Running head: LESSON EVALUATION 1

Lesson Evaluation Written Narrative from Nahlah Al-qarawi

Monchi Liu

Colorado State University

LESSON EVALUATION 2

Introduction

This was a written narrative evaluation that Nahlah Al-qarawi wrote for me for the

reading and writing class that I conducted. It was written to fulfill the requirements for E528

Professional ESL Teaching- Theory to Practice. The purpose of this evaluation was to have a

colleague student discuss the strengths and weaknesses of my lesson that would offer me

constructive feedback.

Lesson Evaluation Written Narrative from Nahlah

The class I was assigned to observe was one of the reading/writing micro-lessons given

after spring break. The lesson was presented on Monday at the tenth of April 2017. Monchi was

the fifth instructor of the reading/writing classes. The lesson he taught was within a three-lesson

thematic unit holding the theme of 'History'. His lesson concentrated on biographies. He had

approached the lesson with the communicative approach, which was very delightful for the

students because they had lot to say about this lesson. The class had a few number of students of

different nationalities and ages. One was Spanish, two Chinese, and one Korean.

The lesson was constructed in a 50-minute class and it was about famous people around

the world. A warmer and three activities were demonstrated throughout the lesson using

Microsoft word. The class started with a definition of biographies. Then the lesson began with a

warmer which was a brainstorming activity. He asked the students to think of a famous person

who most people might know then introduce his/her achievements. This warm up also targeted a

language objective of grammar because students had to speak about this identity using the past

simple tense. The students were very engaged and eager to share information about their famous

person with their class mates. Then, the first activity was a reading prediction game. In this

activity, students had to silently read six brief biographies and guess who the person in them was.
LESSON EVALUATION 3

The second activity was for the sake of reading comprehension. In it, students had to notice the

past verb forms by underlining any past simple tense verbs then writing them in their base form.

Afterwards students read the passage and answered the comprehension questions. The purpose of

the previous two activities was to enhance students' skimming and scanning reading skills. The

third activity was a guided writing activity where students looked up more information of the

famous person they had discussed at the beginning of class and take notes about him/her

according to the provided handout. For closure, the students were asked if they had any questions

and then they were assigned home work for next class.

The planning of the lesson was well structured and astonishingly organized. The

instructor was very patient, well prepared, focused on accomplishing his lesson plan objectives.

The timing was well planned which resulted in covering all the points listed in the lesson plan.

The content and language components for the lesson were explained clearly and the target skills

were emphasized e.g. Making students use the past tense in speaking about their famous

character and underline the past verbs in the reading passage and by the end of the lesson

students used the past tense in their writing activity. The materials contributed in making the

lesson precise, especially when the instructor wrote the instructions of each activity on the

Microsoft word document he had projected on the screen. As for the classroom activities, they

were entertaining and instructions were easy to follow. Also, since the content presented was

about famous people in their own country, students were very invested and involved in

expressing their opinions about them in both speaking and writing matters. There was a great

portion of teacher/student interaction and discussion among students themselves. Although very

few students attended this lesson, the grouping configurations were successful and varied

depending on the activity. The handouts were valuable hands-on materials that students could
LESSON EVALUATION 4

use over again. Transitions between activities were upright and led to an excellent pacing of the

lesson. A last note on his whole lesson was, that his choice of activities complemented the

students’ different capability levels, so there was freedom for the advanced students to represent

their skills beyond the basic instructions that were given. Students were provided with

considerable feedback while the instructor was facilitating their performance. The assessment of

students' comprehension was revealed in classroom discussion activities and during the output of

the writing activity. The use of technology was great and kept students interested to the degree

that some students took pictures of the displayed definition of blogophiles. The instructor spoke

slowly and clearly so students could keep up with him. In addition to his accurate language he

modeled most of the activities which a TEFL student which was also helpful.

The lesson was overall very positive and minor mistakes were made but worth

mentioning for later lessons. One controversial aspect was not taking advantage of the small

number of students in practicing reading fluency in reading aloud. Although it is not an authentic

way to read in real life, but it could have participated in correcting students' pronunciation and

reading intonation. Another aspect was when the instructor forgot to describe what skimming

means he could have introduced it in the second activity since it was also a reading activity, in

which students could integrate both skimming and scanning strategies, instead of interrupting

students work to describe that. One more aspect is, given that the topic of the lesson was so

interesting to the students and involved them in expressing their opinions of their choice of

character, they wanted to speak more about them, so perhaps a couple more minutes could have

been devoted for the warmer. The last point is not that serious but you may consider it in the

future for classes with a bigger number of students, but you could possibly wrap the lesson up

earlier so you won't go overtime even though the lesson only went minutes' overtime.
LESSON EVALUATION 5

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam said "Teaching is a very noble profession that shapes the character,

caliber, and future of an individual". Monchi, after observing your lesson, I knew you will make

a respectful, considerate, and caring teacher that will be cherished and appreciated by his

students. You should be proud of your accomplishment and take any critique in account to grow

as an individual and a great English teacher.