Observation Report #1

In this language class observation and reflection report, I am going to discuss a K-12
Spanish class I observed on September 25th. It was a high school Level-2 Spanish class that had
34 students who all are native speakers of American English. This semester-long Spanish class
meets every Monday, Tuesday, Friday from 8:25am9:15am for 50 minutes. The classroom is
fully decorated with Hispanic cultural posters of movies, sightseeing and paintings as well as
posters of Spanish grammar, vocabulary, collocates, and frequently used sentences. There were
also other artistic decorations to enliven classroom atmosphere. Each student has their own
assigned seats and most of the students in class are freshmen and sophomores.
The instructor started the lesson by greeting the class in Spanish in order to grab students
attention and to quiet down the class. After announcing the objectives and goals of the lesson of
the day, the instructor asked to take out their personal laptops (provided by the school) and
practice the conjugation exercises according to what they have learned in the previous class. The
practice was webpage based and every students laptop is connected to the classroom monitor
computer and the instructor could either monitor every students activity on the computer or
project the screen on the classroom wall. This application of computer technology helped ensure
that students are using the laptops to practice the exercise instead of doing irrelevant assignments
as well as to help the instructor to discover the technical issues that students might encounter and
to control the time given for the practices. Students had 30 attempts during the 15 minutes given
to access and finish the exercise and submit the best score they got. Students were allowed to
raise their hands if they had any questions and the instructor would come and explain. After
every student has submitted their exercise, the instructor proceeded to tell the class that they are

going to have a test in the upcoming week while projecting onto the screen of the requirements
and expectations of the exam content in Spanish and a translation in English.
Next, the instructor distributed the handouts of La clienta va de compras that listed 15
phrases related to the previous lesson material of a conversation of customers buying shoes at a
store (See Appendix A). The instructor read each phrase at a time while acting it out (e.g.: say la
ropa while pointing at clothes) and asked the students to repeat after. When the handout is
carried out with TPR method, the instructor used another teaching technique to enhance students
retention by grammar translation, which was, the instructor read each phrase in Spanish and gave
the English translation and the students were expected to copy the translation to the blank space
on the handouts. For the third time of repetition, the instructor composed complete sentences
using the given phrases and read them out loud while acting them out to the class, likewise, the
class was asked to repeat the sentences while performing the according physical response. The
last repetition of the phrases was carried out in TPR, too. Students were asked to close their eyes
the entire time during this activity which the teacher read each phases and they needed to
perform assigned physical response while they have no chance to look at the peers and copy
them.
Later, the instructor had the students to draw comic strips according to the shoespurchasing conversation they were taught in the previous class. Most students were able to finish
this assignment in 15 minutes. Due to the limited class time and the relatively large number of
students, the instructor could only pick two groups of three to demonstrate their understandings
and drawings of the conversation. Then, the two groups were asked to be in front of the class
acting motions according to the shoe-purchasing conversation that was read by the instructor.

This observation experience has benefited me a lot. I was able to see how the theories of
teaching methods (especially TPR and Grammar Translation) and language knowledge were
implemented in the actual classroom as well as to learn techniques to maintain the order in a
classroom with respect to the students. Meanwhile, during my own teaching experience, I
realized that combining lecturing and activities alternatively together in a class could activate
students energy. Moreover, giving timely and positive feedback would also stimulate students
motivation to learn the target language. I also learned how to organize the language contents in a
sequence that can better facilitate students acquisition and to integrate and apply my knowledge
of linguistics and pedagogy into the teaching process.
Appendix A.