Task 9

OBSERVING EXPLAINING

EXPLAINING SCHEDULE

• Teacher’s introduction to the explanation was short and capture pupil’s attention.

Main ideas within the explanation

• Organisation of ideas in a logical and coherent sequence: YES
• Easy to follow: YES

Clarity

• Links between the main ideas: YES
• Summary at the end: SOMETIMES

Within the Explanation

• Language clear and fluent: USES L1
• New words explained: YES
• Choice of words and level of language appropriate to age, interests and ability level: YES
• Sentences clear, short: YES

Ideas

• Good and clear examples given to illustrate the topic: SHE DREW A LETTER AND POINTED THE SUPPOSED PLACE OF SENDER AND RECEIVER
• Examples; are familiar to students’ own experience: YES
• Repetition: YES
• Pace of explanation OK for class: YES
• Questions and other forms of feedback to find out if class is following/has understood: YES
• Are contributions from class invited and used?: YES
• Use of other materials to make points: SOMETIMES 

Voice

• Volume: APPROPRIATE
• Speed: APPROPRIATE
• Varied in pitch: MOSTLY
• Emphasis: YES
• Pauses: YES

Others

• Gestures: RARELY USE
• Movement: YES
• Eye contact: IN A HIGH TENSE CONDITION
• How does teacher keep the attention of all students?: GENERALLY SPEAKING LOUDLY

Teacher’s Explaining and Instruction

• Teacher explained the difference between “will” and “be going to”, and in what conditions we can use it.
• Teacher asked to write back an e-mail. She said “ you need to say an excuse for not coming”.
• She explained the meaning of the following structures by giving some examples;

         You know, …

         … is very important for me.

         I’m interested in …

         Let me know if …

         I hope …

• Teacher explained why native speakers use the term “you know”, what the meaning of it is, and in what conditions we can use it.
• While giving instruction, she said “ Read the text and answer the following questions about it. Don’t be afraid of when you see length of the text.”
• She explained the diffrence between text message and message note.

Task 8

OBSERVING TEACHING TECHNIQUES

           I think, each teacher has own teaching style. Some of them do not change her/his teaching style according to different type of class. Some of them teaches the lesson according to the class, students or different grades. The latter is the ideal one. While teaching, a teacher must give importance to individual differences and class as a whole and must behave conditionally.

Class: 8/B                            Number of students: 26                                  Topic: Wh questions

Class Log 6

Student Teacher: Özlem Özkan

Date: 16.12.2015

THE LAST ONE

The last lesson I observe was so funny. Teacher asked to bring some materials for preparing Christmas postcards beforehand. Firstly, teacher explained them how to write an Christmas postcard. She gave them some useful structures they could use during writing. And then they started to write. We helped them write and checked their products. It was so funny lesson because it was different from the other lessons. In contrast to other lessons up to now, students were active and they enjoyed. They prepared so creative postcards. The last one was the best one :)

Task 7

ROLES OF TEACHERS AND LEARNERS

• Learner Roles

Participant - Use social networks Teacher: What are social networks? Ersel, Nilsu: Facebook, twitter Teacher: Yes, what else? Zehra, Betül: Whatsapp, instagram… Teacher: Yes, you are right. We say social networks to them. ……………….. Teacher:What do we understand from the word “formal”? Do you know what it means ? Münir: Is it like official things? Teacher: Yes, exactly. It means official, not sincere, serious. You can remember from “formlu, formu olan”

Discoverer Teacher: What is the meaning of informal? (She underlined the prefix “in”) She helped them to recognize it so they can associate it with their previous knowledge about prefix “in”. Therefore they can discover the meaning of word on their own. ………………… Teacher: What can the meaning of “keep in touch” be? You can make association by looking at “touch”. You are familiar with it. ………………… Teacher: What is the meaning of “Tina speaking”? Does it mean “ Tina konuşuyor” like a pilot :) Teacher: I want you to be aware of this structure. It means “ I am Tina”. You can use it in everyday speech.

Questioner Mert: “Communication” means “iletişim”, doesn’t it? ……….. Umut: Teacher how did we understand that this conversation was informal? ………. Nurdan: What is the meaning of “at the moment” ? Teacher told them also the other time units.

Recorder of Information Teacher utilized the smart board to show the vocabulary of the unit. And wanted them to write it down to their notebooks. ……………. Teacher always wants students to look up the vocabulary of the unit she will teach and record them on their books. She gives + or – to control their homework by asking the meaning of the words one by one.  ……………. Teacher mentioned about the present perfect tense quickly and wanted them to take it note.

• Roles and Functions of a Teacher

     In the classroom I observe, teacher’s role is generally manager and provider. Actually, functions and roles are strictly related to differentiate them is highy hard. But this is my matching;

     Roles

     a- Diagnostician

     b- Planner

     c- Manager

     d- Provider

      Functions

1. To find out (as far and consistently as possible) the needs, interests, language difficulties and preferred learning styles of the students.
2. To cater for  students’ needs, interests (as far as group exigencies allow).
3. To foster a group feeling (cooperation, liking, common aims, mutual cinfidence, etc.)
4. To ensure that learners have clear short and long term learning objectives.
5. To assess the progress of individuals and of the class as a whole.
6. To ensure that learners are aware of their progress.
7. To encourage students to take responsibility for their learning.
8. To vary patterns of interaction within the lesson according to the precise aims and the nature/ feeling of the group.
9. To ensure that students find their involvement sufficiently challenging.
10. To analyse and present realistic “chunks” of the target language for students to process.
11. To select and introduce activities and materials for language work.
12. To help students develop positive, individual strategies for learning.

1- A

2-B

3-D

4-B

5-C

6-C

7-D

8-D

9-C

10-B

11-B

12-D

Task 6

THE LANGUAGE OF FEEDBACK TO ERROR 

         Learners are supposed to answer the questions and look up to the word they do not know before coming to the classroom. So errors are rare. Teacher always use immediate correction. She gives the answer directly. This is sometimes demotivating for them. Feedback has highly important role on student’s motivation. Teacher do not use constructive feedback ways.

       

SAMPLE		SUPPLEMENTARY SUPPORT	+                                            -
Teacher Question	…In both countries there is nothing better to eat on a cold day than a hot meat pie with tomato… Could you translate this sentence into Turkish?	She used board and textbook.	(-) Student can be demotivated because teacher correct his/her mistake immediately.
Student Response	Soğuk günlerde domates yenmez.
Teacher Feedback	(Immediate correction) No, “ İki ülkede de, soğuk bir günde domatesli etli börekten yemekten daha güzel bişey yoktur.”
Student response to feedback	Student understands his/her mistake.

SAMPLE		SUPPLEMENTARY SUPPORT	+                                   -
Teacher Question	…Thanks to their low prices… “What is the    meaning of “thanks   to”  here?	She used board while asking.	(-) Student can be demotivated because teacher correct his/her mistake immediately.
Student Response	Teşekkürler düşük fiyatlara
Teacher Feedback	(Immediate correction) It means “ sayesinde ‘’
Student response to feedback	Student corrects his/her mistake.

Class Log 5

Student Teacher: Özlem Özkan
Date: 27.11.2015 
Class: 8 D/C

HAPPY TEACHER'S DAY  :)

   We normally go for observation every wednesday. But this week, we could not attend the class for observation on wednesday because that day was available for TEOG exams. So we went to school on friday. 

      Classroom was almost empty. There were 6-7 students in the classroom and they are not ready for learning. Therefore teacher didn't want to start a new unit. Teacher asked them how many wrong answer they gave. Then they answered the questions together by using smart board to project the questions. Most of the students answered the same question wrongly:question included in the "however". According to teacher, the answer was hided in detail that's why students could not answer the question correctly.
          In the second session of the lesson teacher gave them some extra tests in order not to waste time. After the lesson, we joined the teacher's day celebration with our mentor teacher :)

Task 5

WE ALL MAKE MISTAKES

Actually, I couldn’t observe so much error except for some pronunciation errors because the students who answers the questions are successful and they have done their homework beforehand.

            

        ERROR                                                          POSSIBLE CAUSE

• Potatoes the peel                                      Not being so much experienced in writing
• Potatoes the slices                                   Again a word-order error.
• Vegetable   /'vedʒɪteɪbəl/                          Association with the pronunciation of ‘’table’’    
• Add some peper                                      Not being accustomed to English spelling
• After flour oil and warm milk add             Interference of the mother tongue     

Post-observation questions

1. Teacher corrects all of the student’s errors.
2. Because she doesn’t want students to learn wrongly and the activities she use is not fluency-based.
3. I think she should move according to type of activity. Is it fluency-based or accuracy-based? She should focus on what the activity requires. For example, if the activity is for assessing the use of Simple Present Tense correctly, we should focus on only these errors not spelling or conjunction.
4. Students were writing some vegetable names on the board and one of the students wrote the word “pepper” as “peper”. And teacher didn’t correct that. But I think it should have been corrected because the rest of the students were writing it on their notebooks and they would learn it incorrectly.
5. No, there is not that kind of mistake.
6. Errors show us what the students learned wrongly and we should deal with errors. They are the part of learning. This is what I learned from this observation.

OBSERVING QUESTIONING SKILLS

BOARD      T                                     T (Sometimes)                      DOOR B B (2) B G G (1) B (1) B (5) B B B - - G G (1) B G (2) B B (4) B G (3) G G (4) G B (n): The number of answers learner gave

The answering students mostly were sitting in front of the class and places near the front.

Generally questions are answered by 4 boys and 3 girls.

Eye contact: Yes, she is looking at students mostly.

Timing: Yes, but she continues by giving the right answer herself if the students couldn’t.

Reinforcement: No, the students aren’t praised.

Language: Yes, questions are clear.

Types of questions:There are four types of question but the teacher used mostly one of them during the whole lesson: “Recall Questions”. For example;

• What is the meaning of “Enjoy it?”
• How did we start to write a process of recipe?

And she sometimes use “Convergent Questions”

• Can we grill cauliflower?
• What is “roasting” like?
• How roast is done?

Question-answer set: Teacher question + student answer

• Teacher: What is the meaning of “dice”
• Student:  Küp Küp doğramak.

                                                                                                                                    

Class Log 4

The Language of Feedback to Error

After the Lesson Questions;

4-  I agree with the cognitive view to a large extent. Learners have their own understanding of how the language is organized. But we should take into consideration that internal factors are not the only one which affects the learning processes. There are also external (enviromental) factors.

     When students give a wrong answer and we give positive reinforcement without getting the student to realize his/her mistake, s/he can confuse. I think we can find the reason thanks to the Piaget's cognitive development theory. According to him, people learn step by step. There is a developmental process in learning. So the learner can differentiate the meaning of good in different contexts  if s/he can get the level that s/he can understand the difference.

5- I definitely agree with this idea. One of the teacher's key roles in the classroom is to provide accurate feedback on error to learners.

6-  Students' and teacher's performances are input and output for each other. They learn something from each other. One's performance is resource for other. They are affected from each other.

7-  The teacher's role in response to feedback  definitely has a motivational function. When students make mistake, they can easily demotivated. So the teacher has a key role. S/he should correct the error constructively that is highly important for student's motivation.

Task 4

LEARNER MOTIVATION

            Actually, I haven’t got opportunity to know the students closely yet because it was just my third observation. Therefore, I tried to decide their motivation types according to their responses to the questions.

STUDENT’S NAME	MOTIVATION	LEARNING BEHAVIOUR	COMMENT
Zehra	Instrumental motivation	Reluctant to the lesson	Low motivation
Ersel	Instrumental motivation	Willingness to answer when uncertain	Medium
Rosa	Blended motivation	Involvement in tasks	High
Nilsu	Instrumental motivation	Giving importance to her homework	High
Berkay	No motivation	Very problematic and unsuccessful	Very low

 

THE LEARNER AS DOER

          I think, learning by doing is a very effective and important method while learning a language or anything because students learn unconsciously while doing something, especially thanks to games. But in my observation I couldn’t see that kind of activities except for some tasks included in some little movements.

WHAT LEARNERS DO	WHAT THIS INVOLVES	TEACHER’S PURPOSE	COMMENT
Categorizing the words according to their types	-Knowing the meanings of the vegetables -Writing them on the board - Consulting other students	Give  some vocabulary knowledge	Cognitive and Physical
Writing a toast recipe	-Individual work -Referring to dictionary - Consulting other students	Teach connectors like (First, then, next, finally…)	Cognitive
Translation of words from English to Turkish	-Referring to dictionary	-Getting students familiar with using dictionary - Give  some vocabulary knowledge	Cognitive and Physical

LEARNER LEVEL

         English level in the classroom is mixed. Some of them are successful, some of them aren’t interested. That’s not bad. Teacher can arrange the students according to this. She can pair a good students with a bad one so she can handle that.

STUDENT	LEVEL	SIGN OF LEVEL	TEACHER’S STRATEGIES
Münir	5	-Finished the activity very correctly and carefully -English is his selective course	Calling on the student for model answer.
Ersel	3	-Not very successful but very enthusiastic	Varying length of wait time
Berkay	0	-Even not aware of  what the lesson is -looks to neighbor for help	Ignoring him.
Mert	1	-Uses L1 -Pronounce the word the way it is written	Ignoring him.
Nilsu	5	-Pronunciation is perfect -Accurate and fluent	Calling on the student for model answer.