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Classroom Observation: Report 3Teacher Observed: LObserver: Alejandra de AntoniDate: June 30
th
2009
Observation Task taken from “Learning Teaching: A Guidebook for English Language Teachers” (Heinemann) 
Class: 1
st
Year Polimodal (School 2, Marcos Paz, Buenos Aires, Argentina)Number of Learners: about 16 (There were a lot of absent students) Age: 14/15 years oldLength of Lesson: 60 minutesLevel: BeginnersObserver: Alejandra de AntoniTeacher Observed: LThe following Observation Task has been taken from “Learning Teaching,” a book written by JimScrivener. The main objective of this observation is to pay attention to the four main elementsinvolved in building an effective or non-effective learning environment. The big question is:
Whathelps (or does not help) people learn?
General Comments about the Lesson:It was, I guess, a particular lesson because of several reasons. First of all, there were a lot of absent students due to the outbreak the swine flu in Argentina. It was a moment in which thedifferent authorities (both in the Health and Education Ministries) would find it really difficult tocome to an agreement as regards closing down schools or not. That is why many students decidednot to go to school to avoid getting in contact with others. Furthermore, there was a general feelingamong students that, since lesson were going to be suspended sooner or later, they were alreadyon holidays. Because of this “holidays atmosphere” students were really restless and found it reallydifficult to get involved in the lesson. Another important aspect to keep in mind is the kind of school we are talking about. The school inwhich I observed this lesson is a State school whose students are not actually eager to learnEnglish for they find it extremely alien to themselves and their culture. It is hardly surprising thattheir level is low (they are beginners but, in fact, they cannot even produce a sentence) and thatthey actually find no interest in the lesson. For instance, in this lesson, the students had to work ona reading passage that was about a 22-year-old boy that was multimillionaire. It’s only natural thatthey found it extreme boring and alien. What do they know about being a millionaire if we aretalking about students from poor backgrounds? If we give them that kind of materials, which are,by the way, the most common among English coursebooks, what are we teaching them? What isthe ‘hidden’ message? “Speaking English in only and exclusively for wealthy people.” Teaching in such an environment is a huge responsibility and it is definitely a challenging andcomplicated task. It is, of course, really easy for me to observe and remark “things to be changed” from such a safe position. I am just the observer and not the teacher. There may be many thingsthat I would have done differently but what I do not really know is up to what extent the teacherhad the possibility of choosing from other alternatives. Maybe that coursebook was the only oneshe could give her students for they do not have enough money to buy it themselves. It iswonderful that, at least, they had a coursebook available to work with
What follows is the analysis of the four elements that build up the classroom environment. Suchanalysis will be based on the representations of these elements taken from the observed lesson.See the Appendix to take a look at the Observation Sheet.
The Classroom
The seating arrangement was the ‘traditional’ one. Students were divided in three rows but werenot evenly distributed. There was on row next to the windows in which there were 8 students.There was another in the middle of the classroom with only 3 students (2 were at the back of theraw and a girl was sitting alone at the front). The third row consisted only of two students whowere sitting together at the back of classroom. What I cannot tell, however, is if such a sittingarrangement was the regular one or it was like that due to so many absences (at least ten studentshave been absent). One of the main disadvantages of having such an irregular seating is that theteacher generally tended to address more frequently the students from the crowded row and,therefore, the amount of interaction between the teacher and the students was unevenlydistributed. Even eye contact was noticeably more frequent with the students from the crowdedrow.The classroom was warm enough for students to feel comfortable. As regards the equipment,however, there were no visual aids at all (no pictures, no posters) and since the students did notown the coursebooks (they were to be left at school) they had to waste a lot of time copying theactivities to their notebooks. They devoted more time to copying than to doing the activity.
The Activities
The first half of the lesson was devoted to calling the roll, talking about the outbreak of the swineflu and its consequences at school and discussing about the election (one of the students had voted
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Classroom Observation: Report 3Teacher Observed: LObserver: Alejandra de AntoniDate: June 30
th
2009and it really caught my attention because to attend 1
st
year you should supposedly be 14 or 15years old and this student was at least 18).The only activity students were asked to do was one taken from the coursebook in which they hadto match the names of the activities with the pictures (this was the unit based on the story of the22-year-old boy that is a multimillionaire). The teacher gave no further instructions than the onesprovided by the book. The only thing she did was asking the students to translate the instruction tosee if they understood what they had to do. Once she made sure that they knew what they had todo, she asked them to copy everything to their notebooks and to add the new verbs to the VerbList they had at the end of their notebooks. She never explained, mimed, showed or elicited themeaning of the new verbs. The only thing she said was that they had to add them to the list. Asregards the students, they did not seem to be actually involved or interested in the activity. Thepassage was about a computer millionaire and, as I previously explained, it was somethingcompletely alien for them. There was nothing in the activity that might be interesting for them and,most importantly, it did not ask them to use English for anything communicative or, at least,meaningful to them. They were not asked to produce anything, I mean, it was just to write thename of the activities that Karl does but not what they do everyday. The lacked a “personal” component, something that each of them would provide to make it personal and memorable. Eventhe teacher did not give it importance at all because while the students were working on theactivity (or copying it to their notebooks or doing something completely different) she went studentby student correcting the homework she had given them the previous week. She was neithermonitoring them nor helping them with the activity. Finally, even though the activities really took half of the lesson, it is really debatable how profitable it was both for the students and the teacher.Students did not necessarily recognise the new verbs and activities for the task was never correctedand guided and, therefore, they could have simply matched any picture with any activity and itwould have been same. Half an hour is really too much time for such a simple activity and,consequently, they ended up doing something else instead of making profit of one of the only twohours a week in which they can have any contact with English. Maybe the aim of the teacher wassimply keeping them busy with something while she checked the homework. In my opinion, I daresay, some other activity, one more interesting and challenging could have been given to thestudents to keep them actually busy during that period of time and making sure that they are notwasting their time.
The Teacher
It is really difficult to judge or evaluate a person if you have just seen them for an hour. As far asthis particular lesson goes, I have to say that, following Scrivener’s description of the teacher’sroles, this teacher seems to be “The Explainer.” As regards the activity, what she did was justmaking sure that they understood what they had to do. She never paid attention to the students’ particular doubts or questions and she did not even prepare an activity in which something elseapart from matching was involved. As regards explanations, she never elicited answers or ideasfrom the students but she simply provided them with the corrected versions of what they said orwrote (when she was correcting their homework one by one). Considering this lesson, it is quiteclear that this teacher did not play the role of the “Involver” because she did not seem to be veryconcerned about providing the students the tools to deal with English and learn it. It seems evenmore evident that she was not an “Enabler” since she neither shared control of the process withthem nor did she manage to create an effective learning environment or a good classroomatmosphere: students are not collaboratively working, they are not carrying a challenging, ‘enabling’ or interesting activity. (Please take a look at the Appendix to see Scrivener’s completeexplanation of the Three Kinds of Teacher
 
)It is important to highlight, however, that she has a good relationship with students for she is reallynice and respectful but, at the same time, she always shows somehow that she is
the 
teacher. Forinstance, when she addresses them and they address her, they do not use their first names andthey also use the Spanish formal version of the 2
nd
person singular pronoun,
“Usted”.
The Learners
Regarding the learners, I would say that they are the kind of learner that matches the kind of teacher they have. They are definitely not interested at all in the activity or in the lesson itself.Since they are not interested and there are not many personal contributions to be made to theactivity they cannot be said to be taking an active role in their learning. It is as if they were learninghistory because they are only given facts. I mean, when there is something they do wrong, theteacher simply provides them with the correction and that is it. There is no further analysis andthey are not given the possibility of trying to get at the answers themselves. I must admit, however,that judging by the small amount of motivation they seem to have to learn English, it is true that itmay be quite difficult to make them play an active role in their learning when it is a lot easier tocopy the model without analysing anything. It seems to be a vicious circle in which the teacherdoes not motivate students or gives them enabling or involving tasks and students do not seem tohave any intrinsic motivation to do those types of activities either because they have never beenoffered them or because the teacher (wrongly) assumes they will not be willing to carry them out.There also exists a possibility that the teacher had already tried to “involve” and/or “enable” thembut found no positive or encouraging responses. As I said before, I cannot give conclusive judgements because I definitely ignore what really goes on within the classroom.
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Classroom Observation: Report 3Teacher Observed: LObserver: Alejandra de AntoniDate: June 30
th
2009
Final Words:
Even though it cannot be taken as an example of the communicative and enabling classroom Ialways try to foster, it was a really useful experience. I learnt a lot about what it is like to be ateacher in a state school in which students come from poor and culturally different backgrounds.What really struck me was the huge clash between what we always study and analyse inMethodology (those idealistic classrooms) and this one. It is really thought-provoking to see how soseemingly harmless things such as a reading activity can have so unexpected and unwantedresults. Even though the implications of the story of the multimillionaire were not discussed or evenmentioned, it is true that it is a reality that is so away from the students’ one that might be harmfulor misleading. Why is it that the characters in most coursebooks are always successful, rich andreally nice? These students had to match the pictures with the activities that this rich person did.How useful is for them to learn the English words for the activities that a rich person does if someof them are given their breakfast at school because they cannot have it at home?I know that everything I refer to in the previous paragraph is extremely controversial. Please keepin mind that my aim is by no means criticising or judging anyone’s beliefs and values. What I wantyou to know is that observing this lesson was an eye-opener and a very good opportunity to seeand understand that there are as many different teaching situations as different teachers.Regardless of where we decide to teach it is essential for us to be able to take with us our beliefsand values so as to pass them on to the rest. The fact that our students are different from us orthat they are different from each other does not necessarily mean that they are not going to beready to learn from us a lot more than a mere language.
APPENDIX
What helps people learn? “Learning Teaching,” Jim Scrivener
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