2013

Observation 1
ESP
Institution: Facultad de Arquitectura, UNC, Crdoba. Class: Mdulo de Idiomas. Number of Students: 30 (approx.) Age: 20 years old (approx.). Teacher: Stefania Tomasini. Material used: Handout. Date: May 3th. Timetable: from 8 to 10 am (2 hours).

Judith Alaluf Observacin y Prctica II 10/05/2013

Observacin y Prctica II Judith Observation 1 Alaluf

DESCRIPTIVE NARRATIVE SECTION In the class observed, students worked on different areas of the language. They performed activities related to vocabulary, grammar and developed reading-comprehension strategies. The teacher started by recycling vocabulary from a text dealt with in the previous class. She used L1 and she relied mainly on the technique of asking questions in order to infer ideas from students and to make the class progress. At the beginning, students reviewed vocabulary and content from a text about a mausoleum so as to activate prior knowledge. Then, the teacher checked homework. However, as very few students had accomplished the task at home, the teacher gave some time for students to do the homework in class. When students were more involved with the task, the teacher asked several questions about the main ideas and content in the text. She drew students attention towards some reading strategies before approaching a text such as predicting information from titles, getting information from the pictures and captions, in other words, the teacher showed learners how to develop some previewing skills. After this, the teacher introduced some grammar points by writing some phrases and sentences on the board and analyzing them together with the students; trying to make them infer meaning. The focus was on nominal phrases that contained several modifiers and also the Simple Past of some regular and irregular verbs that appeared in the guide students worked with. The students could draw some conclusions as regards grammar tenses because of the teachers guide. The fact that she used colours when writing on the blackboard called my attention. This may prove to be useful when facing a big audience where some students might be visual learners. She resorted to an inductive approach to present the past form of regular verbs and a deductive approach for presenting the past form of irregular verbs. The teacher asked individual students to read both their answers and some fragments of the text in English. She explained the following tasks and commented on the purposes of including those types of activities for students to be aware of their expected performance, I believe. For example, dictionary work was carried out so as to be able to recognize more items of vocabulary. Finally, students were presented with some connectors focusing on meaning and the type of ideas they may link. Then, students practiced from a text where they had to read and identify the main ideas and tell her what was the text about. Afterwards, the teacher gave some more homework and the class was dismissed.

Observacin y Prctica II Judith Observation 1 Alaluf

REFLECTION Taking into consideration the development of this class, I can conclude that, in ESP classes you have to work with several areas of the language simultaneously and the teacher has to fulfill many different roles. I found the class very interesting due to the degree of expertise both the students and the teacher handled. The teacher could smoothly unfold the class from simple to more complex activities. Students were rather engaged but sometimes they seemed to lose interest on some of the activities. I think the time of the day and the day of the week when the class is taught may be an influential factor in this respect. I personally found out that teachers do not have to be afraid of losing face in front of the students due to lack of some specific knowledge. For instance, when doing vocabulary exercises, the teacher and students negotiated meanings when they had doubts. I liked this collaborative type of learning. I also discovered that, as we studied in class when reading about course design, the teacher implemented a skills-centred approach. She tried not to focus on language itself but she put emphasis on the development of the skills and strategies the students need in order to enhance understanding and improve performance. Let us take a reading comprehension activity as an illustration of this where the teacher acted as a scaffold, in Bruners terms. She mainly guided students and assisted them in the learning process. She attempted to make students think and deduce meaning from context and by using every strategy or resource available for them (pictures, subtitles, captions, etc.). Another example would be working with dictionaries. Students worked alone and the teacher was there monitoring and clearing doubts. For me, that was a fundamental discovery in my learning outcome because I realized that the key is to provide students with the necessary tools to reach their learning goals. That is to say, we have to help them build strategies and elements for them to recognize and assimilate language on their own. Besides, I learnt that there is no need to concentrate on grammatical structures in ESP classes. The teacher managed to present an important grammar point -as it is the Past Simple of regular and irregular verbs- by means of brief explanations and a few examples. All in all, I consider having observed this class was fruitful. I can take profit from some of the resources and techniques utilized by the teacher. And I have a broader picture about the nature of activities done in an ESP context and how they are carried out.