The class that was observed was a vocabulary class in which the teacher was teaching students at a first grade level different terms that were related to travel. The class began with various vocabulary pictures of terms such as: the train station, bus station, the suitcase, and the hotel, (Class Demo Simulation, 2016). The way that the teacher engaged these subject matter was that they stuck the different vocabulary words on the white board and asked the students what they thought that they were going to be learning about in the lesson, (Class Demo Stimulation, 2016). This was a wonderful tool for the lesson in that the students began to guess and learn additional vocabulary as they were guessing.
At this point in the lesson, the class shifted into the drilling phase where the teacher was teaching word/image association combined with pronunciation, (Class Demo Stimulation, 2016). Additionally, the teacher would ask pertinent questions about the words as the students learned how to use them. Once the first phase of drilling was complete, the teacher wrote a model sentence on the board and drilled the students on how to properly utilize the word in the sentence, (Class Demo Stimulation, 2016). Once the sentence activity was complete, the teacher divided the students into groups and had them design six sentences of their own that were presented to the class, (Class Demo Simulation, 2016).
Significant Events:
The two significant events that transpired in the lesson were that the students were not engaged in the sentence writing activity on their own at first and that the presentation skills were very weak in the class due to the students being lost by the instructions given by the teacher. Pertaining to the first event, the students were not organized well in their groups, which wasted time that they could have spent conversing. This is because the teacher just let them sit there as they looked unsure of how to begin. This is a common error in ESL teaching in that the ESL teacher needs to be actively holding the student’s hand to give them the confidence that they need in these activities to practice the proper pronunciation, application, and usage of the language.
Regarding the second event, the students had a very large gap from the initial presentation phase where the vocabulary was presented by the students in groups. Perhaps, the teacher should have divided this exercise into two parts and utilized a worksheet or game activity to continue drilling. Merely having a question answered and a presentation is not necessarily the right fit if the students are not advanced enough.
What I Learned from Observing the Lesson:
This lesson was very instructive in that I felt that the beginning phase was excellent because it was systematic and well organized. The visual representation of the vocabulary words was excellent and I would implement it into my teaching methods because many students respond to imagery in order to ignite their photographic memory.
Where I also learned from the lesson was from the lesson’s flaws. The later parts of the lesson were too advanced and instead of the teacher having a back up option in their lesson plan, they instead decided to keep the activity going at a level that was not working for the students. How I would mitigate this risk in the future is that I would target my lesson plan at three different leveled activities within a beginning, intermediate or advanced level class. By doing this, I would be able to anticipate that the activity was not working and switch gears in order to recover the time with the students. This would enable me to grow as a teacher in future classes and give me a more systematic approach when I was assigned to teach a first grade class such as the one that I had the pleasure to observe.
This class was a wonderful learning experience for me as an ESL teacher because I was able to see a class that was part effective and part ineffective. I will absolutely take these lessons and apply them to my own teaching methods in the future.
References
Live Experience From In Class Demo Simulation Provided by Instructor.
