Observation Two

The second observation that I conducted was the day after my first observation. It was nice to see the continuation of the previous day’s lesson. This class did start out a little strange. The school was nearing the end of its first quarter and students who had good behavior were given a reward party. This meant that for the first twenty minutes of class only half (four) of the normal nine students were present. The teacher was undeterred by this and continued with the lesson as if all students were present. When the students from the reward party returned, class continued after a small explanation of the class project.

The lesson began with the teacher opening her notebook to the section with the recorded sentences, about walruses, from the previous day. The sentences offered by students were in a random order, written down as they were given. The teacher wanted the students to eventually write a paragraph using these sentences. So, the teacher began by asking students which sentences went together. The students were seated around a semicircular table and each student was asked, in clockwise order, to find matching ideas in a pair of sentences. If a student answered incorrectly the teacher moved on to the next student. This created a friendly competition between students to find the most and/or right matching sentences. Students seemed very pleased with themselves when they answered correctly, and their disappointment with answering incorrectly was minimal. Each sentence pair was highlighted in a different color to denote which student had made the correct response. By the end of class all of the sentences had been paired together and students were ready to begin writing their paragraphs about walruses.

There are some issues that I observed with this class that may prove to be a hindrance for second language learners. First, as I mentioned in my previous entry, the ESL classroom is shared with a resource class. The class is divided into two by a series of bookshelves. This division does nothing to stop noise from the other side of the class. The noise is likely a distraction for students, and it is also possible that the excess noise lessens the impact of auditory input. If a student can’t hear the teacher clearly this will likely slow down the rate at which the student acquires the language. This noise was more apparent in my second observation because students from the resource class who were not allowed to attend the reward party were acting out.

Another problem that I noticed was the lack of an overhead or smart-board. In my observation of the lesson I noticed students crowding around the teacher to see the notebook where she had recorded their sentences. The students across the table from her had more difficulty reading from the notebook than the students seated at her side. This was likely because they were further away and forced to read upside down.

One more potential issue is both a positive and a negative. Students in this class are a very tight knit group. The negative aspect of this is that students try to entertain each other. This causes some interruptions and forces the teacher to have to remind students to stay on task. I don’t think that this is a problem that can ever be remedied; it is essentially kids being kids. This trait is also the greatest strength to the class. Students consistently encourage each other, are kind and respectful, and try to help each other out in solving language problems. This makes the class a very low pressure environment for students. My observations lead me to believe that students do not fear reprimand for wrong answers, in fact it appears that they understand that wrong answers are just as important to learning as right answers are. This low pressure learning environment is a key to language learning.

Another positive within this class were the number of books. Each student had their own copy of the walrus book that they were studying. This allowed students to read and review at their own pace, and associate the teacher’s pronunciation with the written words. Speaking of pronunciation I never once heard the teacher stop to correct student pronunciation. If a student made a mistake the teacher simply repeated the word so the student could hear it and moved on. I believe the auditory input is much more important than stopping class and having the student repeat the word over and over until they get it right.

Some ethnographic information that I believe crucial is learning the students’ home situation. A teacher shouldn’t pry into the students’ lives, but they should be aware that often student behavior is a direct result of their home life. This doesn’t mean that certain students should get special treatment, but certain situations may need further explanation of consequences to students.

In the lessons I observed the only culture that I saw was the youth culture. Were students are upset because they didn’t get the Hannah Montana pencil. Ethnicity was never brought up.

I find this class very interesting to observe and I am looking forward to working with this class more.