Liceo Cultural Britanico

Student: Cynthia Randerath

Observation 4
“Attending to the learner”
From “Classroom Observation Tasks” by Ruth Wajnryb

Level: Beginners II
Place: Liceo Cultural Británico
Number of students: 14
Duration: 40 minutes

In the lesson I observed, I found the following sitting arrangement:

F,N,P
M,N,E E, S M,N,E M, N, E
+ ++++ + + F, N, E
M,N,E ++
+
M,N
F,N,E
F,!,T +
++ ++

F,N, E, F,N,!
S +++ M,N ++
+++

F,N,P F,N, E
++ ++

FRONT

I could observe the following attending strategies which can be seen

in the previous scheme:

Name (N)
Eye contact (E)
Nod (!)
Point (P)
Smile (S)
Other:
Number of times being attended (+)
Female (F)
Male (M)
Comments:

Generally, all students were attended and the teacher called them by
their names and by establishing eye contact at the same time. Some
students participated actively in the class but others did not talked at
all if they were not called by the teacher. Sometimes the teacher
pointed at them or smiled at them, but the more noticeable pattern
was her calling their names and making eye contact.
I could not identify any particular pattern in the teacher’s
attendance, I mean that they were chosen at random and the teacher
called them no matter if they were boys or girls, or tall or short. There
was no pattern at all. However, generally girls tend to speak and
participate more than boys.
As regards the sitting arrangement lending to a particular spread of
the teacher attention, I could not find any pattern at all. The teacher
called students no matter where they were sitting, maybe as they
worked in a semi-circle and all students were facing the teacher it
helped to the attendance.
Generally speaking, stronger students were given more opportunities
and they showed more enthusiasm to participate than the others.
Weaker students needed to be called in order to participate but
stronger students participated spontaneously.
As regards the attending strategies, I think that I found many of them
in this lesson. Anyway, what is really interesting is that generally we
do not pay much attention to the way in which we attend our
students. I mean that before observing this lesson I was not very
conscious about this matter, so I found it really useful so as to pay
more attention to my own way of attending students.
I also paid attention to the way students attended to each other, and
most of the times they use their names or touch to the other to make
someone know that he was being called. Sometimes they used
nicknames and generally they treated among themselves with
respect. It was a really nice group.

REFLECTION

I think that this lesson was really useful for me so as to be more

conscious about the attending strategies I use during my lessons. In
fact, I know that sometimes I do not give everyone the possibility to
participate, because I keep on calling the same people, so I will try to
correct this in the future. Besides, I do not know which strategies I
use, so I will pay more attention to that in following lessons, I might
discover that I use many strategies to attend students but I am not
aware of it.