Paige Shaw FL 694 Analysis C A communicative orientation to language teaching analysis 1. Overview of planned class session a.

The learning situation This class is a Spanish intermediate course taught in a foreign language university setting. It is a 202 eight week class which means that it is taught every day for eight weeks as opposed to two or three times a week for sixteen weeks. I have 27 students in the class- 15 male, 12 female- which has a meeting time of 8am every day. The classes on Tuesday and Thursday are 75 minutes and the classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday are 50 minutes. The students are in their 2nd week of 202 at this point. The students are generally attentive and several participate regularly in the class, though it is difficult for me to get them to give responses in the target language. b. Goals/objectives/purposes The class is currently focusing on the theme of traveling and we have already discussed aspects of traveling by plane. Today we will begin to talk about other ways to travel and students will learn vocabulary for the train station. Students will also learn how to say things that they are looking for using a certain grammatical structure. This is a very important theme for students because no matter what their goal is for going to another country, they will need to use public transportion and be able to make their way through airports and other stations. The students will also be able to compare their own typical forms of transportation with other countries and notice the differences in between them. c. Outline of activities planned Warm up (5 minutes) To warm up and get the students engaged in the language, I will begin the class by asking students what they learned about in the class before. I will try to get as much vocabulary from them as possible and then ask what other ways they have traveled to transition into the first activity. I will then have them turn to the page with the list of the new vocabulary and ask them questions using the new words. Activity 1 (5 minutes) The first activity will allow the students to practice hearing and using the new vocabulary in context. I will read sentences that are given in the book and they will have to respond with true or false. I will have them check the box on the paper but also answer aloud as a class and correct the false statements. This will help them with their listening comprehension and allow them to respond in a simple manner while still letting me know that they understand.

Activity 2 (15 minutes) The next activity is a bit more complex and requires students to practice, reading, writing, listening, and speaking. There is an excerpt taken from a brochure about different options and facilities when taking the train that I will read aloud During this I will stop periodically and explain certain concepts about taking the train like how common it is there and some comparisons of what its like. The students will then get into groups and work on creating a dialogue using phrases they think they might need to know when trying to buy a ticket. Activity 3 (10 minutes) As the 3rd activity I will have the students briefly look at the vocabulary for hotels and go straight into an activity that asks them to rank how important certain accomodations are when traveling. Closing activity (10 minutes) I will have a discussion with the students at the end of the previous activity asking what they look for when choosing accomodations and I will use the next structure that they will be learning, the subjunctive with indefinite entities. I will not tell them what structure I am using until several students have responded, then I will have them write 3 things that they look for when searching for a hotel. If time permits, I will have them look at the grammar point at the end of class with the grammatical structure and rules for its use, and then open with it the next day. Statement of specific elements addressed I have designed these specific activities to be very communicative and studentcentered. For this reason, I think there could be a lot of variation of time on task for each student and for the whole class. I mainly want them to comprehend what I am saying to them and give me feedback on their thoughts about traveling. I also want them to gain some cultural insight into how it is to travel in other countries. 3.Evaluation/reflection as I view recording As I view the recording I am extremely disappointed in the amount of teacher talk time and the lack of communicative activities going on. During class, I felt like there was a more equal distribution of teacher talk time and student talk time, but as I watch the video, I realize that there is a lot more teacher talk time with short, one-word answers by a couple of students in between. I tried to gets responses about the previous class for about 5 minutes -and did from a few students- before moving on to the new vocabulary. I showed students an image from 2.Post-teaching/pre-viewing recounting Recounting the class, I think it went fairly well. I felt like the students were interested in the topic because we were focusing on a theme that most people enjoy; traveling. Warm up (10 minutes) The warmup went according to plan, but it took a little while longer to get the students engaged than hoped. There were a few that walked in a couple minutes into it and they were all dragging and acting tired. This is the usual response though, for the 8am class so I just tried to get them into it as much as possible. The students eventually gave me the

the overhead projector that had the vocabulary from the book. I used it to pont and ask questions about the image using the vocabulary indirectly to allow for students to guess the meaning from the context. I got responses but less than I would have liked.

responses I was searching for and we began to discuss the train station vocabulary. Activity 1 (10 minutes) The first activity went well, and I was impressed with how quickly the students responded to some of the statements. I first reviewed some vocabulary by asking what During the first activity, the students did well, is___? Or what do you do at the ____? (in but the transition time was longer than I Spanish) and they responded, though most wanted. There were a few students that were responses were in English. I then read the confused but the majority understood the listening comprehension phrases that went activity. If I had to explain something I did it along with the activity. I think they found some in English so that the students would better of the statements humorous which assisted in understand the sentences. getting them engaged in the language. I did have to read several of them twice but I think The second activity could have gone much their comprehension was more than adequate. more smoothly. I first showed some pictures of Activity 2 (15 minutes) myself when I traveled by train in Spain and The next activity took a bit longer than explained a couple of my experiences on the I would have hoped, but it kept the students different types of trains that are there. I wanted engaged and learning about an important them to hopefully gain more interest in the cultural aspect of Spain, so I let them take their topic by seeing my own personal photos but I time. It was a bit more complex than I had think that I spent too much time talking instead thought when previously reading it and I had to of directing the conversation and question explain several concepts to them about the asking to them. Looking back I should have frequency of taking the train in other countries shown them the pictures and made them ask and compare it with the different seating me questions to figure out where I was and preferences on a plane. After I had gone over what my experiences were. The rest of the the brochure reading with them, they got into activity went well, but I wish I had had more pairs to write a dialogue. They were to think time at the end to have students present their about what kinds of phrases they might use in a dialogues to the class. Next time I will try to train station to get a ticket and describe what structure my class so that I dont have to type of ticket they wanted and create a explain things as much and students can just conversation with one of the students being the work on their language output. passenger, and one being the person at the ticket office. After this activity the class ran out of time and so I told students to look at the vocabulary for the hotel for the next day. I would have liked to have made it through the hotel vocabulary as well but I think the day was pretty productive in that I got a lot of responses and engagement out of them. 4. Reflection of Communicative Language Teaching Though this particular class did not go exactly as foreseen, I still believe that a communicative orientation to language teaching is being employed in my classroom. There are numerous

instances that show many of the characteristics in both the core statements and action statements of CLT. For example, here I have listed several of the core and action statements and, to the right, described how or when it was used in my lesson. Core Statements about CLT --Effective classroom learning tasks and exercises provide opportunities for students to negotiate meaning, expand their language resources, notice how language is used, and take part in meaningful interpersonal exchange. I tried to stay in the target language as much as possible and described situations, explained concepts and asked questions in the target language. --Meaningful communication results from students processing content that is relevant, purposeful, interesting, and engaging. I supplied much information that incorporated all of these aspects in the classroom and asked for feedback and opinions on numerous occasions. --Language learning is a gradual process that involves creative use of language, and trial and error. Although errors are a normal product of learning, the ultimate goal of learning is to be able to use the new language both accurately and fluently. Any time the students gave feedback to the teacher or worked in their pairwork they were using trial and error to try to use the language creatively, accurately and fluently. --Successful language learning involves the use of effective learning and communication strategies. Both students and teacher would use methods such as circumlocution, TPR and clarification when using the target language. --The role of the teaching in the language classroom is that of a facilitator, who creates a classroom climate conducive to language learning and provides opportunities for students to use and practice the language and to reflect on language use and language learning. I tried to be the facilitator by asking questions and creating opportunities for feedback, but I think I may have been doing something wrong because I felt that the class was far too dependent on me and my output than on them and their output. Action Statements about CLT Communicating for meaning is paramount.- I was constantly asking the students questions and trying to get comprehensible output. I did not correct students unless I did not understand at all what they were trying to convey. Activities center around communicative functions.- Students had to create dialogues Contextualization is a basic premise. - I tried to ask the students general questions and make the vocabulary relatable to them and their own personal experiences with trains. I used a story and explanations in the target language to contextualize the vocabulary. Attempts to communicate are encouraged. - I constantly asked questions during the class and tried to elicit responses.

Judicious use of native language is employed.- I only used native language to explain a detailed concept or when the students did not understand the message after several attempts in the target language. Translation is used when students need or benefit from it.- I explained a few concepts that were unique to Spanish culture and certain phrases from the vocabulary that were not understood with Spanish explanations. Reading and writing are done with a communicative purpose in mind.- Students were to create a dialogue with the final goal being to perform it in class There is a focus on student personalization.- students were asked numerous times about their personal experiences on trains and traveling. Fluency and acceptable language is the primary goal of instruction.- Though I did not receive as much feedback and responses as I wanted, my goal was to get learners to respond to me in the target language. Students are expected to interact with other people through pair and group work .- Students had to work in pairs to create a dialogue using the task of buying a ticket at the train station.

I think that this analysis made me stop and think a great deal about the approach I have in my classroom and the concepts I should think about when making a lesson. I know the standards that I should use as a guide, but it is still good to be reminded occasionally to be sure you stay on track. I know after watching this that my methods for this class, though I had a communicative goal in mind, were far too traditional and teacher oriented. They followed an IRF format, which is fine occasionally, but there was far too much of it in this particular class. I see now that I need to make sure the students stay engaged in small group activities at least for half of the class if not more. Otherwise, the students are getting input and having to negotiate meaning, but they are not having to produce as much and think on their feet about responses to the input. I should have adapted the activities to give students more control by maybe only allowing half of the class to read the information about trains to the class and having the others ask questions in order to learn the information. I see now that though what I was doing was communicating in the target language with my students, I was still not using a communicative approach to teaching, and was therefore, not being as much of a facilitator as I could have and should have been. In the future I want to be able to say that my students participated in meaningful communicative activities and that they used the target language more frequently throughout the class.