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2013

Observation 2
ESP
Institution: Facultad de Medicina, UNC, Crdoba. Class: Mdulo de Idiomas. Number of Students: 25 (approx.) Age: 20 years old (approx.). Teacher: Mariana Emma y Gottero. Material used: Handout. Date: May 9th. Timetable: from 2 to 4 pm (2 hours).

Judith E. Alaluf Observacin y Prctica II 24/05/2013

Observacin y Prctica II Judith Observation 2 Alaluf

DESCRIPTIVE NARRATIVE This observation was performed in the School of Medicine. The classroom was big enough for students to work comfortably. The class started with a re-reading of a text about the different functions of the liver. After this, the teacher checked homework. There were two activities to be corrected: one, related to finding anaphoric references in a text in order to identify cohesive elements; and the second one had to do with recycling vocabulary. As most of the students had not done the homework, the teacher asked them to do it in a few minutes in the class. While students actively worked on this, the teacher walked around the classroom talking to students in a friendly tone and clearing doubts. Individual students were asked to read their answers aloud so as to check the exercises (The teacher called students by their names). The teacher interrupted the progression of the activities to focus students attention on specific elements when there appeared a grammatical structure or a vocabulary item in the text that could represent a potential comprehension problem in the future. For example, she explained the difference among its, it and its. Next, students continued working on the guide they started the previous class. This time, the activity was about connectors and the different relationships built between ideas. This exercise was carried out in pairs and checked as whole class. Students were quite involved in the completion of this task. They worked on it aided by pocket dictionaries. Teacher advised not to translate literally when trying to understand the ideas in a fragment of text. Again, after checking this activity, the teacher mentioned some problematic aspects of specific connectors such as the dual-meaning of as or since. She recommended students to rely on the context to better differentiate the meanings of these discourse markers. There was a heated debate in the middle of the vocabulary checking of one activity from the guide. The teacher asked students how they usually refer to a specific term but students could not make up their minds on this matter. In the end, they decided to do some online research for next class and move on with the following exercises. I think it is important to highlight that, every time students checked vocabulary comprehension, the teacher asked them to include those words in their gloss for them to study for the sooncoming test. Finally, students began working with a new guide. The teacher activated schemata focusing on possible vocabulary items there may appear according to the title of the text. Then, students carried out a pre-reading activity: they had to write true or false next to some statements about the text according to students background knowledge. Then, they had to read the text and check if the answers given were right. REFLECTION

Observacin y Prctica II Judith Observation 2 Alaluf

From my point of view, this class was very useful for my understanding of ESP teaching. I think the overall aim of the course is to facilitate reading of target text and help students elaborate and develop reading skills to enhance the understanding of foreign texts. In order to attain this goal, it is necessary to implement a gradual process that involves several steps. In this class, the activities done grew in complexity in a sequential manner. This structuring of exercises was beneficial for students to get more involved with the tasks and comprehend better the more difficult ones. I noticed that at the beginning of the class, students were asked to relate the topic of the text with some of the subjects from their curricula; they associated it to Chemistry. I considered this integration of subjects was a useful strategy to place them in the corresponding context and to motivate their reading due to the familiarity with the subject matter. Then, the re-reading of the text in the guide and the checking of homework were essential for reviewing vocabulary and clarifying doubts. These activities also functioned as warming-up exercises for the topics to be dealt with in the class. The teacher acted as a guide trying to elicit as much vocabulary from students as possible. She also asked students to recognize by themselves which pieces of vocabulary were important to learn. This was a good technique for students to pay attention to specific terms that may hinder comprehension in a text. As regards the brief grammar explanations given, I observed they were very useful since they were not extensive but concrete and functional clarifications of certain language aspects. Besides, the inclusion of activities in the guide to identify connectors was extremely helpful for students to recognize the logical relationships of the text and better comprehend its ideas. The final activity, reading the statements and deciding if they were true or false before reading the text, was a great prediction technique that helped learners in two ways: It allowed them to know what to expect from the text, thus, it further prepared them for a more active reading. Moreover, it served as an activator of content schemata. I underlined from this class the use of this predicting activity because it helped students improve their reading skills since they developed more strategies and had more resources at hand before plunging into the text itself. I have learnt from this observation task that the teacher must be able to guide students in their reading activities providing them with the strategies that help them get the gist of the text and grasp the main concepts exposed rather than the literal words. In order to do this, those brief and accurate grammar explanations given by the teacher may become very helpful since they aim at raising students awareness on the grammar aspects they need to know when approaching a text without distracting them with too much

Observacin y Prctica II Judith Observation 2 Alaluf

metalanguage. Last but not least, I perceived a very friendly and relaxed atmosphere in this class. It is very important to build a good relationship with the group of learners so as to ease the teaching process and keep them interested. The teacher resorted to humor in order to set this atmosphere and I believe students felt comfortable working in this way and participated a great deal.

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