the
structure in the proposed activities as I believe that the children may find it difficult to produce
as expected, constant monitoring is essential, because I agree with Cameron (2001, p. 26)
“Clearly, whether learners can do the task, and whether they learn anything by doing it, depends
not just on the demands or on the support, but on the dynamic relationship between demands
and support.” Regarding students’ response, it is possible to affirm that they were engaged
because they participated in all activities proposed. Besides, instructions for the activities
proposed were straightforward as they were all modelled. Also regarding classroom
management, I could manage the students who finished the tasks first and started speaking in
Portuguese. As soon as I saw them doing that, I asked them to come up with new questions to
ask each other, as I believe as Scrivener does, that “A good tactic with early finishers is to give
an extra task…” (2012, p. 93).

As far as the language used by the teacher and by the students is concerned, I
understand that this lesson was successful because there was evidence of students
understanding and use of the target language appropriately at the end of the lesson. There were
some instances of side conversations in Portuguese when they were doing the exercises,
because they were helping each other to successfully complete the gaps. I personally believe
that this is not an issue that needs to be dealt with, as they did not have the language to
exchange their ideas in English at that point and share the same view of Harmer (2007, p. 97):
“…in the right kind of atmosphere students enjoy helping each other.” In addition to that, I
consider that the language that I used was suitable for the students’ level.

Concerning pronunciation, individual correction on the spot and delayed correction were
made, the latter with the support of chorus repetition. According to Harmer (2007, p.346), “each
new encounter with a word or phrase helps to fix it in the student’s memory. Repetition has other
benefits, too: it allows students to improve on what they did before. They can think about how to
re-word things or just get a feel for how it sounds”. In addition, I called students’ attention to
individual sounds as an aid for students’ memory, showing the movement involved in
differentiating sounds (ex. Pronunciation of the verb “ridden”, students wer pronouncing it as
/ˈraɪdn/instead of /ˈrɪdn/), as proposed by Underhill (2005, p. xii), “Pronunciation can become
physical, visual, aural, spatial, and affective as well as intellectual.”

Learners contributions were taken into account in the lesson: during the highly controlled
speaking activity students asked me extra words to better explain their experiences. Moreover,
they had the chance to stretch their knowledge as they had to personalise a poem and come up
with personal questions.

On the other hand, as they are an elementary group, they wanted to say more things than
they had language to, resulting in the use of L1, some inaccuracies and demand for vocabulary.

Elements of the Lesson that were not so successful

My personal aim, which was not speaking their mother tongue language was not fully
achieved, as when I was monitoring the students, I noticed a few students struggling with the
structure despite the fact I had shown them they should use the past participle pointing at the
irregular verbs’ table. They still wanted to use the past and were not noticing the difference when
I said “past participle” As the students were trying to perform the activity, and were still at an
early stage of learning the target language, I intervened in their first language because I noticed
although they were still not fully aware of the structure, they carried on attempting to perform the
tasks, from my experience and as Cameron stated (2001, p. 40), “…children may continue to
perform classroom activities, even if they do not understand.” Therefore, maybe I could have
insisted a bit more in order to present a higher level of challenge for students. If I were to teach
this lesson again, I would have tried to use English a bit more instead of focussing on the
classroom management issue of time.

A possible reason why I resorted to their first language may have been because one of
the challenges of teaching the structure of the present perfect is that there is no equivalent in
Portuguese in order for students to rely on and compare with the language strategies used when
learning it as a mother tongue. Therefore, the challenge for the teacher is higher as the teacher
needs to facilitate learning by helping students to notice the details of the language. My beliefs
are shared by Dubin and Olshtain (1986): “What seems important to teach, therefore, as Rivers
(1980) points out are the interlingual contrasts between the notions in L1 and the target
language.” A second possible reason is the fact that I agree with Thornbury and Gikar (2015)
when they advocate the use of L1 in class because “Turning the knowledge and use of students’
L1 into an asset rather than a setback will undoubtedly make teachers who have been put off
by discriminatory attitudes and practices regain trust in the profession.”

Nevertheless, something that I failed to consider is that maybe insisting in explaining the
differences in detail and in English would have helped the students more as I learnt from
Cameron (2001, p. 15): “Where two languages make use of very different types of cues, the
transfer of strategies from L1 to L2 may not be very fruitful. Learners may need to be helped to
notice and pay attention to the salient cues of the new language.”. This small change in my
teaching would have made the lesson more challenging.

Another aspect that demands attention is that although fast finishers had an extra task,
the fact that I had to go over them and give them the new task hindered my monitoring. I believe
a better strategy would have been giving a written piece of work for the fast finishers in order
not to spend the time I could be monitoring the group so that feedback was more thorough.
Conclusion

Reflecting on this lesson I had the opportunity to learn about my teaching and the way in
which it uses different approaches to provide students to practice speaking and put a structure
into practice. I believe that I can improve in many areas, therefore I devised a schedule to be
followed so that I can better benefit from such a reflection:

Areas for development Action Plan

Use of L2
Dealing with fast finishers
Classroom management
Search for new findings about it
in journals "Modern English Teacher"
and "ELT Professional"
Meeting with local coach was scheduled
for the 30th of March, 2016 in order
to work on a useful list of ideas to
work with fast finishers.
On the same date, the 30th of March,
I will observe a lesson from the local
coach and also ask for ideas to foster
students use of L1

References

Brown, Douglas H. Teaching by Principles. Pearson Longman, 2007.

Dubin, Fraida & Olshtain, Elite. Course Design. Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Gerngross, Günter; Puchta, Herbert & Thornbury, Scott. Teaching Grammar Creatively.
Helbling Languages, 2006.
Harmer, Jeremy. How to teach English. Pearson Educated Limited, 2007.
Harmer, Jeremy. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Pearson Longman, 2007.

Lynne, Cameron. Teaching Languages to Young Learners. Cambridge University Press,

2001.
Scrivener, Jim. Classroom Management Techniques. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Thornbury, Scott. https://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/2015/04/19/m-is-for-mother-tongue/.
Posted in April, 2015.
Underhill, Adrian. Sound Foundations. Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2005.