Student Practice - TEACHER TALK – STUDENT TALK

 TEACHER TALK – STUDENT TALK

Observation date: 15/02/2022

Today is a bit different. The English class was shorter than usual, but I observed some other classes such as math and another class which is about a teacher who has the experience of migration. The topic of my observation for today was challenging for me as well. I previewed the questions and instructions in the observation worksheet. However, I felt it was difficult for me to focus on both Ss and T. Also, it was hard to choose who to observe. I discussed with the mentor teacher about whom to observe, but I thought I did not make the best choice because the students behaved differently than usual. And I attempted to observe one more pair.

Students:

The first pair: I thought Pupil A is a prime example of a very active student; nonetheless, the person behaved abnormally somehow these days. The person was not very active today and was not fully concentrated, either. When asked to answer a question, the person was trying to find which question she was supposed to answer. She was addressed to answer questions once to twice in one class. She also actively answered questions many times. However, sometimes she shouted out the answer without raising her hand, but occasionally she raised her hand to wait for being called by T to answer questions. Briefly, she was distracted by her toys, though she was probably listening to T at the same time. Meanwhile, from time to time she looked around the classroom. The less active student, however, was relatively active. He was asked to answer questions once to twice as well. He also actively raised his hand to answer questions occasionally. He paid attention to T when T was talking to the whole group since he most of the time had eye contact with T, but he moved around a lot. The most impressive moment was that he went out for a bit long. Both of them behaved well in the respect of not talking with others.

The second pair: The active Pupil A1 was active and disciplined. He raised his hand to answer questions, and he was concentrated on the class. Nevertheless, the less active student B2 was not focused on the class but on her own world. She was not prepared for the class, either. She was quiet mostly. Both of them sat still.

The teacher:

T addressed Ss by name from time to time, especially when there were exercises to do. The teacher's voice sounded warm and engaging. To be honest, I forgot to pay attention to Ss because I was more focused on listening to T. When Ss answered questions, T sometimes corrected them if necessary. For example, they are not familiar with the past simple tense and prepositions.  T corrected them when they made mistakes. T also helped them to come to the correct answer as Ss did not get the correct answer soon. What is more, usually, T uses different technics in order to get students' attention. For instance, T may say "Listen!", call out the person who is not focused, count down, clap the hands and ring the bell on the teacher's desk. As for giving instructions, it all depends on the activities. Usually, it is short and brief, but Ss may have questions, which makes it longer. In terms of giving instructions, it depends on Ss talk. T usually correct errors which are severely made recently by Ss. T normally stress the correct word that should be used precisely in the sentence and give further explanation from time to time. T usually speaks with hands moving around, pointing to the material and eye contact with Ss, which is quite significant to grab Ss attention from my perspective.

In conclusion, Ss talk and T talk are important to be considered carefully. Here are something that I would like to consider for the future: I would address the sense of discipline more often if Ss have not formed it yet. For example, Ss must have the consent of T to go out in class. I would also consider another thing that would benefit the class - I would come in the classroom earlier to ask Ss to be ready for the class,  particularly when they have a lot of unnecessary things for the next class. And I will ask them to prepare the materials that are to be used as well. Also, when distributing materials, I will take the idea of asking students to help me to make it more efficiently and save a bit of time, and Ss may feel the sense of being united and helpful for each other seeing from another respect.