OBSERVACIN Y PRCTICA DE LA ENSEANZA II

ESP Observation 2

Student: Juan Pablo Mura

This observation task was carried out in a Mdulos de Idiomas course at Facultad de
Ciencias Econmicas, UNC. The teacher in charge was Gaciela del Federico and the group
was made of about 40 students, aged between 18 and 40 years old. The students level of
proficiency was intermediate and in order to do the course, they needed to have completed
at least 20 subjects. In this report I am going to provide a descriptive narrative and the
perceived rationale of the class and a final reflection.
With regard to the activities students carried out, they were mostly text and
grammar - based activities, the aim of which was reading comprehension. Students worked
individually in most of the exercises but they were allowed to work in pairs too. In one of
the activities, students had to read a text about the history of banks for general information.
Then, they were given some missing sentences and they had to order them in the text in
chronological order. The teacher asked the students Qu tipo de texto es ste?,
informativo students answered. The teacher then explained the importance of genre; Es
una narracin. Hay un nfasis en el orden cronolgico, marcado por los concetores
temporales. In another reading activity, students had to find in the text some terms
associated with banking such as buck, coin, note, currency, bills and provide some
similar equivalents in Spanish. Grammar was also dealt with in the class. The teacher
explained the main differences between active and passive voice. She used the blackboard
to point to the structure (all forms of be + verb in the past participle) and uses of the passive
voice (nfasis en la accin. No importa quin la realiza). Then, students had to read some
sentences in the passive voice in their activity books and translate the words in bold into
Spanish, such as The coin was split into smaller units (estaba dividida).
As regards the rationale of the class, students carried out mostly short reading
activities for the comprehension of written texts. The course is extensive, as it occupies
only a small part of the students timetable and it runs parallel to other specific subject
courses related to the students field of expertise. The course has also a narrow focus, since
it helps students develop the reading skill only and very few genres, such as narratives as I
explained above. Of course, this is related to the students target needs. That is, as the
learners time and needs are limited, the focus should also be limited (to develop only the
reading comprehension skill and the genres the learners will encounter in their work field).

But this does not mean the teacher should not include varied contexts. For example, she
used carrier content to introduce some grammatical items. She used the context of banking
in the text (carrier content) to introduce the passive voice (real content) so as to make it
more comprehensible and relate the new grammar item to the students subject area and the
students needs. That is, the teaching of the grammar item was also dealt with the purpose
of improving the learners reading and comprehension skills. The class was teachercentered and the role of the teacher was that of provider of input as she controlled the class,
the language to be used and the sequencing of the activities. As what I could observe, I
learnt many positive aspects and some I would possibly change about this ESP class. As
this course has very limited time throughout the year, and as students needs are also
limited, I think that the best option is to have a narrow focus course, as it happens in this
college. However, I would take into account the students wants at least once or twice a
month. Many of these students feel the need to communicate orally in the target language
(they told me this themselves); even when this may not be one of the main necessities of
the target situation the learners will function in. I would combine reading comprehension
activities with at least one follow up speaking task. The focus of the course is the reading
and comprehension of written texts only, but maybe if we take into account what the
learners wants are, the course would be more motivating for them and they would be more
engaged in the activities they carry out. Using a text-based approach is not enough. Maybe
it would be a good idea to include some tasks students will perform in real- life situations
such as using balance sheets. These task-based resources relate to students in a meaningful
way as they are related to their work field, and thus aid to the learners involvement as a
basis for motivation.