Running record-of-the-class-observed
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The teacher observed five English classes at Carlos Lleras Restrepo school over several weeks. In each class, the teacher had students work in groups on activities from their reading books or other projects, while monitoring their progress. Most groups struggled to finish assignments by the end of each class. The observer noted issues like students not speaking English, getting distracted, and the teacher arriving late.
Running record-of-the-class-observed
- 1. RUNNING RECORD OF THE CLASS OBSERVED OBSERVER:LizethAbello Figueredo DATE:April 24th 2018 CLASS:1 English SCHOOL:Carlos LlerasRestrepo DATE: Tuesday April 24th 2018TIME:10:25 – 12:15 Observations Comments/reflection problematic questions upon: methodology, class management, use of materials, learning strategies, student-student interaction, student-teacher interaction The teacher arrives late to class. She asks them to sit. Then, all the students stand up to say “Good morning”. The teacher asks students to work in the same groups they had been working since the first class. There are 5 groups. The teacher asks the students to finish the book they had been reading since the beginning of the year. The teacher tells to the pre-service teacher that the students must finish the book during that class. The teacher monitors each group’s performance during the class. Some students have not finished the book, and some of them solve some reading comprehension activities that are included on the books. The students do not use English, and translate everything they read. The teacher insists they must finish the reading. By the end of the class none of the groups finished the reading. So, they must finish the next class. The teacher arrives late to class and asks students to be on time. If not, they would get a memorandum. Would it be professional? Does example teach more than only words? What can be done to make students be more responsible? The teacher seems too soft, so, the students do not care about finishing the book. What sources should a teacher use to avoid the use of Spanish in the classes? The teacher does not push the students to finish the reading. So, they do not care at all.
- 2. RUNNING RECORD OF THE CLASS OBSERVED OBSERVER: LizethAbelloFigueredo DATE:May 8th 2018 CLASS: 2 English SCHOOL: Carlos LlerasRestrepo DATE:May 8th 2018 Tuesday TIME:10:25 – 12:15 Observations Comments/reflection problematic questions upon: methodology, class management, use of materials, learning strategies, student-student interaction, student-teacher interaction The teacher arrives late to class. She and asks them to sit. Then, all the students stand up to say “Good morning”. The teacher asks students about their progress in the books. But, none of the groups have finished the readings. The teacher orders the students to finish the reading of the books. Two groups are doing the exercises from the books. The exercises consist on completing a sentence with a verb in its past tense. Nevertheless, the students let the pre-service teacher know, they do not know verbs in their past form. Some students get distracted and start chatting and doing different activities. The teacher lets the pre-service teacher know that what they are doing is a project which consists of four steps. First, the reading of the book. Then, the creating of a dialogue to prepare a role play. Then, the practice time. And finally, the last stage which consists on performing the role plays for the primary school kids. That project would take the whole school year to be developed. The teacher class finishes and the students did not reach the purpose, which was, of course, to finish the book. The teacher seems too soft, so, the students do not care about finishing the book. The teacher does not push the students to finish the reading. So, they do not care at all. Cellphones are useful tools when they have to look up for vocabulary, but make students get distracted in social networks. Are always projects time-wasting and senseless when they took too much time? Why do teachers underestimate what their students can do? Why does the teacher think her students can do more than a simple role play during the whole year?
- 3. RUNNING RECORD OF THE CLASS OBSERVED OBSERVER:LizethAbelloFigueredo DATE:May 11th 2018 CLASS: 3 English SCHOOL: Carlos LlerasRestrepo DATE:Friday May 11th 2018TIME:6:15- 7:20 Observations Comments/reflection problematic questions upon: methodology, class management, use of materials, learning strategies, student-student interaction, student-teacher interaction The teacher arrives late to class. She asks them to sit. The students pay close attention to the instructions from the teacher. The teacher speaks in English and although the students do not have the enough knowledge to answer in English, they understand teacher’s words. The teacher uses movements and gestures to let students understand what she says. The students seemmore committed to finish the readings because the teacher assigns roles to each student. Each group must select some aspects from the books, assign a role to each person, and write on a piece of paper the scenes they selected, the characters, and the places. The teacher monitors each group’s performance during the class. The students ask questions to the teacher. The students get lost easily when the teacher does not pay attention to them. Theyspeak to the other and start doing different activities such as using their phones and painting their nails. The teacher explains rules and asks them to repeat in Spanish what they understood. This strategy is very useful and makes students participate. Is the use of the mother tongue a really bad idea in the second language learning and teaching process? The teacher seems too soft, so, the students do not care about finishing the book. The students get more interested on the activity they have to do because it’s different. What should a teacher do to avoid the use of cellphone in the class?
- 4. RUNNING RECORD OF THE CLASS OBSERVED OBSERVER:LizethAbelloFigueredo DATE:May 15th 2018 CLASS: 4 English SCHOOL: Carlos LlerasRestrepo DATE:Tuesday May 15th 2018TIME:10:25 – 12:15 Observations Comments/reflection problematic questions upon: methodology, class management, use of materials, learning strategies, student-student interaction, student-teacher interaction The class starts at 10:35 am. One student misbehaves and the teacher asks him to pass in front and greet the rest in English as if he were the teacher. The teacher uses gestures to let students understand what they are supposed to do during the class. The students start to work in groups; they must select the last aspects of the role play. Some groups start to assign roles to their members. The teacher makes students speak in English to ask questions or ask for permission. The students pay close attention to the instructions from the teacher. At 11.00 am, five students from 11th grade come to the classroom to develop an “accion reparadora”. The teacher had previously asked them to go classroom by classroom exposing reasons for not arriving late to the classes as a punishment for them because they arrived late to one class the day before. The teacher monitors each group’ advances by revising their books’ activities. One group lost the book and is not working, but misbehaving and doing different things. The teacher is not interested on giving them another activity to do, to avoid time wasting. The students understand without asking the teacher to translate. Some students are able to speak in English, but feel shy to do it. The students get more interested on the activity they have to do because it’s different. For my future teaching practices, would I ask my students to be punctual if I am not? A plan B is always necessary to avoid my ss waste time.
- 5. RUNNING RECORD OF THE CLASS OBSERVED OBSERVER:LizethAbelloFigueredo DATE:May 18th 2018 CLASS: 5 English SCHOOL: Carlos LlerasRestrepo DATE: Friday May 18th 2018TIME: 6:15 – 7:20 Observations Comments/reflection problematic questions upon: methodology, class management, use of materials, learning strategies, student-student interaction, student-teacher interaction The class starts at 6:30 am. The teacher explains comparatives by using students as examples. Gabriela is taller than Francisco. Luna is smaller than Juan David. The teacher provides images and asks students to create sentences using the images. The teacher explains grammatical rules regarding comparatives on the board and the students pay close attention to the lesson. The teacher uses English to explain the lesson. The teacher asks questions about the rules to let students remember. Students are interested on the new topic. The teacher groups students into 7 groups to make a competition. Each group is given a piece of paper, they must write comparisons between two places the teacher shows to them. The first group that finishes and does not have grammatical mistakes will get a point. Although most of the groups make mistakes, they participate actively By the end of the class, al the groups have a point for their active participation. Visuals are veryinteresting and encouraging for students. When a topic is interesting and related to students’ lives, they feel encouraged to learn. The students get more interested on the activity they have to do because it’s different. Competitions make students feel challenged and interested on learning.
- 6. RUNNING RECORD OF THE CLASS OBSERVED OBSERVER:LizethAbelloFigueredo DATE:May 22th 2018 CLASS: 6 English SCHOOL: Carlos Lleras Restrepo DATE: Tuesday May 22nd 2018TIME: 10.25-12:15 Observations Comments/reflection problematic questions upon: methodology, class management, use of materials, learning strategies, student-student interaction, student-teacher interaction Students work with the pre-service teacheron the class about comparatives until 11:30 am. From 11:30 to 12:15 the students complete a questionnaire about themselves regarding their personal information. The items to complete are : Height Age Time they get up Distance from home to school The teacher explains the activity to the students and groups them into 7 groups. The students must complete the chart with their own information. Then, they must ask two classmates about their personal information and write that on the chart. The students are always asking questions to the teacher, and when she does not pay attention to them, they stop working and misbehave. Many students do not understand the activity and asks many questions, make mistakes and feel frustrated. After finishing the questionnaire, the teacher asks some students about the information they wrote. Later, the students start to write comparisons between themselves and their classmates. The students work properlyin the new groups. The students seeminterested on finishing the activity. The students use cell phones to look up for vocabulary. The teacher monitors each group. The teacher receives their questionnaires and sentences to grade. Is monitoring a help for the students or the opportunity to make them dependent and useless? When an activity is challenging or new, the students feel stressed but encouraged to learn. When the students work in different groups than the ones they always work with, they show more commitment and progress.
- 7. RUNNING RECORD OF THE CLASS OBSERVED OBSERVER:LizethAbelloFigueredo DATE:May 25th 2018 CLASS: 7 English SCHOOL: Carlos Lleras Restrepo DATE: Friday May 25th 2018TIME: 6:15-7:20 Observations Comments/reflection problematic questions upon: methodology, class management, use of materials, learning strategies, student-student interaction, student-teacher interaction The teacher arrives to class at 6:25 am, greets the students and makes them sit to start an activity. The teacher organizes students into groups to let them read a dialogue. Students star to work properly in the groups assigned. Students use their cell phones as a tool to search vocabulary. Students use offline dictionaries to help their understanding of the dialogue. The teacher explains unknown words through images. The teacher assigns time to finish the reading. Some students speak in English. The teacher asks questions to the students to make sure their understood the dialogue. The teacher gives three different scenes, 1 group must performthe first one, 1 the second one, 1 the third one, 1 the fourth, and 1 the fifth. The last group must interpret the scene they liked the most. Then, the students work in pronunciation and select one scene from the dialogue to perform in front of the class. The teacher gives some time to the students to read practice and memorize the dialogue. Each group performs a role play based on the dialogues. All the groups seem very enthusiastic. The last group on presenting the role play decides to performthe whole scenes. Students have fun with the activities and perform the scenes verywell; they enjoy performing the activities out of the class. When the students are interested on the topic, they use their cell phones in a proper way. Should teacher continue to prohibit the use of smart phones in the English class? Or, would it be better to include new technologies to solve tasks? The students feel more comfortable of speaking in English when they like the activities. Students love to develop activities than require movement. How does a teacher know that the students need and want to go beyond?
- 8. RUNNING RECORD OF THE CLASS OBSERVED OBSERVER:LizethAbelloFigueredo DATE: June 1st 2018 CLASS: 8 English SCHOOL: Carlos Lleras Restrepo DATE: Friday June 1st 2018TIME: 6:15-7:20 Observations Comments/reflection problematic questions upon: methodology, class management, use of materials, learning strategies, student-student interaction, student-teacher interaction The teacher arrives on time to class, greet the students and explains the instructions of the class in English. Then, she asks one student to repeat the instructions in Spanish. The students get into groups to work with a text about a man who won the lottery. The teacher assigns time to read the text . The students start working with the help of their cell phones. Students translate the text to understand it. Nevertheless, after some time, some groups seem not be interested and start speaking about different things such as personal and informal topics. Despite the students understand English, they do not use it to speak. The students select a scene from the story and create a dialogue. The teacher receives the dialogue to grade and provide feedback during the next session. The class finishes at 7:15 am. In spite the text is not interesting for the students, they like it because it has images and easy vocabulary. As the final product of the English class is to present a role play, the students must get familiar with the elaboration and all the processes required to performa role play. That is why; the teacher focuses on letting them create their own dialogues.
- 9. RUNNING RECORD OF THE CLASS OBSERVED OBSERVER:LizethAbelloFigueredo DATE: June 12th 2018 CLASS: 9 English SCHOOL: Carlos Lleras Restrepo DATE: Tuesday June 12th 2018 TIME: 10:25 – 12:15 Observations Comments/reflection problematic questions upon: methodology, class management, use of materials, learning strategies, student-student interaction, student-teacher interaction Four students from UT (didactics class) come to the class to develop activities related to writing skills. The teacher introduces the students from UT and lets ss know about the activities they are going to do. The teacher controls behavior and noise by counting from 1 to 5. (The students that continue talking when the teacher says “5” will get a negative point for the class). Pre-service teachers fromUT start the class; at first, students do not help them to do the class. But, when they see the P-S teachers’ friendly attitude, they start to work. Students do not understand the instructions. So, the teachers explain them more clearly without using Spanish. The students are divided into 2 groups. One group goes outside with 2 teachers, and the other group stays in the classroom to work with the other two teachers. Class inside the classroom: the teachers ask questions about ss’ personal information. Then, the students read an autobiography, and start to write their own. Then, the students change their writings to receive feedback and corrections from their classmates. The students receive corrections and suggestions, improve their writing and read them out loud for the class. The class finishes at 12:10. Teachers must look enthusiastic, friendly, and respectful to make students work. Why do not teachers use peer-review activities? Do they think students do not have enough knowledge to correct others’ mistakes?