Reflection:
1. Did the teacher use Communicative Language Teaching? What did you observe which supports your answer? Yes, the teacher used Communicative Language in her teaching approach. In fact, she encouraged students to reflect on positive communication in classrooms. The students were encouraged to communicate through the English language. There were massive communicative interactions between the teacher and students. Students mainly learnt from the interactions in their classroom rather than solely relying on their teacher’s input. Students discussed ideas, and constructed meaningful solutions among themselves given the fact that they communicated and interacted freely with each other in their classroom.
2. What did you notice about teacher talk time vs. student talk time?How much were the students involved in and engaged with the lesson? For sure, the teachers’ talk time was well balanced with the instructions. The ratio of teacher to student talk time was approximately twenty five to seventy five percent and they were highly engaged in the class. Students worked in pairs and groups and they were encouraged to participate and share their opinions and enhance understanding with the rest of their classmates. When students were asked questions, the teacher provided them with clear clarifications on concepts and statements in a very appealing and respectful manner. Important still, the teacher asked questions to test student’s understanding since she transformed the classroom to be student-centered.
3. Did the warm-up effectively prepare students for the lesson? Explain. The teacher used a combination of bottoms-up and tops-down kind of approach in her teaching strategy so that students could be well prepared for the new topics. The teacher pre- trained them vocabularies and then she provided us with the background information before introducing them to their new items. Students were able to apply their schematic knowledge. Basically, she engaged them to be cognitively aware before introducing them to new areas of study. Students’ participations in games, puzzles, and various activities, familiarized made them conversant with the topics that they were trained on especially on areas like new vocabularies and grammatical structures. As time went by, they were capable of tackling new items and demonstrating their functions.
4. Do you think that the target language structures (e.g., new grammar, vocabulary, expressions) and/or skills were taught effectively? Why or why not? Yes, the target language structures and skills were taught effectively to students. Their teacher clearly wrote and illustrated everything on the board in a manner that was simple, concise and clear, for them to understand well. She drew pictures and as well used picture cards to effectively present and convey her lectures in classroom. She presented the entire content in a systematic and organized way. For real, her lectures were not overburdening us in any way since every one of them felt free and at home. Another imperative thing is that, the teacher also used interactive strategies in her communicative language in teaching instructions. She clearly demonstrated and explained the task before asking students to respond. She accorded them with sufficient time which enabled them to respond fruitfully to her questions. She also gave students plenty of time for extracurricular activities so that they could have ample time to interact with each other, re-discover and find meaning among them. The teacher also provided them with key vocabularies before she could ask them to create dialogues using the key words. She helped students to practice and exercise learned vocabularies and skills in different categories of the lesson and they were able to give their thoughts and opinions on the same subject.
5. Do you think that the teacher’s activities encouraged students to practice the target language and/or skills effectively? Yes, the teacher’s activities encourage students to practice the language target as well as skills effectively. She brought authentic materials to the classroom whereby I realized that they were enjoying themselves and at the same time they were actively participating in the activities. The students volunteered to express their thoughts and opinions through language target while participating in the classroom. Students were communicating by helping each other in finding solutions to problems. Eventually, she went around the class by randomly asking students to answer questions while students tried their best to answer them right. It was quite evident that they were effectively practicing their language skills in speaking and listening. The teacher gave sufficient information so that students could be well prepared to practice independently outside the class.
Did the teacher effectively evaluate the target language and/or skills? Explain. Sincerely speaking, the teacher evaluated the target language and the entire skills due to the fact that she understood each one of the students, their capability in proficiency level as well as their needs. I was told that that center tracked the ongoing student’s assignments on English proficiency and used ongoing students’ assessments in planning and implementation of a two hour lesson for classes. She was constantly testing their understanding by asking them challenging questions and at the same time she could be able to constantly monitor the student’s progress.
In this space, write any final comments you have about the lesson you observed (required).
Consequently, the teacher created for them a learning-friendly environment in the classrooms. She managed to control the class very well and provided them with plenty of examples for them to enable them learn the rules by themselves. She questioned them on various grounds and they immediately answered correctly. She taught them on how to interact in groups. She gave them freedom of learning independently. They were all motivated and really enjoyed whatever they were doing because she even organized a fashion show for them. She also prepared for them computers so that they could learn communication skills of learning and listening through programs like Rosetta stone language. They learnt the art of asking questions while they were also encouraged to be sensitive towards the asked questions. They became so confident that they were not even afraid of making mistakes inappropriately because they could easily remedy whatever the situation. They positively challenged each other enough and it really helped them to improve their spoken grammar. If there is one thing that that class need to do right now, is that they need to focus on reading and writing skills of language learners. They are the only skills that I did not see being applied in any of the lessons but I guess maybe it was the nature of the syllabus in that center that it only focused on oral language proficiency, conversational as well as spoken.
