University of Banja Luka Faculty of Philology Department of English language and Literature

Class Observations

Table of Contents
Introduction1

Teaching vocabulary...1 Teaching grammar..3 Teaching speaking..3 Motivation and discipline...4 Conclusion.5 References.6

Introduction

There are many key points that need to be considered during a class observation. We need to focus on the teaching methods, overall class organization, clarity of explanations, student participation / attentiveness, student comprehension and enthusiasm. I observed six classes in elementary school Petar Petrovi Njego in Tesli and four classes in high school, two of which I observed in the school Nikola Tesla and the other two in the school Jovan Dui, both of which are in Tesli. In the elementary school I observed two classes in the sixth grade, two classes in the seventh grade, one class in the eighth grade and one class in the ninth grade. In high school I observed one class in the electrician school, two classes in the school of economics and one class in the school for catering and hotel management. This paper will cover three teaching methods which I observed and compared in different grades. I will focus on teaching vocabulary, teaching grammar and teaching speaking. Later on, I will elaborate the differences between different approaches to teaching, different grades and also different schools. Finally, in the last part of the paper I will focus on certain problems which I noticed during the classes.

Teaching vocabulary

In the sixth and ninth grade of elementary school teachers were focusing on vocabulary. In the sixth grade the teacher started the class with a warm up exercise. She asked questions about things from the classroom. For example she asked what is this, pointing towards the window, and the students were guessing the names of the classroom equipment and furniture. The student who answered correctly had to write the word on the blackboard so other students can copy the word down in their notebooks and learn how it is spelled. Later on they were doing an exercise in their books. They had to use their skills of listening and comprehension to fill in the gaps in the sentences. The teacher called out some students to read out loud their answers. She focused on pronunciation and corrected them whenever they made a mistake. Then the teacher explained that they are going to learn the days of the week, both the correct spelling and pronunciation. First the teacher wrote the days of the week on the blackboard,

and slowly pronounced them. Then the whole class together repeated after her and then in turns they pronounced the days one by one. After this the teacher divided them into five groups, and each group got a set of seven flashcards with the days of the week written on them. She asked questions such as: Today is, and the students showed a card with Monday written on it. The group with the highest rate of correct answers got a prize. I liked her explanations before every activity, she was talking slowly and using hand gestures to draw and maintain attention. The students were asking questions if they did not understand the purpose of the exercise. While the teacher in the ninth and the eighth grade did not give any explanations before moving on to the next exercise. She would just say open your books, for example, on page 34 and do the exercise number 3. When the students were checking their answers it was obvious that they did not understand the exercise many of them were just guessing randomly certain grammatical and vocabulary elements. What I did not like was that the teacher from the sixth grade did not provide a definition when learning new words related to classroom equipment and furniture. She could have put the words into context, or write down the definition like the teacher in the ninth grade have done. The teacher in the ninth grade asked for explanations about certain words. For example, she said:Tell me something about the word raven, is it a bird or a flower? Then the students would give a simple explanation in their own terms, and the teacher would write on the blackboard the definition from the book. In this way the teacher from the ninth grade could examine students understanding of the words unlike the teacher from the sixth grade who only provided the translation. Nevertheless, the two classes in primary schools were quite similar. Vocabulary teaching was based on memorizing and translating new words as well as doing listening exercises and filling the gaps. However, students in high school were independently learning vocabulary. They had to read the new lecture individually and find and underline the unfamiliar words and write down the translation in their notebooks using dictionaries. They also did exercises from the book on their own. There was much less teacher-student interaction as well as student-student interaction than in primary school. The class was monotonous, and I noticed that some students were drawing in their notebooks and not even trying to copy down the new words because they obviously knew the procedure, and the teacher did not even check their notebooks she just continued the class with exercises. From what I noticed in my class observations learning vocabulary is quite underrated. Utmost importance is given to grammar. However, all these skills such as reading, listening, writing, speaking, comprehension, grammar and vocabulary are interrelated and mutually

dependent. As such they should each be given equal attention. Because in the long run The important point is that the study of grammar as such is neither necessary nor sufficient for learning to use a language, (Newmark, p.165).

Teaching Grammar

In the seventh and the eighth grade I observed two almost identical classes where focus was on grammar. Of course the level of knowledge and the complexity of the material was not the same but the procedure was very similar. Students were divided into groups and were supposed to talk about activities they do on a school day using present simple. After that the students from the seventh grade had to write a short story based on their conversation, while the students from the eighth grade were also divided in groups and had to write a short story using past simple about the way they spent their summer holidays. When they finished the teacher in the seventh grade called out some students to read their stories out loud. They were very eager to participate. However, the teacher in the eighth grade called out some students in advance to read their stories out loud so the other students knew they do not have to finish their stories because no one is going to check their work so they were not really paying attention to what their friends were reading. I also observed one more class in the sixth grade where focus was on grammar. The students were doing exercises from the book related to reflective pronouns, and the teacher was checking the accuracy of their answers by calling out names in the order entered in the roll book. Since each of the students knew what their number was most of them only did exercises which they knew they will have to read out loud. It is not a good idea to tell students beforehand which parts are they going to read or who is going to talk during the entire class. Especially when they are doing group work, which is supposed to encourage students participation in class. It is always useful to arrange seating so that students can all see each other and talk to each other. Also, it is not a bad idea to use facial expressions and gestures to encourage students to speak up in class.

Teaching speaking

In the seventh grade I observed a class where teaching speaking was emphasized. Students were learning how to introduce properly themselves and others. They were divided into groups. In the first half of the class students were listening to a dialogue and based on that they were talking among themselves. In the second half of the class students were given five

minutes to think about terms for a happy life. When the thinking time expired every group gave their answers by acting out a dialogue. They had to start by introducing themselves and then elaborating their answers. One person from the group was asking questions and the other was answering. Students did not know in advance that they will have to improvise a dialogue so it was very interesting to listen to their answers. They used their imagination and created a relaxed class atmosphere. While observing a class in high school the teacher also tried to introduce more student talking time. However, she failed completely. Students were divided in groups and were given pictures based on which they had to write a story and the whole group was supposed to present a part of the story. Students were talking in their first language and only one or two members of the group were actually writing and talking about the story. The teacher did not monitor their work she was writing notes in the roll book. When the time came to present their stories they were completely indifferent to what they had to do. In every group there was one notebook that was passed around and each student read a paragraph not even trying to slow down and make it comprehensible. Speaking is a very important part of language teaching and learning. Students should be encouraged to speak more in class. In most of the classes I observed the teacher was talking much more than the students were. Teachers should limit their talking time and allow students the time to think and process their answer and finally to speak without being interrupted. I liked how the teacher in elementary school allowed her students to express themselves, and how they improvised and not memorized and then repeated the dialogue.

Motivation and discipline

Of course there are many differences between teaching processes in primary schools and elementary schools. Apart from the level of knowledge and class requirements I noticed that classes differed in teaching methods used by the teacher, overall classroom atmosphere, the number of volunteers, discipline and motivation of the students. Primary school students were more eager to participate in all parts of the lesson, while high school students were less interested in certain parts such as grammar and writing exercises. Also, there were no major differences among classes in primary school while due to different types of schools the situation was quite different among classes in high school. The students in the school of economics were doing all the exercises but there were not many volunteers in class. The teacher had certain authority but she did not make much effort to make the process of learning

pleasurable. She did not ask additional questions or for students opinion, she only followed the questions and exercises from the book. However, the students in the electrician school were not at all interested in language learning. The atmosphere was everything but friendly. The teacher was constantly shouting and trying to calm the students down but without results. Even if some of the students wanted to learn something they could not resist the clamor and noise. When a student would make a mistake in pronunciation others would laugh at him and mocked him and sometimes even the teacher was very impatient and unpleasant.

Conclusion It was quite unusual to go back to school, especially elementary school. Nevertheless, it was useful to observe all these ten classes and to compare various methods and techniques used by different teachers. We have to bear in mind that every student has a different approach to learning, but there are some universal things that can be applied to all learners. Teachers need to be positive, to engage students in conversation, to ask additional questions, to improvise sometimes and not follow the book strictly; give students time to think about their answers, increase peer interaction and use visual aids. Students should not feel ashamed when they make a mistake, instead they should be encouraged to learn from their mistakes. I am glad that there are still teachers who realize that teaching a foreign language is not all about grammar and vocabulary and that the teaching process can be pleasant for both, the students and the teachers.

References

1. Ur, Penny. A Course in Language Teaching. Cambridge, 1999. Print 2. Larsen, Freeman, D. Techniques and principles in Language Teaching, 2nd edition. Oxford, University Press 2000. Print