Tesol - Observation Journal 1
Observation Journal 1
Date: 13/09/2012
Duration: 1 hour
Location: International House London
Level: Upper Intermediate
Teaching Aim: Past Subjunctive (structure lesson) Use of “I wish” for regrets and criticism
Lesson Pace
During the first half of the lesson the teacher moved at a particularly fast pace. Whilst understandably a swift pace is required in order to fit the breath of information into the lesson I feel this was to the detriment of student learning in some instances. For example when asking questions of students it was common for the teacher to answer before providing sufficient time for students to answer. This had the consequence of stopping all but the quickest students a chance to be involved with the lesson. Again this was also seen when individual students were picked out by name to repeat a phrase paying specific attention to their intonation; on numerous occasions at the start of the lesson upon speaking the requested phrase the teacher was very quick to repeat the same phrase using the correct intonation. This style of teaching limits student talking time which is a key aspect when trying to engage the active memory of the students in order to promote retention of the material being taught. A better structure would have been to elicit the correct repetition of the request phrase from another student and then returning to the initially asked student to repeat the phrase once more. Using this suggested structure would promote student talking time and allow all students more time to hear the correct intonation of the phrase.
The benefits of the fast pace were that all students stayed engaged for the duration of the lesson however I believe a lesson can move at a swift pace whilst still allowing sufficient time for students to repeat phrases and answer questions. I have learnt that a quick pace is generally beneficial when all students are able to keep up however my opinion is that allowing students the time to answer questions
Date: 13/09/2012
Duration: 1 hour
Location: International House London
Level: Upper Intermediate
Teaching Aim: Past Subjunctive (structure lesson) Use of “I wish” for regrets and criticism
Lesson Pace
During the first half of the lesson the teacher moved at a particularly fast pace. Whilst understandably a swift pace is required in order to fit the breath of information into the lesson I feel this was to the detriment of student learning in some instances. For example when asking questions of students it was common for the teacher to answer before providing sufficient time for students to answer. This had the consequence of stopping all but the quickest students a chance to be involved with the lesson. Again this was also seen when individual students were picked out by name to repeat a phrase paying specific attention to their intonation; on numerous occasions at the start of the lesson upon speaking the requested phrase the teacher was very quick to repeat the same phrase using the correct intonation. This style of teaching limits student talking time which is a key aspect when trying to engage the active memory of the students in order to promote retention of the material being taught. A better structure would have been to elicit the correct repetition of the request phrase from another student and then returning to the initially asked student to repeat the phrase once more. Using this suggested structure would promote student talking time and allow all students more time to hear the correct intonation of the phrase.
The benefits of the fast pace were that all students stayed engaged for the duration of the lesson however I believe a lesson can move at a swift pace whilst still allowing sufficient time for students to repeat phrases and answer questions. I have learnt that a quick pace is generally beneficial when all students are able to keep up however my opinion is that allowing students the time to answer questions