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Observation Notebook
RUNNING HEAD: OBSERVATION REPORT
Observation Report
Yueting Zhang
University of California Riverside: Speaking and Listening Methods
11/17/2016
Observation
Environment*
10/5/2016 Face to
face
Class
Skill/Content
Level
Teacher
Speaking &
Listening
Speaking &
Listening
100
Lloyd Balme
1:03-1:17 Practice
T reviews the spelling of words by playing a game. T groups Ss to two teams and names
the each team like Team Messi, Team Ronaldo. Team Lloyd is the teacher.
T explain the rules.
OTB: top
Cr: Crescent
Blv: Boulevard
St: Street
Dr: Drive
1:44-1:50 Practice
T asks Ss to practice with partners. T first gives model with one student, then modifies
with verbs and full sentences.
What did you learn about teaching or learning from this lesson as it relates to the
theory you have studied in your TESOL classes? Include at least one reference (with
an in-text citation) to support your response. (250-500 words)
In this observation, I focus on how to create an effective classroom learning
environment in speaking and listening class. There are around 15 students in the class and
most of them are from Arabic while 3 or 4 of them are from China. I want to see how the
instructor arranges each step to make sure each student participate the class.
Listening and speaking class is always a challenge for the beginners. First, they
are lack of vocabulary which may affect their understanding in listening. Second, they
usually do not want to speak because they do not have confidence that they can speak
correctly. In this observation, the teacher begins with a game which I think it is very
helpful. The game is not very hard, but its kind of tricky. Students easily make mistakes
not because they do not know the correct answer, but because there are some tricky rules
such as students can not answer when it is the other teams turn. In this way, the class
gets a lot of fun at the beginning. As Richards and Farrell (2013) mention here, a
number of ways in which a positive classroom climate can be created, such as by using
humor to create an informal class atmosphere. In the first step, I think the teacher lowers
the affective filter successfully. He makes the students his friends so that the students
have motivation to talk to him later. Usually it is hard to make humor in a low level class
because students may not get the point. However, in this class, the teacher include
himself in the game which makes sense.
Reference:
Richards, Jack C. & Farrell, Thomas S.C. (2013). Practice Teaching. Chapter 8.