Before I observed this particular class, I looked up information about the English Language Program (ELP) on-line. This program is designed for people who wish to expand their English for communication, study, business, pleasure, etc. This program offers four core courses. The core course that I observed was an Intermediate Reading and Discussion group which meets every Tuesday and Thursday from 1:00-3:15.
Before the class observation:
I met the instructor before class to discuss overall goals as well as goals for that day’s lesson. The overall goal of the course is to improve reading comprehension skills, increase vocabulary and reading speed, and develop discussion skills. The goal of that day’s lesson was to work on reading strategies: scanning, identifying main ideas, and understanding details. The instructor mentioned that there are only 10 people in the class and almost all of them are between the ages of 18-20 (with the exception of one man who is about 25 and one woman who is in her 30’s). They are all at pretty much the same level, although there is some slight variation.
During the observation:
The instructor starts the class by picking up one assignment that was due and they check three other assignments together. All of the students call out the answers in unison. (The chapter in the textbook that they check was about bullies.)
Then she hands out strips of paper with five discussion questions that pertain to the topic of bullies, for example “Why do you think children become bullies?” and “What would you do if someone bullies your child?” Students get into groups of two to discuss their opinions on these questions. The instructor walks around from group to group and listens. She elicits more responses from the students and scaffolds them as needed. It seems as though she employs an integrated focus on form approach to error correction because “the learner’s attention is drawn to language form during communicative or content-based instruction” (Lightbrown and Spada, 2008 p. 186), where the primary focus is on meaning. She appears to be genuinely interested in hearing their thoughts and she laughs with them when they make funny remarks. Students appear to be comfortable and engaged. She seems to be creating a positive environment in which to learn. After the students discussed these questions in groups, they share their ideas with the ...
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...ents to come up with their responses.
I believe this instructor to be highly effective and someone to whom I can use as a model. She incorporated many things that I liked into only a two-hour lesson, including proper planning, providing authentic and interesting materials, promoting learner autonomy through strategies training, allowing group work, employing a communicative approach to learning, creating a learner-centered environment, and using integrated focus on form.
Works Cited:
Dörnyei, Z. & Csizér, K. (1998). Ten commandments for motivating language learners: Results of an empirical study. Language Teaching Research, 2, 203-229.
Felder, R. M. (1995). Learning and teaching styles in foreign and second language education. Foreign Language Annals, 28, 21-31.
Hadley, A. O. (2001). Teaching language in context (3rd ed.). Boston: Heinle and Heinle.
Rivera-Mills, S. V. & Plonsky, L. (2007). Empowering students with language learning strategies: A critical review of current issues. Foreign Language Annals, 40, 535- 548.
Spada, N. & Lightbown, P. M. (2008). Form-focused instruction: Isolated or integrated? TESOL Quarterly, 42, 181-207.
“Educational practice is necessarily based on the assumption that students are willing to engage in educational activities that they will lend their cooperation and support to the process in their education. Students who do not offer such cooperation, who are unmotivated, present significant challenges” (Williams and Ivey, 2001, 75). High school school-children show the most trouble with cooperation and motivation; they only have a few more years of schooling and for some pupils that is the end of their education. That was one of the main reasons why I wanted to observe a high school classroom; the other main reason is because I have actually considered teaching high school grades. I observed Ms. Edith Stone and her Algebra II mathematics classroom.
Identifying students needs dictates selecting learning intentions [LI’s] (Davis, 2007, MOE, 2005). These must relate to the curriculum achievement objectives, lesson purpose, WALT’s and planned activity. Effective selection of achievable intentions will allow the guided reading lesson to be well rounded, clear and successful. **
The first group of students I observed was two boys. The boys came into class and picked a game for them to play. They decided on playing jenga. They took turns playing the game. After they took a turn, Ms. Robinson would have them do something having to do with the lesson. One boy had to read a story out loud to Ms. Robinson. While he was taking his turn, the other boy was supposed to hold a casual conversation. He struggled with it so Ms. Robinson tried to help him by asking him questions. He still struggled with using elaborate answers. He was not using his r’s so Ms. Robinson eventually just had to ask him to say some words with r’s in them. the boys continued playing the game while also taking turn working on their specific areas of improvement.
On April 14th, I got the opportunity to observe Mrs.Osborne's 11th grade AVID class and her 12th grade AP Government class. Mrs. Osborne is a social studies and AVID teacher at Reynolds High School. She has been teaching for 33 years. In the classroom the desks are set up in rows facing the front of the room. Mrs.Osborne's desk is placed in the back corner of the room. On the left side of the room there was a white board and on it written out was each classes learning objective of the day, the days agenda, and what the homework for the day is. At the front of the room students grades are posted by student ID number on a board. The left side of the room had labeled drawers with supplies.
The classroom I observed Tommy is in has about 20 children and two teachers. The age range for this class is between 36- 48 months and Tommy is 47 months. The purpose of this observation is to assess the child to see what appropriate skills based on their age they are able to accomplish. If children are struggling to meet the appropriate brackets the teacher is to set goals that are to help the children become successful and accomplish the goals. In this paper I will be talking about the Carolina Assessment Log and what SMART goals I think may be appropriate for Tommy.
So, how does a preservice teacher learn to do that? Same as with any other skill - practice. And talking with and observing colleagues. And taking classes.
offered to have a seat and enjoy eating some brunch, which consisted of fresh fruit and granola. I packed extra food for each meal for any who offered to eat with me. She accepted and sat with me, delighted with the idea of brunch and talking about classes. Soon after many others, who were both strangers and friends, stopped by to chat. The likes of which included, 3 Stetson tours, filled with parents asking Paloma and I question about the school and our brunch, multiple faculty members walking by asking what it was we were doing, other Stetson students, and members of University Administration. I informed Paloma I would be leaving at 11:30, as she had stayed till the end of brunch, and left to go to class. After cleaning up the picnic-style
Over the course of the semester, we were asked to maintain a record of our observations of comprehension and composition learning tasks that take place in our classrooms. Luckily, I was placed in the Leighton Learning Community so I attend Leighton elementary school, right down the road from the college. This is an amazing experience because I am able to spend a lot more time inside the classroom, which also results in me observing many things I would not normally in a regular block two placement. Instead of the standard one day a week for three hours, I spend my entire day at the school on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
In my practicum assignment I was able to observe at the Alamo Elementary School in Alamo, Tennessee, which was in a rural setting. I observed Mrs. Anna Pope’s fifth grade class for eight of my practicum hours. Mrs. Pope would teach her homeroom class reading and social studies, then they would switch halfway through the day and she would teach the same lessons to Mrs. Lilly’s class. Mrs. Pope’s first group of students had sixteen girls and eight boys, and her second group of students had fourteen girls, and ten boys. Through observing Mrs. Anna’s fifth grade classes I was able to see overt routines to gain or sustain students’ attention, teacher modeling or explicit step by step directions, classroom climate regarding risk or challenge, and
Evaluation apprehension is a term used to describe the felt anxiety by a person performing a task to others. This anxiety rises due to the thought of being rated negatively or failure to receive a positive feedback. It occurs mostly where participants are rated or researchers observing them (Akers, 2013).
In electing to observe a kindergarten class, I was hoping to see ‘real world’ examples of the social development, personality types and cognitive variation found within the beginning stages of “Middle Childhood” as discussed within our text.
The evaluation form that was used to evaluate a classroom teacher’s performance is a rubric used by the school district (Hillsborough County Public Schools, 2012).
The students that I observed in the classroom were of middle to high school. I went to see 8th, freshman, 10th , and seniors classes, they seemed excited and very curious to why I was there. The middle school was more alive and rambunctious while I observed them. The High school kids were more relaxed, more comical. Some were paying attention while others seemed tuned out to the lecture or involved in socialization with friends within the class. By the end of the class Mr. Hasgil had restored the attention of everyone by using tactics such as history jeopardy with candy as the prize with the high school kids. In both he middle school and high school the kids were mostly Caucasian with a mixture of black, Asian , and Hispanic in the classes.
When I first got to the classroom the students were doing a listening exercise and had to answer same question the teacher wrote on the board. At a certain time they all were allowed to go to the bathroom. Each student was given a responsibility in the classroom.
For my observation experience I went to Southern High School in Harwood, MD. Southern High School has a special education department for the students with disabilities. The teacher that I met with for this classroom observation was Ms. West. In the classroom there were at least four assistant teachers that helped Ms. West throughout the school day. The assistant teachers helped Ms. West co- teach the class and were there to help the students if they needed extra help. The school also has a couple of student aides that come in to help the teachers and the students in the classroom. There were at least twelve students in the classroom. The students in the class had many different exceptionalities such as learning disabilities, Down syndrome,