Observation report-1

Observation Report 1
Intermediate Reading and Composition
David Atterberry
01/19/12
There were 16 students in class on the day I observed. The class took place in Kolthoff
139. Class started by the students exchanging their homework journal writings. They
were instructed to read and respond to their partner’s journal entry. The students wrote
independently for about ten minutes before the students exchanged journals again and
read the response their partner wrote to them. After a couple minutes to read the
responses, the teacher asked the whole class if anyone said anything funny or
surprising. The teacher called on individual students to talk about what they read briefly.
I thought this activity was a good way to get the creative juices flowing in class. While
the topic of the journal writing was personal (what did you do last weekend?), the writing
seemed to serve as a way for students to practice producing written work while not
being afraid of making mistakes (as the journals were not “corrected” but discussed). I
could see the journal exchanging being good for class rapport as well because it
allowed students to interact with classmates in a casual, personal way. Even as a native
speaker, I found free-writing/journal writing tasks in my English classes to be beneficial,
if only to “clear my creative spring” as one of my professors once put it.
After the journal activity, students were put into four groups to go over their homework
assignment. The teacher numbered the students off to put them in groups. I found this
method of grouping to be quick and effective, although I would vary the way I made
groups over the semester to ensure a variety of groupings. The students were asked to
compare their answers to the homework and come up with a consensus for each
question. The homework questions were about a reading in their textbook about
advertising. Students were also asked to justify their answers based on the reading.
While listening in on the group discussions, I noticed they were doing a great job
defending their answer choices by using the text. After about 8 minutes of group
discussions, the class came together and the teacher gave each group four cards
labeled A-D to denote each of the possible answers to each question. The teacher then
asked each group to hold up the letter of their answer to each question. If the group was
correct, they received a point (written on the board). For each question the class
discussed why they chose the answer they did, whether it was correct or not. This
discussion seemed to lead to a closer analysis of the text they had read in their books.
The students seemed to enjoy the homework correction game; it seemed like a fun way
to examine the students’ work, and the activity lead to some good discussion of the text
and vocabulary.
Later in the lesson, students were shown a series of commercials via Youtube that
corresponded with ads they read about in their textbook. After each commercial, the
class would discuss why the ad would be successful or unsuccessful and where they
thought the ad was shown. They were making some great connections between culture
and advertising. The students were shown three different McDonald’s ads from three
different countries and asked to write in their journals for a couple minutes about what

each ad was saying (the message) and which ad would or wouldn’t work in their native
country. The discussion that followed was interesting to watch because most students
agreed on which ads would work in their own countries, but there were some
dissenters. I thought the activity presented the text that the students had been reading
in a different way that engaged different senses in an authentic way. The students were
able to make connections between culture and advertising by connecting what they had
read in their textbooks to the actual advertisements.
The last activity the class did that day was related to academic dishonesty at the
university. Since the students had been talking about their own cultures related to
advertising, the discussion progressed quite easily into talking about what is acceptable
or unacceptable in their cultures as far as academic dishonesty. The students were
presented with a “quiz” with various scenarios of cheating and plagiarism. They were
asked to read each scenario and talk about whether it is acceptable or unacceptable in
their own culture and whether they think it is acceptable or unacceptable in American
academic culture. They were also asked to state consequences if they thought
something was unacceptable. After discussing in their groups (the same four groups as
the homework game) the whole class went through the answers according to what is
acceptable in American academic culture. I thought this was a good way to present the
university’s policies on academic dishonesty because it engaged students in a way that
they could relate to (their own cultural policies). The activity also seemed to reinforce
the idea that each student’s culture is valued in the class, which seemed like an
important idea to foster at the beginning of the semester.
Overall, the class seemed student-centered and the teacher acted mainly as a facilitator
of discussion among the students. The students had a lot of time to express themselves
verbally and in writing. The teacher employed a variety of techniques when calling on
students for answers in class ranging from calling on individuals by name to calling on
small groups as a whole to asking the whole class in general. With all these methods,
the students seemed engaged in the activities and materials, and it felt like the class
flowed well. There weren’t many “awkward” silences or uncomfortable moments. The
class activities varied from individual work to small group work to whole class work. I
think having a variety of activities allowed a majority of students to participate at a level
they feel comfortable. The small group activities also seemed to act to facilitate building
relationships among students within the class. The class was at the beginning of the
semester, so I think it was beneficial to foster those relationships early to build rapport
and cohesion among the students in preparation for the rest of the semester.

Intermediate Oral Skills
Laurie Frazier
04/02/12
I observed Laurie Frazier’s ESL 230 (Intermediate Oral Skills) class from 2:30-4:25pm
in Kolthoff 140. The class had eleven students from around the world. The majority of
students were from China, but there were a couple Arab students and one Spanishspeaking student. The classroom itself was right next to a fire pump room, and it got
quite noisy sometimes. The noise did not seem to affect instruction while I was
observing, but I could see how outside noises could be distracting for a class, especially
an oral skills class where listening and speaking is the focus.
The teacher started class by writing the day’s tasks on the board. I could see how telling
students what the plan is for the class could be helpful. The teacher can reference the
list and try to stay on pace with completing the lesson as planned, and the students can
reference the list and know what to anticipate during the lesson. Allowing students to
see the tasks for the class before class starts could help them feel involved in the
progression of the classroom activities. By being transparent with students about the
lesson plan, students can potentially more actively engage with the lesson. After writing
the tasks on the board, the teacher asked the students about their weekend. She asked,
“How many students spoke English over the weekend?” The class then talked about
their weekends and who they spoke English with. Some of the students said they talked
to sales people while shopping and another student said he talked to his American
roommate. He said his roommate was complaining about school, which lead the class
to discuss making small talk with people. This discussion transitioned well into the next
fluency activity. I think spending time asking students about their weekends and how
they used English outside of class engages students in a personal way. The discussion
allows students to share their experiences with each other, and it allows the teacher to
gauge which students are using English outside of class. The discussion also allowed
the class to talk about casual speech in every day settings like the mall or at home. By
relating the students’ experiences to speaking English, students may be able to feel like
all their experiences are valued in their English learning, even if they are outside the
classroom.
The students then participated in a fluency activity where they stood in two lines at the
front of the room. The lines faced each other, and the students were asked to talk about
their listening homework assignment. The students were assigned to listen to a news
report online. The students were labeled A and B, then partner A was asked to tell
partner B about their assignment. Partner B was supposed to ask partner A follow-up
questions to obtain more information. The student roles were clearly defined, and it was
apparent that students had done this activity in previous classes. Before students began
speaking, the teacher asked the class how they can be good listeners and examples of
questions they could ask their partner to get more information. The example questions

were written on the board, so students could reference them during the activity if they
got stuck. The class also talked about how they can use nonverbal cues to show they
are listening and engaged in the conversation. The teacher started a stop watch with
two minutes on it and the students began speaking with each other. After the stop watch
went off, the teacher asked partner A to politely end the conversation. The teacher then
asked the groups to tell the class what their partner told them about their assignment.
The students switched roles, and the activity was repeated. After the two short
conversations, each student was called on by name to tell the class about their partner’s
listening assignment. During this activity it became obvious that some students did not
fully understand what their partners were telling them (as they could not explain to the
whole class what their partner told them). This lead the class to discuss ways that they
can clarify if they do not understand what someone has said to them.
I think this activity was effective in a couple ways. First, the discussion allowed the
teacher to check that students had done their listening assignment. In addition to
checking completion, the activity allowed students to share their experiences and which
resources they used to complete the assignment (BBC.com, TED talks, ESL Lab, VOA
news, etc). The partner activity seems to promote free speaking in class and allows
students to speak with minimal apprehensions about making mistakes. It seemed like
the students were really engaged in the discussions and had few apprehensions about
speaking freely with their partners. After this observation, I employed a similar activity in
my grammar class as a warm-up where students stood in two lines and were given
incomplete questions. The students had to complete the questions by changing the
given verbs into the present perfect tense. Then students asked their partner the
question and they discussed. The questions were mostly, “Have you ever…” questions,
so they were of a somewhat personal nature, asking students to speak about their own
experiences. Just as in the oral skills class activity, my students seemed very engaged
in the discussion and seemed to enjoy the activity over all. I liked how the teacher
incorporated cultural aspects of making small talk and ending conversations politely in
the activity. I feel like these elements could be incorporated in conversation activities in
other skills classes as well, which would reinforce learning across all the students’
classes. This type of activity also has the potential to reinforce grammar points. In the
class I observed, the topic of quantifiers and count/non-count nouns came up.
The students also did some book work during the class I observed. They used the
textbook Northstar 3: Listening and Speaking. Students were working on Unit 6 on the
previous Friday, so they spent some time recalling what they had been talking about.
They reviewed the vocabulary by writing the words on the board and defining them as a
whole class. During the vocabulary review, students were then put in groups by
counting off, and they took turns repeating the vocabulary words to practice
pronunciation. The activity was teacher-lead, and the teacher talked about the
connections (or lack of connections) between spelling and pronunciation with /sh/. They
also talked about where your tongue should be placed during /r/ production and linking
sounds in words like “wore on.” I thought it was a good way to target student mistakes in
pronunciation while still focusing on the new vocabulary. This activity made me think
about how little we focus on pronunciation in grammar. Oral Skills is probably the more

appropriate place to target pronunciation problems, but it seems like something that
could be touched upon in grammar as well. Our textbook has one pronunciation activity
per unit, but we often skip them and just address obvious pronunciation mistakes in a
less formal way, by correcting students when they make mistakes and sometimes
having them repeat the correct pronunciation.
The students spent some more time defining the new vocabulary with their groups
before the groups got into the reading and listening activity. The teacher asked students
about what they had listened to for homework (a Jackie Torrence story) and they also
made predictions about what would come next in the story. The class then listened to
the story together and was asked to answer the main idea questions in their textbook
with their group. The students were encouraged to say things like, “I didn’t catch that,” if
they did not hear or understand the answer to one of the questions. The story recording
was told by a woman with a southern accent, and it made me wonder if a lot of the
readings have various accents, and how much time is spent considering different
accents in the oral skills class. Laurie said that from her experience a lot of ESL
listening activities include audio that is stilted and inauthentic, and the audio I heard
during my observation was an exception. She also said the textbook they are using has
included various accents in some of the audio, but they typically focus on the standard
American English accent. I think it is increasingly important to expose students to
various accents and dialects of English. With the world becoming smaller and smaller,
and the English-speaking population becoming more and more diverse, it seems logical
that we should prepare our students to be able to interact with many accents and
dialects.

Integrated Skills for Academic English
Alyssa Ruesch
04/19/12
For my third observation I sat in on the ESL 3001 class taught by Alyssa Ruesch. I
chose this class because it is serving a population of students that are already in the
university, and the class has a different focus than the lower level skills classes I have
observed/taught in MELP. The 2 credit class meets twice a week for seven weeks
during the semester. The class is made up of 15 international students from various
countries. According to Alyssa, most of the students are third or fourth year
undergraduate students at the university, which is different than most other semesters
this class is offered. Alyssa said the class is designed for first or second year students
and it focuses on introducing students to life at an American university. The class uses
Academic Interactions as a textbook, but they have abandoned it because it is not
applicable to the older, more experienced students. I found this interesting because it is
a real-life example of how flexible teachers need to be when designing a curriculum.
Ideally, students would choose to enroll in a class that fits their needs, but it would seem
that is not always the case. To adapt to the students’ needs, Alyssa and the co-teacher
Kate have started using Power Point presentations based on topics that the students

are interested in. The students in the class had said they were interested in practicing
pronunciation and writing for the remaining weeks of class.
To start the class, the teacher wrote the agenda for the day on the board. Like in my
second observation, I found this technique to be a helpful way to engage students in the
daily operations of the class. The first task of the day was to debrief about the
presentations they had done the previous class period. The presentations had been
about various services offered on campus. The teacher asked the whole class what
they had learned from their classmates’ presentations. Students seemed eager to offer
their opinions and speak up when asked as a whole group. The class also discussed
what the groups did well, and what they still need to work on. The students were pretty
open and honest about their own performance and concerns about presenting. I thought
this follow-up discussion to the presentations was beneficial for students because they
had a chance to discuss their apprehensions related to presenting and the teacher was
able to reinforce that those feelings are normal, even for native speakers. The follow-up
discussion also allowed the students to be engaged in the whole presentation process,
from planning to presenting to reflection. During this discussion a student asked about
presenting, “What should we do when someone asks a question and we don’t know the
answer?” This question allowed the discussion to go into the cultural aspects of
presenting. The class talked about how it is perfectly acceptable for you to say you do
not know the answer to a question in that situation. I think this discussion is beneficial to
students because they will undoubtedly face this situation during their time at the
university.
After reflecting on their presentations from the previous class period, the class started
talking about using citations in their writing. They had started talking about using in-text
citations during the previous class period as well. The students said they were talking
about summarizing, paraphrasing, and making direct quotations. The teacher then
elicited the meanings of these ideas from the students. I really liked how after the
teacher asked what these terms meant and no one answered right away, she did not
immediately provide the answers. The teacher encouraged students to give ideas and
she did not provide additional explanation until someone offered their thoughts. I think
this technique works on a couple different levels. First, by refusing to just give answers
to the students, they will get used to offering their thoughts and be forced to interact and
engage with the content. Offering opinions and thoughts in a class discussion is a
necessary skill for students to have at the university level, and by expecting students to
participate in discussion models what students will experience in their other classes.
Eliciting ideas from students also serves to foster critical thinking and recalling prior
knowledge. It forces students to interact in their target language and participate in the
discourse. Overall, I found the student-teacher interactions in the classroom very
student-centered and teacher-facilitated. The teacher was clearly at the head of the
class, but it was also clear that every student’s opinions and ideas were valued parts of
the classroom dynamic.
The rest of the lesson was about paraphrasing in academic writing. The teacher used a
Power Point presentation to present the “chunking method” of paraphrasing. In this

method, a sentence is read for understanding, divided into “chunks” or thought groups,
explained in different words, and then the chunks were recombined into a new
sentence. As a native speaker, I found this method helpful, and I wish I had this
instruction during my undergraduate studies. After presenting the method, students read
an example passage on the overhead screen and were asked to break it into chunks,
reword the chunks, and put them together in a new sentence. They also talked about
putting an in-text citation at the end of the passage in parenthesis or at the beginning
within the passage. During this activity and discussion one student raised a good point
about relating the passage you are paraphrasing to the context of the whole passage it
comes from. It was interesting watching a high level ESL class of learners because they
were willing to raise issues like the connection between their paraphrased passage and
the larger context. I think this could be challenging for a teacher who is not prepared for
the discussion, but it also presents a very dynamic classroom where the discussion can
be directed to suit the needs of the students.
The last activity the students did related to paraphrasing included their homework
assignment from the previous class. The students were assigned to read an article
about using English in business. The activity in class asked the students to choose a
passage from their homework article and paraphrase it using the “chunking method.”
Students worked independently in Microsoft Word, and the teacher monitored their work
via the teacher computer’s remote desktop feature. This feature allowed the teacher to
monitor each student computer from one place in the room. It also allowed the teacher
to share a student desktop with the rest of the class. When students had finished
paraphrasing their passage, the teacher asked for some volunteers to share their
paraphrasing via the remote desktop. The class then discussed what was done well and
what could be done to improve the paraphrase. This activity also proved to be a good
time to address grammatical and lexical choices in the student paraphrased passages.
I think the biggest thing I took away from observing this class is the importance of
suiting student needs and how beneficial student-centered teaching can be to creating a
friendly, enthusiastic atmosphere for learners. By tailoring the content and materials
used in class to meet student needs, the students are more likely to benefit from the
course, and the teacher will probably enjoy the classroom interactions more than if
students were not learning anything new. That being said, it raises a question of
definition for me. How much should a teacher change their course content to suit
student needs if it means completely reevaluating the entire curriculum? I think the
choice to abandon the textbook and pursue topics that are more pertinent to the
students’ lives in this case was the right choice because, from what I could tell, all of the
students would benefit from it. They were all at about the same level of experience, and
the change would suit all of them. What happens if the class is less homogeneous when
it comes to learning levels? I think there has to be a balance between being flexible and
meeting student needs and maintaining a planned curriculum in the case of mixed-level
classes. Perhaps in most cases it would not be appropriate to completely change the
syllabus, but smaller actions could be taken within the planned curriculum to help better
suit student needs.

Observation report-1

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