Vandreia Sehnem

Dr. Cecelia Cutler

Email: vandreia.sehnem@lc.cuny.edu
M.S.Ed in TESOL
Spring, 2014
ESC 760

Observation Report

The class I observed was an English as a Second Language for adults class. It took place
at Lehman College, during a Thursday afternoon, from 1:00 to 2:00pm. The group of students
meets regularly from Monday through Thursday from 12:00 to 2:00 pm. There were ten students
attending the class, which was on its sixth week of meetings. The focus of the classes, according
to the teacher is to promote the use of the language in conversations, besides practicing
pronunciation among other skills that can be helpful for the students, such as speaking in public.
The focus of the class I observed was in the listening and speaking skills. During the first
part of the given class, the students developed a listening activity from their students book
(Pathways, Listening, Speaking, and Critical Thinking 3, by Becky Tarver Chase and Kristin L.
Johannsen), for which they listened to a conversation played on the CD player and with the
information that they collected they completed a writing activity in their books. The activities
consisted of question formation and fill in the blanks exercises. After listening to the
conversation twice, the teacher went over the students answers, correcting any mistakes and
clarifying any questions that they had. For this dynamic, the teacher randomly called the
students' names to read their answers.
During the next part of the class, the students stood up in pairs in order to rehearse a
presentation to the class that happened in the sequence. For the presentation, the students had
chosen topics of their own interest, and had prepared a speech, at home, for which they had
already rehearsed during two previous classes. The students were asked to try to focus on the
most relevant information about their topics and have a specific objective to transmit to their
classmates. For the presentation, each student went to the front of the class, and had 3 minutes to
talk, timed by the teacher. The topics were diverse, presenting different points of view in subjects

of their interests such as, pollution, favorite books, a life experience, musical band, article
review, among others. After all the students had done their presentation, the class was finished.
When it comes to the dynamic between students and teacher, I would say that it was
mostly teacher centered. The teacher was in control of the class during most of the time, giving
the directions and managing what was going on. When developing the listening activity,
described above, the teacher suggested that the students talked to their classmates to check their
answer, but when the correction was going on the teacher called out the students names to read
the answers. Also, during the presentations each student was in charge of communicating to the
whole class for 3 minutes, but they were being timed by the teacher, not having much freedom
and control of their task. Thus, during the time I observed the class, there was little interaction
among the students and the teacher was playing the main role in the class.
The group of students did not seem to have big gaps in the English proficiency levels,
among themselves. There were some differences, as it is expected in a classroom, but they were
not salient enough to create an issue for the development of the class.
When it comes to the display of the classroom, the chairs were organized in a semi-circle,
with the teachers desk in front of the students. I particularly liked this set up because the teacher
was able to clearly see all the students, as well as easily communicate with all of them. The
teachers communication with the students is something that I would like to emulate with my
future ESL students. He spoke loud and clearly to the class, standing in the center of the
classroom most of the time. Also, his explanations were simple and objective. For instance, any
question that the students had was answered promptly, and any new vocabulary was explained,
and in some cases written on the board with its meaning. In addition, the students were very

respectful with the teacher, following his instructions. The teacher had clear objectives and
structure for the class.
I really liked the class and the teachers attitude with the students, although I would
probably try to make it more focused on the students. The students presentations were great, and
I believe that it is a great activity to motivate students to practice their language as well as their
confidence when talking to a group of people. At the same time, not everybody likes this kind of
activity and I believe that it could create lots of anxiety which could be negative in the second
language learning process. If I were to develop an activity like this I would probably give more
freedom for the students and stimulate them to use other resources, such as power point, pictures,
posters, in order to diminish their exposure to the class. Also, I would apply the activity to
promote conversation among the students, with freedom for them to ask questions about the
topic and give their opinion. This could be a way to stimulate meaningful conversation, with
topics that the students chose by themselves and were of their knowledge and interest. According
to Brown (2007) meaningful learning should be capitalized in the classroom, and one way that he
suggests is to appeal to students interests, career and academic goals. Thus, this activity could
have been even more effective, in my opinion, if given more attention.
During the class that I observed, the students who were watching the presentations were
not allowed to make questions or comments, and after each presentation the teacher would give
his feedback in points that should be improved such as pronunciation, and nervousness. The
feedback was mainly on the difficulties that the students had, with little emphasis to the positive
points and to the topic that they chose. I would say that this kind of activity could be very
positive, if used to encourage speaking and to stimulate conversations, besides pointing out the
positive things about the students work.

In addition, talking about the teachers feedback, I could notice a few different ways
which the teacher addressed to correct any mistakes that the students made. I could notice that
the teacher was really attentive to pronunciation mistakes as well as to the correct English form.
The teacher used the explicit corrective feedback a few times during the class. One example is
the dialogue that follows: Student In my view point [], Teacher- We do not say in my
view point, we say in my point of view. The teacher also used recast. One example is:
Student Does chemical trial are used []? Teacher: Ah, ARE chemical trials used []?.
The teacher also used elicitation. One example is: Student Many variables with traditional
drugs. Teacher Uh, what is another option about which we talked yesterday? Students- Old
remedies? Teacher Yes, many variables with traditional old remedies.
About the teachers feedback on the students mispronunciation of words I could notice
that it was a consistent practice during the class. The teacher explicitly corrected the students
errors in pronunciation in most of the time that it occurred. During the students presentations the
teacher did not interrupt to correct, but when each student had finished his/her speech, the
teacher pointed out the words which were mispronounced, and asked the student to repeat after
him the correct pronunciation. According to Cooks (2013) explanation on Bowen and Marks
(1992) findings, the incidental pronunciation correction might not be as effective if done on a
single phoneme as if done on the role of the phoneme in the whole context. It still points out that
this practice might be positive in order to improve the pronunciation of words in isolation.
I also observed that the teacher was always making sure that the students understood any
new vocabulary that appeared during the class. For instance, the word variable came up and
the teacher asked the students if they knew its meaning, since the students did not know the
meaning the teacher wrote down the word and its meaning on the board.

When it comes to the metacognitive learning strategies, which according to Cook (2013,
p. 115) [] involve planning and thinking about learning [], I did not see any explicit
examples presented by the teacher during the class, but for the students presentations the teacher
gave some time in the classroom in order for them to rehearse with a classmate, before
presenting to the whole group. This could be seem as a learning strategy, since the students were
given time to prepare themselves to present their topics. As a strategy, students might have learnt
from this experience how important it is to rehearse before talking to a group of people. Also, the
teacher gave some hints on how to end a presentation and thank the public before leaving the
stage. Although these are not specific metacognitive learning strategies, I wanted to mention
them because I found it valuable for the students to learn and be prepared for situations that
might occur outside the classroom.
Considering the teachers explanations and modeling in the class that I observed, I would
say that it was very well done. The students were adults, and I would consider their language
level proficiency as intermediate, which is a positive point in order for the instructions to be
easily understood by the students. Also, the teacher spoke slowly and clearly with the students,
which was a very positive thing. Every activity as well as every question that the students had,
was explained clearly to the students. Questions regarding vocabulary were explained on the
board, as already mentioned before.
When it comes to assessment, I can say that it was mostly informal during the class, with
comments about the students performances. I believe that it could have been a little bit less
explicit since the teacher evaluated each student in front of the whole class, not giving them a
grade, but commenting and giving suggestions. As mentioned above, after each presentation the
teacher went over some pronunciation problems and gave special attention to details that should

be improved rather than the positive side of their work. The students seemed to be comfortable in
the classroom, and did not seem to have problems going to the front of the classroom to present
their work, but I believe that the evaluation should have been made individually and more
positive points should have been reinforced.
After the observation class, I would dare to say that the teacher believe in the value of
communication when learning a second language. The class was based on listening and speaking
activities, with special attention to pronunciation. During a small talk with the teacher, he
explained that the classes are based on different discussion topics, which are used to promote
conversation in the classroom. Also, he explained that different skills are emphasized during the
classes, such as the example of the students presentations aiming the development of the ability
of speaking in public.
In conclusion I would like to say that the class I observed and described above was good
overall. What I might have done differently is the way the students presentations happened. The
students could have had their time to present without being interrupted, but after that I would
have opened it to group discussion. I believe that the topics chosen by the students were very
interesting and extremely diverse, therefore it could have been used to promote conversations
and as a way to show appreciation of the different interests and cultures presented in the three
minutes by each student.

References
Brown, H. D. (2007). Teaching by principles; an interactive approach to language
pedagogy (3rd ed.). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.
Cook, V. (2013). Second language learning and teaching (4th ed.). New York, NY:
Hodder Education.