Universidad Catlica de la Ssma Concepcin

Facultad de Educacin
English Teaching Programme
Teaching Experience I

OBSERVATION TASK 2
Managing classroom communication.
This task is concerned with how communication takes place in a classroom setting, and
specifically with the patterns of interaction that provide the vehicle for communication.
In this task youll be collecting data about how communication works within the
classroom, for example, who talks and to whom, who questions, who responds.
a) Arrange to observe a lesson.
b) Consider all the elements worth viewing: the teacher, the students, their
interaction or dynamic, whiteboard, the classroom environment itself,
movement, time.
c) Observe the class in order to answer and reflect on the following questions:
How does the teacher open the class? What tone does this set? (attention,
motivation, engagement, other).
For me was impossible to see how the teacher opens the class, because I
only observed the second module of a lesson.
What interaction or relationship does the teacher establish with the
students? How does this affect the learning environment or opportunities
for learning?
I think that the relationship between teacher and students is very nice;
she makes them feel comfortable even when they dont know the answer,
etc. She assigns them different roles and for me this is very important to
have your students motivate and to make them participate. Besides, it
affects the learning environment in a positive way. Based on what I
observed they never felt ashamed to talk, to answer or to participate.
Are students engaged? at what level and in what ways? Is the
engagement sustained? How can you notice this? Exemplify.
As in every case, always there are students that are not engaged. I can
say that almost all the students like the topic and the way in which
teacher taught them because of their face, how they reacted to the
activities, the comments that I could overheard, etc.
How has the teacher prepared for this learning occasion? What tools are
used and does the teacher apply them effectively? Note: tools include
humour, visuals, small group work, writing exercises, guided class
discussion, quizzes, others.
Teacher was always well prepared for learning occasion. She made good
use of tools, such as videos, songs, stories, anecdotes, among other
things. As I mentioned before, they always worked in groups, which for
them was very good because they can share with classmates and feel
more comfortable. Teacher emphasizes speaking more than the other

Universidad Catlica de la Ssma Concepcin

Facultad de Educacin
English Teaching Programme
Teaching Experience I

skills, she uses a lot of different communicative activities and it was very
fun.
How does the teacher know if the class is going as planned? Are there
clues to show the teacher maintains this trajectory or adjusts course when
unexpected events happen?
I could not notice any unexpected event during the class, but teacher
informed me that they were a little bit late with the units because they
didnt get comparatives and superlatives, however I believe that she
managed this very good because she taught them it not matter if they
were late.
How does the teacher close the class? How does this affect what students
think or learn? What evidence shows that students clearly understand the
content and context for what is learned by the end of the class?.
Teacher closes the class by giving students homework. I believe that
maybe she should give a summary of the class to the students to make
them be aware of that they learned. Also there were no evidence that
students understand clearly the content of the class.
Adapted from Wajnryb, Ruth. Classroom observation Tasks, Cambridge Teacher
training and development,1992