Master Teacher Observation Observer: Ezra Kwong Master Teacher & CEP Level: Chikako Date: 7-24-2012 What

I observed in class (Action) Warm-up: Teacher (T) begins by asking students (Ss) to think about what they did last night in class. She wrote on the board: what did we do? what did we learn? what do you remember? She asks Ss not to look at the textbook. She has them talk to each other to try to remember what was learned in class. I observed students talking to each other and writing points down. T used the overhead projector to write down the main points of yesterday's lesson. The points were organized into three categories: topics, grammar points, vocabulary. Activity 1: Dialogue: Students are asked to take a look at the dialogue in the text book and find and circle all the sentences containing "used to" T examines each "used to" sentence and explains their meanings to the class. Using example sentences, T clarifies the difference between "I used to be" and "I am used to" T puts up a paragraph from the text and asks Ss to fill in the blank spaces. Ss must use figure out the correct form of "used to" based on the context and sentence structure. T asks Ss to write their own journal entry with "used to." She gives them 7 minutes. Using the paragraph on the PPT as a model, students are asked to write about their adjustments to the changes of living in NYC. What I thought (Reflection) Chikako explained that she doesnt usually prepare lesson plans for her classes. She did, however, have a very nice PPT that she used throughout the class. Warm-Up: I thought that the warm-up went quite well. The teacher was very enthusiastic and had a lot of energy. Students were engaged in conversations with each other and were really trying their best to remember all that was learned in the last class. What I really liked about this activity was that it really made Ss think back to what they learned in previous lessons, and I think that the more Ss think about what theyve learned, the more likely they are going to retain their new information and knowledge. I will give this routine a try in my class. Activity 1: I thought that T did a great job explaining the grammatical points. Initially, students seemed to be confused with the difference between the two variations of "used to." T continued giving examples and Ss eventually seemed to grasp the concept. I thought that the way T facilitated while teaching grammar was great. Given that the the class is small, she was able to walk around the classroom and assist each S individually. This would be more difficult in larger classes, but for small groups, it clearly works well. Also, I think that the distinction between "used to" and "use to" would have also helped clarify this grammar point. But either way, this distinction (used to and use to) can be difficult even for advanced Ss.

T asks Ss to come to the front of class once they are done to quietly read their journal entry to the teacher.

Follow-up activity: Journal Entry Students seemed to be engaged in the seven- minute journal writing entry. They all It took T about 15 minutes to finish reading all the seemed to have a lot to write about and Ss journal entries, and after about ten minutes, the actually went over the allotted time. I other students who were waiting finished up the thought that it was good that the T gave reading activity and were waiting to be given them extra time to complete their journal directions. entry because Ss seemed very involved in their writing tasks. I felt like the additional T explains that she did this because she wanted Ss time gave the task some authenticity by to guess who the authors of each entry were. making it seem less like another exercise, and more like an actual journal entry. Once T completed reading all journal entries, she While I would have expected Ss to share passed them out randomly (without names on them) their journal entries to the class, Ss did not and asked Ss to try to guess who the authors were. do this. Ss rather came up to the class individually to quietly read their journal Post Activity: entries to the T. This technique was Ss get into two lines (facing each other) to share something I hadn't seen before and I their experiences of coming to NYC. thought that it was interesting. While T was T gives Ss a sample question to get their in the corner of the classroom reading each conversations started: individual journal entry, she asked all of "Have you adjusted to living in NYC?" ther Ss who were waiting to begin reading T asks Ss to use phrases that have been learned: an article in the textbook. Most of the Ss "get used to -ing" and "be used to -ing" seemed to understand the directions of the reading task, while others seemed to be Transition to Activity 2: Pronunciation waiting for the T to give the next set of T explains how words are sometimes linked to their directions. preceding words. T does a mini lesson on the unstressed 'to' I thought that the post-journal activity Used to --> /yus ta/ (where the teacher read each entry) took going to --> /gana/ far too long. While T read, Ss who were waiting completed the short reading After Ss understand the concept, T has them create assignment and were left waiting with a short dialogue with their partner. She asks Ss to nothing to do for about ten minutes. use "used to," "going to," "got to," "want to," and I think that this problem could have been "have to." solved by skipping the Teacher-reading T did a good job facilitating each activity, including step and instead making a pile of journal this one. entries which would then be handed out Once Ss finished the activity, T asked them, one by randomly to Ss as a type of peer-critique one, to read their dialogues. activity. I understand the T wanted to Students read their dialogues and T emphasized provide immediate feedback on Ss writing, the importance of pronunciation over grammatical but I think that this could have been done correctness. outside of class then given to Ss the

following day. Activity 2: Pre Activity: T asks the following questions: If you can build your dream house, what would you build? T has Ss talk about this question with their partners for several minutes. After a few minutes, she calls on a few Ss to share their ideas with the class. Post Activity: The post activity was the first activity where students got out of their chairs, and I thought that the timing of the activity was just right. Just before the activity, I sensed that Ss were getting tired, but once they got up and out of their seats, they became more active and cooperative.

After this, T shows a movie clip of American castles. Transition to Activity 2: Pronunciation I thought that the mini lesson on the Follow-up activity: unstressed 'to' was a bit rushed. Several Summarizing students seemed to have difficulty in T explains the importance of summarizing creating a dialogue using all of the paragraphs for their main idea. requested elements: (the unstressed 't' and "used to"). Two separate paragraphs about the San Simeon T said "don't worry about your grammar," Castle are looked at: one larger one with a lot of and I thought this was important to tell them detail, and another one that is a summary of the because it seemed to work in lowering their larger one. anxiety while reading. After hearing this, students literally took a breath of relief. The Post-Activity: teacher was good at making her Ss feel T gave Ss different paragraphs and, in pairs, asked safe and comfortable making mistakes. Ss them to decide which information should be in this classroom seemed very comfortable included. and cooperative and I think this is partially T walked around facilitating and provided Ss with a result of the way T has made the feedback and also used recast when appropriate. classroom a safe place. Ss were given about 15 minutes to complete this activity and once Ss were done, they were asked to Activity 2: complete a reading passage in their textbook. Dream House Ss were very active and all had creative Closing Activity: ideas for their own dream house. When Ss Word expressions were asked to talk about their dream "T introduced the following expressions:" house, they all had unique ideas of what it "That reminds me" would look like, how large it would be, and "Speaking of" why they wanted it either big or small. "But to get back to the" "As I was saying." I thought that showing the video helped Ss get an idea of the Castle that they were T gives Ss a script from the TV show Friends with going to read about in the text. The video examples of these phrases in use. helped me make a connection between the I was expecting T to show a video clip with these text and the subject. I

phrases in use with context, but there was no film. Ss looked at the phrases in isolation without much context. T explained each phrase and had Ss repeat each one. Final 5 minutes: T told Ss what would be happening in class the following day. T wrote Ss homework on the chalkboard and Ss wrote the assignments in their notebooks.

Post Activity: When Ss were asked to decide on the important info in each paragraph, they seemed to have a lot of different ideas. I thought that T did a really good job facilitating this activity and providing corrective feedback whenever she heard an error or mistake. T asked Ss who finished early to read their textbook. I thought that the follow-up activity could have been more closely linked to the summarizing activity. Closing Activity: Ss seemed to be curious about the actual phrases that T introduced, but I thought that the sentences lacked context and were thus a little confusing for Ss to understand. I think that a film that had examples of these phrases being used would have been perfect for introducing these particular phrases, but I know that its sometimes difficult to find the good video clips for grammar points. Final minutes: While I thought it was good that the final minutes of class were spent assigning homework and for telling Ss what would be happening the following evening, I thought that it would have been a good idea to close or to sum up everything that was learned.