TESOL

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Observation Notebook

Observation Report Form

Name of Observer Hsin-Yu, Hsu Observation # 02

Skill/
Date Observation Class Level Teacher
Content
Environment
03/14/2017 Palm Baptist Listening Listening & Sherry
100
03/15 Church & Speaking Speaking MacKay

WRITE THE OBJECTIVES ACCORDING TO THE OBSERVATION GUIDELINES:

By the end of the lesson, students will be able to

- recognize the time on the clock and the written forms for telling time (i.e. oclock,
half-past) in a reading passage that talks about daily routines
- complete a listen and draw activity by drawing the arms of the clock 85%
accurately on the worksheet
- apply the vocabulary of telling times into in-class conversation with 85% accuracy
- describe their daily routines using the simple present tense 85% accurately in the
speaking practice

The target students are Afghanistan women who moved to the United States as

refugees. They participate two hours a day, twice a week. 75% students are true

beginners and they are currently learning English to maintain their daily life by

communicating with the American community and society. The students are divided

into two groups. The low-beginning group is students who still have troubles

recognize the alphabet and can barely greet in English while the high-beginning
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group is students who can spell in English with slips with symmetry letters (i.e. b, d, p,

q) and have basic conversations using the simple present (i.e. greeting,

self-introduction) and a little bit of past with others in English. This report was done

with observing the high-beginning level students.

10:50-11:05

1. Teacher asked some questions to help the students elicit what theyve done

this morning before coming to the class.

Teacher: Student A, What did you do before coming to the class?

Student A: I brush my teeth.

Teacher: brush or brushed?

Student A: brushed, I brushed my teeth.

Teacher: What time did you brush your teeth?

Student A: 7:30.

2. Teacher distributed a worksheet with several clocks. She then instructed

students that she was going to do a listen and draw activity. She was going to

say a time and students should listen and draw the arms on the clock.
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3. As the class finished the first two clocks. Teacher started to ask more

questions about students daily routines and help students to elicit their

routines with time mark given.

Teacher: Student B, When did you go to bed last night?

Student B: I go to bed at 11:00.

Teacher: What is the past tense of go?

Student B: went!

Teacher: Okay class, Student B went to bed at 11:00, show me how 11:00

look like on the clock.

4. Teacher: Okay, now please draw 11:13 on the clock.

The teacher found out that some students couldnt tell the differences

between thirteen and thirty because there were two different answers

shown on their worksheets.

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She then showed a correct pronunciation to distinguish the differences. After

she gave the pronunciation for four times, students with the wrong answer

erased and drew the correct answer on the clock.

11:05-11:07

5. When they were working on twelve oclock, the teacher taught students

two new words noon & midnight with the help of the image of sun and

moon and body languages to show eating lunch and sleeping.

11:07-11:15

6. Teacher introduced a new word routine. She asked the follow question to

every student.

What do you do everyday?

Some students didnt know the meaning of the question. The teacher then did

an example with the volunteers.

Teacher: Volunteer A, What do you do everyday?

Volunteer A: I pick up my kids everyday.

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Students understood the question after the example given. Then the teacher

started to ask more students about their daily routine. Eventually, there were

several sentences written on the whiteboard.

7. Teacher explained the meaning of routine things we do everyday (she put

sentence stress on everyday to emphasize on the time marker).

8. Teacher used one of the sentences given from the

I cook
You cook
students to show the difference between verb with and
They cook
We cook
without -s. She didnt spend much time on formal
He cooks
She cooks
explanation of simple present tense. She wrote the verb
Name cooks

forms uses for different subjects on the whiteboard.

11:15-11:20

9. Teacher told the class that they will continue tomorrow and learning more

words for describing routines.

10. A reading assignments were given today. Teacher gave the instruction and

the class dismissed.

16th March 10:38-10:54

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11. Teacher asked students to take out the assignment given yesterday. She

randomly chose individual student to read through the article sentence by

sentence.

12. Teacher checked the answers for Yes/No section on the back at the page.

While she was checking the answers, several guiding questions were also

asked to help students elicit their comprehension of the article.

I.e. Teacher: Does Rachel have four children?

Student: No!

Teacher: How many children does Rachel have?

Student: Three.

13. Then the class started to go through the answers for the write the answer

section. Teacher randomly picked individual to share the answers.

14. When the class was talking about old people, the teacher told the students

that there are two more polite ways to describe the elders. She then wrote

senior citizen and elderly on the whiteboard.

15. The class moved to the section that students were required to write one
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question about the story and ask the teacher or other students. There were

questions given from the students.

I.e. What is PCA? (Personal Care Assistant

10:54-11:05

16. Teacher asked the students to share what do

wake up
get up
they do everyday. She wrote the answers given
get dressed
pray
from the students on the whiteboard. Some
wash hands
brush teeth
student wanted to say eat breakfast but she
make breakfast
eat breakfast
didnt know the words so she us body
take children to school
pick up children
languages. Other students then said the answer
come to the ESL class

eat breakfast.

17. Students gave a lot of answers for what they do

study English
read story to children
everyday during the daytime. The teacher asked
sleep
take a shower
students to share about their everyday schedule

in the nighttime.

11:05-11:20
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18. Teacher divided students into two groups. Then she distributed four marks

and one dice to each group. The class was going to play the daily routine

monopoly.

START (image) (image) (image) (image) (image)

(image)
A: What time do you ?
B: I at : .
(image)
How about you?
A: I at : .
(image)

FINISH (image) (image) (image) (image) (image)

Images are pictures that show words for routines such as wake up, get
dressed and eat breakfast.

You are going to roll the dice and decide which student goes first. The one

who get the highest point goes first. Then you have to pick up a color maker

and start the game.

Teacher joined on of the group and help students to roll the dice and find

out the sequence for taking turns in this game.

Okay, now A roll the dice. (A rolled the dice.) Good, four point, you can

move four times (A moved her marker) and now ask the question to the
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student next to you.

Students now understood how to play the game. Teacher reminded each

group that they could only speak English during the speaking practice.

Class dismissed at 11:20

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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)

I have been joining this volunteering program for about two months. By looking

at those lessons that the ladies and I participated in, there were several things I

realized and learned from teaching the very beginning level.

I would like to point out that the students needs were quite different from those

100 students Ive observed in the IEP program at UCR Extension for previous

observation reports. The language-learning curriculum designed for the IEP program

focuses on integrated language learning. Students learn both receptive and productive

skills for each level, including the 100. However, the lessons (include the one I

observed today) designed for the refugee women focus more on listening and

speaking. Students learn and use the language immediately outside the classroom so

being able to listen and speak needs more attention rather than to read and write.

Therefore, as I observed in this lesson, there were a lot of conversations between

teacher and students. The teacher led students to elicit answers and make correction

on the wrong information in the assignment and the monopoly conversation game
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were effective and useful opportunities for students to practice speaking. The context

provided was also true and relevant to them and what they learned can be apply

immediately for daily needs.

I also realized that the lesson was using the direct method. First of all, grammar

was taught inductively with examples given from the teacher first and students elicit

relevant examples. Second, as the textbook mentioned that the teacher and students

are more like partners in the teaching-learning process. (Larson-Freeman and

Anderson, 2011) Although there was silence sometimes, the teacher still found many

ways to paraphrase her language and used as much body language as possible to

indicate the meaning. Teacher learned how much students know and students learned

from activities provide by her and the teacher always joins every group conversation

to make sure students were using the target language. Last but not least, when the

students were divided into two groups, all the volunteers and students would sit in a

big circle, greeting and talking about some important days like the Saint Patrick day

and some cultural differences like how important it is to celebrate the International

Womens Day, in English. They also study culture consisting of the history of he
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people who speak the target language and information about daily lives of the

speakers of the language. (Larson-Freeman and Anderson, 2011)

In conclusion, I believe the lesson is very useful for the students though they

didnt spend as much time as the students in the IEP program. The founder, Sherry

MacKay, and all the other teachers in this program, have made a decision that there

were be one more hour added for each class for the next quarter so students will have

six hours learning per week. Those women also agree that more times are needed so I

believe that a better well-designed lessons will be provided in the future.