Learning Teaching : Observation Class

INTERMEDIATE 5

Teacher P. Mercado

First class: February 16^th 2015.

In this session, the teacher planned to do an introduction, then a speaking activity, finally, a writing activity. She started with energy and using questions that are related to the video that she is going to present in the class. It is interesting the video because the main idea is related with the topic of the last unit that was technology, and now with cheating in an exam. So, students connected their knowledge of the last week with new one. After that, the teacher gave new instructions in order to do the exercises in the book. Students compared their answers and she asked if the activity was difficult or easy.

The next activity was a speaking. The teacher focused in the process and the results because she gave the opportunity to practice in their last weekend. Although, she gave time to practice while she was writing some instructions and expressions on the board. The activity started while the teacher was monitoring, answering students’ questions and evaluating. When the activity finished, she didn’t give a feedback or she didn’t explain any mistake that she found.

The final part of the class was writing. In this part, the teacher gave a piece of paper in order to start organizing their ideas with a chart. It is important to know the teacher assigned to bring ideas or topics that they are going to use in their writing. Next, students used another piece of paper because they are going to write the final draft there. The class ended when the teacher collected writing papers.

Second class:  February 17^th, 2015

This was the second class that I observed. In this opportunity, the teacher started a new unit that the topic was “Personality”. She divided the class based on the activities that her students will do it. The first part was vocabulary and then, a listening activity.

A good way to start the class was with a power point presentation. This material showed the new words that students will learn and the last picture presented a question, students used the words and they connected their new knowledge telling about their personality. That was a good lead-in. Furthermore, she used test about personality in a video (everybody participate in this part). After this part, the teacher started working with the book. First, students understood the words reading in the activity A and B. Later, the teacher asked for their answers in order to know if her students have the correct idea about new words’ meanings in the activity C (supporting ideas with arguments).

The listening activity was the other part of the class and they also learned new words. Students started with a pair work when they said what they thought about the words’ meanings. Also, the teacher presented pictures about the recording of the listening. Students suggested some characteristics of the couple in the picture. With the ideas, they started listening. One instruction of the book was to look for the problem in the conversation, this was a top-down approach; and then, other instruction was to look for the characteristics of audio’s people; this was a bottom-up approach.  To conclude, the teacher close the activity listen her students’ answers and what they thought of the words.