MEMBER OF THE INTERNATIONAL HOUSE WORLD ORGANISATION

IN-SERVICE CERTIFICATE IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

DIRECTED PEER OBSERVATIONS

OBSERVATION REPORT NO. 2
Candidate’s name: Magali Rocha Zendejas.
Date of the report: Jan 18th 2017.

This form is intended to help you focus your attention on some important aspects of a class. Do not
interrupt the class or participate unless the class teacher requests a contribution.

Teacher Carlos Arturo Castrejon Ocampo

Observed:
School: Liceo Mexicano Japones
Course A2
level:
Number of 25 Average age of 10 – 12 years old
students: students:
Date of the Jan 18th 2017 Main aim of the Interaction
Observation: observation (Task no.)
Patterns

Reflection upon the aspect(s) observed:

I was able to observe a strict, firm but polite Teacher, these aspects are not
opposites but the characteristics that a balanced Teacher should have.
Teachers are not friends but teachers can care about their students setting
clear rules to create a nice and respectful environment where the learning
process can be developed.
The better that a Teacher can do if really wants to interact and have a very
clear point of view of all students and their improvements or weakness is to
move around the classroom (and he did it).
The teacher gives students some responsibilities: they have to help with some
simple duties of the classroom such as turn on/off the smart board, hand in
notebooks, turn on and off the light, erase the board.
Doing this under my point of view he: 1) gains precious teaching time and 2)
students feel committed with classroom management. (It is a good idea as I
have young learners I might implement a hand helper). And more pair work to
practice their speaking skills little by little.
To call their attention he asks questions to distracted pupils which I think it is
positive because he avoids showing students and brings their attention to the
subject avoiding conflict which is very useful with kids of this age.
It was a quick class but I was very glad to see they were interested and using
English to communicate ideas most of the time.

Marker : Rosalía Montenegro Saucedo Return Date: February 11th, 2017.

 ICELT Peer Observation Task 2 : Patterns of interaction.
Task Objective.
This task is concerned with how communication takes place in a classroom setting, and specifically
the patterns of interaction.
In this task you will collect data about how communication is realised in the classroom.
Procedure.
Before the lesson.
1. Arrange to observe a lesson.
2. Read this task.
During the lesson.
1. Draw up a seating plan including students names
2. Draw lines between the people who are speaking to each other. You may have to draw new
seating plans for different phases of the lesson (esp. if students move around a lot). Decide on
symbols to represent different kinds of interactions: for example, an arrowhead can indicate a
nominated question, a return arrowhead indicates a response.
Work out symbols for other kinds of interaction i.e. an open Question from the teacher; an
unprompted response from a student; students interacting in closed / open pairs; students interacting
undirected by the teacher; an unprompted question by a student etc. (For ideas see Woodward, T.
1989)
After the lesson.
1. Analyse the notes you have taken and make some summary statements of the overall patterns of
interaction. Discuss the lesson with the teacher you observed referring to the communication
patterns that emerged.
2. Which patterns of interaction would be the most conducive to or facilitate learning?
3. Much has been written about pair / group work. What advantages and disadvantages can you
see?
4. How 'natural' was the communication between the learners and between the learners and the
teacher?
5. Were there any instances of 'genuine communication' i.e. not prompted by the learning context.
Reflection.
Using this observed lesson as a mirror of your own teaching, what comments can you
make about the patterns of communication in your classes. Is there anything you would
want to change, experiment with, how could you go about doing so? What aspects
would you like to develop in the future?

Adapted by A. Navarro from ICELT Induction Pack – Centre’s Observation Tasks and Guidelines-
(tasks originally designed by “International Training Institute” Istanbul & “Cultura Inglesa” –Brazil
Seating plan including students´ names.
They were divided in 5 teams since the very bebinning.

WHITE BOARD
Santiago

Emilio
Emiliano Lucía
Ocean
Alberto
Atziri Luciano
Camila
Emiliano
Maya
Ichiro

Alonso Rebeca

Emiliano Ribuh
Andres Daiki

Hana
Greta Eric

Carlo Kemi

Carlos

SMART BOARD

Team 1 Team 2 Team 3 Team 4 Team 5

Alberto Santiago Ocean Emiliano Eric
Emilio Lucía Emiliano Rebeca Kemi
Atziri Luciana Ichiro Hana Carlos
Maya Emiliano Camila Ribuh Carlo

During the class:

1. T-Ss. Teacher writes the homework on the board and gives five minutes to copy it
the whole class follows Instructions.
2. T-Ss. Teacher moves around the classroom correcting students´ habits such as
 class order, sitting down correctly and spelling while they copy the homework.
3. T-S The teacher asks the first question related with the subject WHAT´S
SYMMETRY?
4. T-S-S. Andres. To cut something in halves.
Carlos There are many kinds of symmetry.
Alonso. Scales?
Daiki. Mirror symmetry

5. T-S. Teacher makes a 2nd question Where do you can find shapes in nature?
6. Ss-Ss. Students discuss in smalls groups their different opinions:
Daiki//Greta//Andres//Daiki//Greta
Maya//Alonso//Emilio
Eric//Carlos//Emmiliano//Carlos
Ocean//Ichiro
7. S-Ss. Students are asked to share their opinions
Daiki: in butterflies and leaves
Eric: in the ocean
Ocean: in fruits and vegetables
Hana: in the snowflakes
8. S-T. Kemi what´s the reason that we can find symmetry in the in the nature and not
on created things? The Teacher redirects the question to the whole class
Daiki in cars
9. SS. Teacher asks volunteers to read aloud instructions to work on the book pg.84
and they are given 5 minutes to fill in the gaps.
Ocean speaking Spanish.
10. T-S. the whole class check the answers.

11. Whole clSss use an audio script about fractal patterns

12. T-S. What are fractals?
Rebeca. Examples of symmetry
Alonso. Broccoli is an example of a fractal
Carlos. A repeated pattern.
Emilio. Neve ending patterns
13. S-Ss. Students read aloud questions and give the answer.
Gaby No. 1
Luciana No. 2
Alonso No. 3
Lucia writes the answers on the board for the whole class.
14. S-T. Daiki requests the audio script again (fractals audio).
Class cutted out because they had a rehearsal for a special event this coming Saturday.

After the class: I had the opportunity to talk with the Teacher he says that his students are
really good but because of their age sometimes they seem to be tired and their
participation is not constant varies from one moment to the other.
He tries hard to keep students busy and motivate them all to participate, even though
some get lost because the English level between the students is not the same as you can
see in the report Daiki is a high skilled and participative Student, as well Carlos. But there
are some that hide to avoid speaking as Atziri, Lucía, Santiago, Camila, Carlo, Ribuh and
Eric.
Teaching in a regular school is different from a language school, not all students are
convinced of English importance.
The Teacher needs to give a lot of instructions students don´t have enough initiative to
begin a conversation it is natural because of their age.
Techer elicits a lot of concepts but he has the one who initiated the conversations through
questions 28% of the class.
Students answer a lot of questions and read aloud instructions or questions for the rest of
the class.
Teacher tries to have a Students centered but sometimes is a bit difficult.

Which patterns of interaction would be the most conducive to or facilitate learning?

I think that he makes questions that help them to develop critical thinking and they feel
comfortable with their participation.
Because or their age I think it would have be nice to build up a KWL chart, that could
create a balanced environment, I mean the ones who have more knowledge can share it
and the ones who doesn´t have enough knowledge would be asking questions without
feeling bad.
As I mentioned before the Teacher doesn´t give answers to the class but re directs the
questions from other students to the rest of the class inviting them to express what they
know or think, that´s very good we (teachers) should do it more often.

Pair work / group work advantages and disadvantages:

I believe the positive aspect of pair / group work is that students feel more comfortable
between each other than with the teacher because they don´t feel evaluated all the time,
the most skilled ones can be a model to the ones who are shy or doesn´t have the same
English level Students learn from students. In the other hand, there are students that
more than having or not the knowledge they don’t have attitude and they hide behind the
ones that are committed making excuses or jus trusting that things will be done by
someone, that´s why walking around is so important, Teacher can offer help if it´s needed.

How natural was the communication between learners and the teacher?
I observed that they know very well each other, and, also their teacher and viceversa.
They have worked for a while together so they have developed a work system, they know
what they are expected to do and they know and follow the classroom rules. That´s a
good combination.

Were there instances of genuine communication?

No I think that everything was related to the task and it was about answering the
questions at some moments when the teacher was not observing students began to
speak Spanish to share some personal information not related at all with the class.