Observation report n2

This observation was carried out at a private institute, the group was children 2
and the students were between nine and eleven years old. The class lasted one hour and a
half and there were six students in the group. In this report, I am going to analyse and
reflect upon the teachers language, pedagogy and classroom management and finish with
my own personal reflection of the lesson observed.
To begin with, the teacher mostly used the L2 during the lesson and expected her
students to use it as much as they could too. When explaining or describing, she often
spoke slowly stressing some words where appropriate for the sake of clarity and
understanding. She provided instructions using simple language, key words, familiar
commands and repetition, for example in Listen, Lets go to the playground Were
going to play hangman etc. She checked learners understood instructions and explanations
by making someone repeat the task. In the first activity done, which was a dictation, the
teacher resorted to L1 to tell students not to stop her while dictating the text. When playing
hangman, which was the second activity and was carried out in the playground, the teacher
encouraged students to participate and not to be afraid if they did not remember a letter of
the alphabet. In the following activity that was a guessing activity, students had to ask Is it
a cat/horse/dog? and guess what their classmate was thinking about. The teacher elicited
questions from all students in order to participate.
Regarding the teachers pedagogy, the activities designed matched the students age
and their level. Tasks were varied and involved different skills (listening, speaking and
writing). Besides, students used their bodies when playing at the playground, which broke
the monotony of being all the time in the classroom. Once an activity finished, the teacher
provided feedback. Verbal praise like Excellent and very good was directed almost in
all activities and to each student. Mistakes were checked when students did not know a
word (vocabulary related to animals mainly) and if they did not remember the letters in
order to spell the words. For example, one boy wrote monky instead of monkey so the
teacher asked the whole class if the word was well written and as students answered no,
she asked them to spell the word correctly. In the last activity which was done in the
classroom and were some grammar exercises, the teacher monitored students and helped

them if they had doubts. For example, one of the exercises consisted in arranging the words
in order to make a sentence, and some students had some doubts with word order in
questions and teacher helped them.
Lastly, she maintained discipline by reminding students to be quiet when they were
noisy or off task, or if they got distracted in the playground. In general, it was not necessary
because all students behaved quite well, they were not as noisy as I expected for example,
and the normal development of the lesson was not affected by their talking. Students sat in
horseshoe, in big tables, and that organization allowed the teacher to stand at the front and
have a clear view of the whole class. The classroom atmosphere was relaxed and warm for
students seemed to be working relaxed and comfortably.
As regards my learning outcome, I could see that teachers need to be patience and
quite organized when working with children. Having a good and varied repertoire of
activities is key in order to maintain students on task and prevent them from being bored.
Timing is also essential since some activities like games for example should not take too
much time so that students do not get too excited. I also believe that correcting mistakes is a
key area since students learn quite easily and fast, and we as teachers need to pay attention
to how we deal with mistakes. Activities should also present a challenge for the kids so that
they feel proud of their own work. I believe working with children is a real challenge.
Beln Tolaba