Peer observation & critique I

Teacher: Jarod Yong

Class: ESL Lower Intermediate Date/Time: Monday, Mar 6
Theme: Crazy Competitions

It is a 2-hour ESL class of 13 students from diverse L1 backgrounds. The lesson was

at end of learning a unit, so not so many new materials were presented. My deepest

impression on this class is how it was dominant by student speech, only a few times of

teacher intervention can be noticed.

Few evidences suggest the great job on the teachers part in setting and maintaining

class policies. A speaking activity of introducing a crazy competition to the class, a

homework assigned from a previous class, was undergone with little teacher instruction.

Students took turn speaking in front of the class, while the rest taking notes and leaving

comments on a form for every peer. The peer critique form seemed familiar to every student

that they must have used it for several times. Two other activities also illustrated smooth

maintenance of class policy. One of which is called wisdom time and the other joke time.

Wisdom time is scheduled after warm-up of every lesson, usually led by one student every

time, during which he/she shares a personal story about how one has conquered a difficulty

by use wisdom. After the story, the class customarily joins a discussion of what did you

understand from the story. The joke time is placed towards the end of a class, also led by

one student every time, by telling a joke to the class. Both activities challenge student

comprehension and reflection to a speakers speech. Besides, negotiation between students

occurs when 1. The speakers speech is not understood here and there; 2. Responses from

listeners call on further discussion. On the other hand, as an improvement to the current peer

critique form, the teacher introduced a new speech feedback form, which will be put into use

from mid-term. The new feedback form is adjusted from the CEP speaking rubric, featuring

three main aspects of the quality of speaking: meaningfulness, language and discourse. Three
questions were asked under each aspect. The teacher led the class to read the form together.

From my perspective, introduction of the new form was successful for two reasons. Firstly,

Jarod gave specific examples to each new concept. For example, under meaningfulness,

key words like who, what, where, when were given, so that during the upcoming

peer presentation, students will take note based on these words. Secondly, the use of the form

was practiced in later activities. So familiarity to the form was enhanced.

Another focus of this lesson is reviewing the whole unit. Also, only the minimum of

teachers help was involved. First, students were asked to explicitly recall vocabularies they

have learnt throughout the session, followed by giving examples of how these vocabularies

were used in the unit. By this, not only did students review more than vocabulary this way,

the class also self-evaluated about what L2 knowledge they had forged a clearer

understanding and what otherwise. Later, a worksheet with pictures and few key words (key

vocabularies from the unit) were distributed, and students were asked to discuss the

worksheet with a partner. Finally, Jarod guided the class to work again on the worksheet,

thereby repeat the language for the third time.

A few but still some new L2 knowledge was taught at the beginning of the class:

mirroring and breaking the mirror. This is new concept to me and I found it highly relevant

for L2 learners. To begin with, mirror means literally to repeat a speakers utterance. For

example, when someone says what a wonderful day! to you, you can reply by mirroring

what a wonderful day! in a similar or opposite intonation. Jarod was very sensitive to

scaffold the class that he first guided students to mirror in contexts that are common for

mirroring like what a wonderful day and the movie was great, and the gradually to the

less common ones the class sucks, the homework is too difficult, I hate pizza. By using

different contexts, students easily participated in the activity and brought in their

individualities.