Class Observation 2

Saturday September 10th 2016

Second Saturday was my turn to start the class and perform the Encounter and Clarify stages. I had a week to prepare myself. I was not nervous but I tried to do my best in think which activities could work better. I studied the topic and the possible questions they might ask. In addition, I prepared even a plan b and a plan c just in case. I teach in the mornings and I have experienced that sometimes you have planned something but your students do not understand or they easily get bored. That is why I was more than ready to show my mentor that I can control a group of teenagers that they are observing every single move or mistake that you might commite. The unt was 5: In the workplace.

Warm-Up

I started the class but my dear students had a mess in the classroom. As a teacher i had to take the control of the class and I asked them to sit down a put everything away because we needed to start with the class. They did it and I felt ready to start my first activity. I divided in two groups, boys versus girls. I asked them to write on the board as many jobs as possible, I only gave them 1 minute to complete the task. When they finished, we checked together the spelling and we decided that the girls had won because they only had one mistake.

Encounter

I used the same two groups to complete the following task. I gave them 5 unscramble words

to each group, they were related to jobs. In their groups they needed to guess and write it on the board. Some of them could not guess, but I asked them to pasted on the board the words they could not guess. We checked the spelling and the meaning at the same time. The following list shows the answers to the activity:

• Accountant
• Artist
• Actor
• Chef
• Lifeguard
• Nurse
• Teacher
• Flight attendant
• Professor
• Salesclerk

Clarify

By using the same jobs, I asked my students to write on their notebooks what was the

workplace of each job. For example: Doctor-----Hospital. While they were thinking, some of them asked me what was the difference between teacher-professor. I replied the answer but not for the ones who asked me but for the whole class. I explained them that a teacher is the person who works at the schools and a professor is the one who works at the University. However, we always say teacher to our professors, but I explained them that it was part of our beautiful culture. They agreed and finished the task. I let that the group of boys could share their answers with the girls. They did it well organized. One of each group helped me to write on the board the respective workplace.

They did a great job, I just provided them with two workplaces they did not know: a movie set and a studio. I thank them because they behaved well and I asked to my mentor to continue with her activities.

Remember

I did not know how my mentor could continue with this stage. She has more experience and

I thought that my activities were useless compared with hers. She asked them to make a circle and mimic the job while the other tried to guess. I do not know if she thought in that activity at the moment or if she had planned before. But it totally worked.

Listening Activities

Gist

The teacher asked what the conversation was about?

• Is it a job interview? Yes - no  why?
• How many people are talking?
• Are they friends?

Students listened to the audio twice because they checked their answers with a partner. The activities were happening so fast because that day the students had to perform after the break.

Outline

Students opened their books and they had to described some pictures what were they doing. After that, they wrote the correct order of the events. I was impressed because these students understood everything so fast. There was no need to play the audio one more time.

Details

The teacher wrote on the board the following questions:

• Why does Sally have to shake hands with visitors? __
• Why isn’t it necessary to use the fax? __
• What time is Sally’s lunch? __
• Will Brad wash the fruits? __
• Who is in charge of taking the money? __
• What time does he finish? __

She asked again one by one to her students only to check if they had written the questions. I loved this technique, because you are forcing to your students to pay attention of what you are writing. They listened to the audio one more time and they could complete the task.

Post

Students opened their books and they had to discuss the several questions written on it in pairs. The questions were clear, some general and others were specific. They did not have troubles in answer them.

Unit 5: Unusual Jobs

This was the last part of the unit and it was covered as a PDP lesson.

Pre-Listening

Students saw four differents unusual jobs in their books:

• Dolphin trainer
• Video-game tester
• Lumberjack
• Movie extra

In order to remember these new words, the teacher asked them to make pairs and play the hanged man. They had to spell in English and use only the 4 unusual jobs previously taught.

Gist

Students listened to an audio only once and they tried to guess if the people in the conversation were happy, sad or just normal. They immediately inferred the answer.

Outline

One more time students had to order the events in the conversation. These were the

sentences:

• So, it’s all fun? ___
• So what do you enjoy? __
• Is there anything you do not enjoy?__
• What are the best things about it? __
• What do extras have to do? __
• So what do you enjoy the most?__

They completed and the teacher gave them a worksheet for the last activity, they were getting anxious because it was almost time to perform their oral presentation.

Details

Students listened to an audio one more time but this time they had to complete a more complex task. The audio was about unusual jobs that some people had and what were the pros and the cons about their jobs. On the worksheet, they had the answers but they needed to complete a chart with that information.

Oral Presentation

After the break, the students were ready to have their oral presentation. I was assigned to go to each classroom and invite every group to participate with them. In order to do that, they had a specific schedule. The topic of the oral presentation was “Museum of Living Wax”. the instructions were clear, if you wanted to listened the presentation, you had to touch their shoulders.

Conclusion

I really enjoy the experience of this saturday, it was full of activities. I loved being in front of the class and experience a real class. I learned that your hard work will be reflected on your students’ performance because the way you teach them is the way they speak in front of others. I would apply all the activities I can in the future, because they are perfect to teach English.