Observation report n 3 ESP

This observation was carried out at the Chemistry School. The teacher in charge was
Gabriela Diaz Corts and there were 30 students in the classroom. The level of English was
pre- intermediate and students need to take the course before reaching 5th year.
The class in general terms consisted in solving guides that were already prepared
and were part of the students material. The teacher was quite organized and she wrote on
the left margin of the board the layout of the class. In the first activity the focus was
connectors; students had to translate into Spanish different chunks of the text that contained
different cohesive devices. To check the task, the teacher asked some students to come to
the board and write their own translation. They worked with connectors such as on the
other hand, because, first, second. The second activity was carried out in pairs, and
students were asked to read the titles, subtitles and look at the images of a text about DNA
to find equivalents in Spanish. While they were working, the teacher monitored and
encouraged them to use the dictionary. After that, students had to look for the equivalent in
Spanish of a list of terms; some of the related terms were bases nitrogenadas,
nucleotidos apareamiento de bases, etc. Once they finished, they needed to read the
text for specific information, and had to assign each paragraph a title. This was an
individual activity. They checked the activity all together. As students worked the teacher
answered questions as regards vocabulary and comprehension in general. What is more, on
the right side of the board the teacher wrote all the important words for students to include
in their glossary.
The main aim of all the activities was to further develop students reading
comprehension skills. The rationale for the first activity was for students to focus on
cohesive devices; that is, to understand and see the relationships of ideas within the text and
how sentences were linked in the text. The second activity aimed at students finding
equivalent terms in order for them to know the vocabulary, both in English and Spanish. As
regards the third activity, the rationale was for students to read for specific purposes since
they needed to understand each paragraph so that they could give each one a title. That is,
they needed to understand the content of each paragraph to choose a suitable title.

The class was quite organised, the teacher was committed to students and they asked
everything they did not know or did not understand. Moreover, the teacher encouraged
them to use the dictionaries and to have an organised glossary. When reading the text about
DNA, she asked students as regards the content since they already knew about the topic; in
that way, she showed students how important is the background knowledge they had. I like
the way the teacher conducted the class since she made students participation key for the
development of the lesson. Besides, students participated a lot and they seemed to be
working comfortably.
As regards my learning outcome, after observing three different ESP lessons, I
could see that teachers and the way they worked and structured the class is paramount to
the success of it. From this lesson in particular, I liked how the teacher gave a clear layout
of what the students were expected to do and the effective use of the blackboard. The
teacher kept a friendly atmosphere which also contributed to the success of the lesson.

Tolaba, E. Beln