TESOL Certificate Programs

Observation Notebook
RUNNING HEAD: OBSERVATION REPORT

Observation Report
Yueting Zhang
University of California Riverside: Speaking and Listening Methods
11/17/2016

Last Updated: 12/7/2016 1:39 PM

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Observation Notebook

Observation Report Form

Name of Observer__Yueting Zhang__ Observation # ___3_____
Date

Observation
Environment*

10/5/2016 Face to
face

Class

Skill/Content

Level

Teacher

Speaking &
Listening

Speaking &
Listening

100

Lloyd Balme

*Include the URL if the class was online

WRITE THE OBJECTIVES ACCORDING TO THE OBSERVATION GUIDELINES:
STUDENTS SHOULD BE ABLE TO IDENTIFY THE SPELLING OF THE WORDS IN THE QUIZ
LAST TIME WITH NO MISTAKE.
STUDENTS SHOULD BE ABLE TO IDENTIFY THE EXPRESSION OF ADDRESS IN THE US AND
COMPLETE A SPEAKING PRATICE WITH 80% ACCURACY.

Notes while observing:

1:00-1:03 Start and Greet
T calls students name, collect their phones, and repeats rules in class.

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

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Bottom
Direction: 1. Identify the correct spelling by saying top or bottom.
2. You have 5 minutes.
3. If someone else speaks, Team Lloyd gets 1 point
4. If you run out of time, the other team will try
5. If you are wrong, no point.
T spends about 5 minutes to explain the rules. T picks students from each group, no
yelling.
There are some examples of the words:
Chef, artist, doctor, student, writer, pilot, actor.
T emphasizes vocabulary quiz on Friday.

1:18 -1:44 Presentation

T explains how to write address and the expressions in the US.
OTB: Ct: Court
Ln: Lane

Cr: Crescent

Blv: Boulevard

St: Street

Dr: Drive

T groups Ss and practice Exercise 3 in their textbooks. T gives a model first.

OTB: 1A: Whats your address?
1B: My address is
T asks Ss to finish the exercise with their partners. T checks the understanding of the Ss
by checking their textbooks. T finds that students can not understand what they should do.
T changes his plan and does more explanations by writing the Q & A on the board and
finishes them with the students together.

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OTB:
3A: Where are you from?
3B: Im from (country).
4A: Whats your email address?
4B: My email address is
5A: Whats your phone number?
5B: My phone numbers
6A: How old are you?
6B: Im years old.
7A: What do you do? / Whats your job?
7B: Im a/an
8A: What city are you from?
8B: Im from
T asks students one by one. T explains the questions, then let students give examples to
make sure they totally understand.

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.

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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.

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Another challenge is that teacher may face a situation the students can not
understand after the formal explanation. I observe here it happens too. At the beginning,
in the presentation part, the teacher would like the students to do some pair work to
practice speaking with each other. Then he notices that the students do not know what to
do and how to do. Therefore, he switches his plan to write all the sentences on the board.
The teacher gives a lot of examples and asks the students to give him example to make
sure they totally understand this time. I get a lot of benefits in this part. Teachers always
feel depressed when their students are still confused after explanation. They do not want
to explain it twice because it will waste a lot of time and teachers do not have time to do
other exercise which they plan well already. They do not like to change. However, I think
teacher should have a plan B for his class.

Reference:
Richards, Jack C. & Farrell, Thomas S.C. (2013). Practice Teaching. Chapter 8.

Last Updated: 12/7/2016 1:39 PM

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Observation Notebook

Last Updated: 12/7/2016 1:39 PM