Master Teacher Observation Observer: Ezra Kwong Master Teacher & CEP Level: George Hicks Date: July

31, 2012 What I observed in class (Action) Six students attended class and the set up was quite different than what I've seen. Instead of desks, Ss sat at tables, three Ss per table. T used the chalkboard, rather than the projector, for writing. The teacher (T) began class with an explicit grammar lesson on present perfect tense. He drew a line on the board as follows: <-----------------------I------------------------> T gave a few examples of the use of the tense. One of his examples was "I have eaten" He discussed how "I have" changes into "I've" in connected speech. Although he didnt go into details about this point, I thought that it was really important that he brought up this point. T ensured that all Ss understood present perfect tense and moved on to another grammar point. ------------T began with another explicit grammar lesson: the use of 'must.' Part 1: T asks Ss if they have children. He then asks what they do with their children. T writes two sentences with 'must': "If you want to be healthy, you must exercise. "You exercise. You must be healthy." T asks one S "What did you do with your son last weekend?" S replies with "I took him to the movies" T responds, emphasizing the 'must': "Oh, you must be a good father?" ------What I thought (Reflection) Grammar Lesson: I thought that the first two explicit grammar lessons were very thorough and well structured; however, the explicit lessons were quite long, 25 minutes, and students were not given a chance to get out of their chairs to utilize the grammar points verbally, with each other. Further, Ss didn't seem very interested in the explicit instruction, although the lesson itself was very clear and informative. Listening exercise: I thought that the transition from a mysterious phone, to the Loch Ness monster, to the listening section on the Lock Ness monster was seamless and very easy for Ss to follow. I could tell that the T was experienced by the way he transitioned between activities and lessons to smoothly. This seamlessness allowed Ss to follow his explanations and directions easily without much confusion. A moment that did involve some confusion, however, was during the listening activity; I noticed that there was a lack of directions before the listening activity. T played the recording without providing Ss with instructions on what to do. Ss just listened and when the recording finished, T asked Ss for the answers. I think that the miscommunication here could have been easily avoided if T had provided adequate instruction beforehand. I think

 Part 2 of grammar lesson: Someone left a phone in the classroom and T uses it as an example for a grammar point. T says: "She must have left her phone in the classroom" This mystery phone leads into a discussion about the Loch Ness monster. At this point, T moves into a listening exercise. Listening Exercise: Part 1: T plays a recording about the Loch Ness monster from the Ss text book. Ss listen, but I noticed that T didn't give Ss directions. Following the recording, T asks Ss if they filled in the answers. None of the Ss filled in the answers because they didn't know they were supposed to do so. T plays the recording again and this time tells Ss to fill in the blanks in the text book. T goes over the answers to the listening section, enforcing the "must" from earlier in the lesson. One student says "I've been to Loch Ness" T says "what did you see" S says "I saw a statue" T says "It must have been sleeping" Ss laugh -------------Reading Exercise: T brings out two puppets, Sally and Chris, and gives the Sally puppet to a girl and the 'Chris' puppet to a boy. These Ss then read a dialogue from the book. Follow-up Reading exercise: In groups, Ss looked up vocabulary words from the text. T gave Ss about 10 minutes to look up

that T may have simply forgotten to give directions. Reading exercise: I thought that the puppet idea was really fun and creative. The students seemed to like holding up their puppets as they read and I think it gave them a sense of importance as they read. One thing that I think may be bad about the puppets is that it singles out students and doesn't really allow for group talk. Since there are only two puppets, only two students are able to speak at a time. Follow-up Vocabulary activity: Ss seemed comfortable with the vocabulary exercise and I thought that the activity was good because it resembled what Ss would do in the real world if they were reading a book. It was a rather simple exercise, but I think it was effective. Listening Comprehension: T played a film that he introduced as a mystery. I thought that it would have helped if T had Ss take notes on the film. I felt like the film's language was perhaps too advanced for Ss to understand. When the T stopped the film mid-way through and asked Ss if they understood what was happening, he quickly realized that nobody understood what was going on.] I thought that it was amazing how the teacher remained so calm. At this point it had been over 20 minutes, and T had to change things up completely. He moved from a discussion about mystery in films to a discussion about the next activity, presentations, and Ss seemed to clearly follow this transition.

vocabulary. After this, T went over vocabulary as a class by calling on Ss to define the terms.

Student Presentations: I thought that all of the Ss did a great job on their presentations. What I noticed, however, was that listeners Listening Comprehension: were not made accountable while Following the mystery theme, T shows the film presenters were speaking. Listeners "Stairway to Heaven" about Temple Grandin, a were not taking notes and they were not woman with autism. told that they needed to remember the I noticed that T didn't instruct Ss to take notes. information that the presenters were T simply asked them to listen to what was presenting. happening in the film. I thought that this lack of accountability After watching the film for about 20 minutes, T made Ss less interested in actually stopped it and asked Ss what they thought was listening to their peer's presentations. happening. T asked who can tell me whats What happened was that Ss seemed to happening? be getting bored while their peers were Nobody raised their hands and it was clear that presenting. Ss were not really understanding the story in the I think that listeners would have been film. more active if they had been given some instructions to take notes. T decided not to play the rest of the film and instead decided to change things up a bit. He Final Minutes of class: summarized the film then changed the focus of the lesson. He began talking about student I thought that it was really good how he presentations. went back to review the grammar point of the day. This reinforced the focus of ----the days lesson and I thought that it was a good way to end class. As with Student Presentation: Chikakos class, I think that it would have been good if hed closed with a Ss present research that they conducted about review of the evenings lesson. a film they watched. One student presented a paper to the class. Her Overall, I think Georges class was good. topic was the High Line in NYC. She gave a very I dont think it would be fare to say that good presentation with a lot of details and his class wasnt active enough because information. While Ss are giving their he is teaching adults, and most of them presentations, Ss listen. work all day and by the time they get to class, they are tired. Initially, only one student was asked to present, Still, however, I would have liked to see but the teacher later asked that all students at least some interactive activities present again for those students who were involving Ss getting out of their chairs. absent. In this observation, Ss never left their chairs and with the fact that most Ss Final 10 minutes: seemed exhausted, I think that activities T goes back to what he had wrote on the board involving Ss standing and talking to

in the beginning of class: the present perfect tense. Once more, he reviews, in the form of a mini lesson, what had been addressed in the beginning of class. He spends the final minutes writing down the homework.

each other would have helped a lot.