Observation write-Ups

As a requirement to complete the teaching practicum, we were requested to conduct two observations; an experienced teacher observation and a peer observation. A description of the two observations is given below.

Peer Observation

I observed my peer student-teacher teaching for grade 8B class on 18th October 2019 from 10.45 a.m. to 11.25 a.m. There were 20-25 students and the student-teacher conducted a grammar lesson. Though there was no technology usage, a lot of additional materials were incorporated apart from the textbook.

The lesson consisted of various activities and stages of the lesson were clear. Classroom management and time management were good. The feedback was given as the whole class discussion. The student-teacher used L2 in most of the instances and used L2 to explain the instructions where it necessary. There were some negative practices that I would want to avoid in my teaching. Though my peer student teacher had a good rapport with the learners, sometimes, the teacher loose individual student attention for instance when she wrote on the whiteboard turning her backside to the class while talking. Less instruction checking questions were used.

Experienced Teacher Observation

The experiences teacher observation was conducted on 24th October 2019 from 12.10 p.m. to 12.50 p.m. in the grade 6B class. A lesson on opposite words which is included in the textbook unit 8: “A visit to the Zoo” was done. The class included 20-25 students and technology, or additional materials were not used for the lesson.

As the lead-in to the lesson, the teacher has drawn some symbols (←, →, ↑, →, ☺ etc.) on the whiteboard and ask them to identify the words and ask some questions taking familiar situations ( highway: exit and entrance, shop: open and close) for the learners and get the opposite words. Then the teacher asked to do the puzzle in the textbook as pair work and immediate feedback was given by asking answers from selected pairs. Later the students were asked to do the fill in the blank activity on the textbook using the words that they found in the puzzle. This shows how to start with the simple activity and then move on to the complex one without considering the activity order given in the textbook.

As overall there were a lot to take from the experienced teacher observation; taking Lerner familiar situation to introduce the vocabulary, time management, focusing on every student while doing the tasks, starting the lesson by putting the date on the whiteboard, well-managed whiteboard usage, clear and separated stages in the lesson etc.

Yet, there were some practices that I would need to avoid in my teaching. The teacher asked to read the words as a whole class and some students did not read the words as they could not catch the others’ speed. Sometimes her voice projection was not enough to be heard the learners in the back of the classroom.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that the observations had both positive and negative aspects to consider when planning lessons and teaching. Therefore, these two observations were very helpful for me to create lessons in future.