Running head: NARRATIVE OBSERVATION 2 1

Narrative Observation 2

Ayaka Kisu

The University of Hawaii at Hilo

ENG 422: Teaching Practicum

Dr. Francis Dumanig

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Abstract

This paper is a narrative observation report of an ESL speaking class. The class was divided into

four sections: warm-up, presentation, practice, and evaluation, therefore this report has those

sections as well to make it clear what kind of activities they did in each section. Also, at the end

of this paper, there is a conclusion part to summarize the important points for TESOL teachers

when conducting a class. Analyzing the class helps TESOL seek students to understand how to

conduct ESL classes effectively and to know students’ potential reactions during the class.
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Narrative Observation 2

The class was offered by a male teacher and there were four ESL/EFL students in the

classroom. The topic of this class was the seasons, and the students learned the vocabulary for

seasons, verbs to describe what people do in each season, how to ask someone if they like to do

something, when they do a certain activity, their favorite seasons, and answer these questions.

Warm-Up

At first, the teacher faced the students and said “hello!” with his smile and arms up. He

encouraged them to greet him back by waving his hands and looking at them. Once they knew

that he wanted them to answer, they said “hello”. Then he said “good afternoon!” with hand

gestures. In this scene, he tried to be energetic and characteristic to engage the students. Before

the class started, he wrote his name on the right top corner of the whiteboard so that the students

could memorize his name and its spelling and call him during the class.

Presentation

As the first part of the presentation, the teacher said “what is this?” very slowly and he

showed his drawing of a snowman to the students. Some of them said “snowman”, so he reacted

“it is a snowman, but…”. Then students figured out that he is talking about seasons and said

“winter”. The teacher repeated the correct answer and wrote the vocabulary on the whiteboard.

He also wrote ‘the’ with proteases in front of the vocabulary, and pronounced it several times

with the students. After checking the pronunciation as a whole class, he had each student to

pronounce it until all of them get the right pronunciation of the word. For some students, he only

asked to say it once, but for other students who need more practice on the pronunciation, he
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continued saying it and had them repeat it many times. In the same way, he introduced summer,

spring, and fall. He also taught that these four words are describing ‘season’.

In the second section of the presentation, he wrote ‘to’ on the board and said “what’s

this?” pretending to ski while making sounds of wind. When one student answered the question,

he wrote down the answer on the board, pronounced the answer ‘to ski’ several times, and had

the students repeat the word. By using the same method or drawing pictures on the board, he

introduced other verbs to the students and practiced the pronunciation with them.

Practice

In the first practice section, the students closed their notebook and the teacher passed out

a worksheet. While they are filling out the blanks, the teacher helped them individually. When a

student could not remember a word, he suggested the answer by acting or drawing instead of

giving them the answer directly. He was constantly checking the students’ work, and if someone

was struggling, he stopped in front of them and gave some clues for the answer. After they finish

answering the questions, he corrected the answers as a whole class by asking one student to

answer one of the questions and taking turns. Before moving on to the next section, he used

some cards with pictures that represent the verbs they learned and practiced to review the

contents. He showed one card at a time, and the students answered the verbs.

In the next part, he wrote ‘I’ on the board and had the students guess what comes next.

As they answered, he wrote the sentence ‘I like to drink wine.’ The teacher and the students

repeated the sentence several times, and the teacher had each student to pronounce the sentence

by themselves. When the students understood the basic structure of the sentence, he started

showing the picture cards and had them say the sentence ‘I like to …’ by using the verbs on the
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cards. When they said the answers correctly, he just said “good” and moved on, and only when

they could not answer, he said the correct sentence. To make a question sentence, he wrote a

question mark on the whiteboard at first and looked at students to let them know that he wanted

them to say the question sentence of ‘I like to drink wine.’ As they say the answer, he wrote the

question sentence on the board and had each student pronounce it by themselves to check their

pronunciation. Then, he taught how to answer the question, but he did not write it on the board.

Once the students knew how to ask and answer the question, he made two pairs of students and

gave them the picture cards for each verb. He demonstrated the activity in front of the whole

class, and then students started their practice. While they were practicing, the teacher monitored

them closely and checked if they were doing well.

Next, he introduced the sentence ‘I swim in the summer.’ with pictures and had each

student to practice saying the sentence to make sure they are pronouncing correctly. Then, he

covered the word ‘summer’ on the board with pictures of winter, fall, and spring to show that

these words can be used in the sentence as well. After that, he introduced the question sentence

‘when do you swim?’ and practiced the pronunciation several times as a whole class. Then he

had the students say the questions by themselves to check the pronunciations. He held up a paper

that had multiple pictures about verbs and pointed one picture at a time to have the students

make a question sentence using the verb. They practiced saying the question and answering it

orally with different verbs, and then the teacher gave them a worksheet to practice it in pairs.

While they were practicing, the teacher monitored them and helped them when they needed it.

In the third part of the practice, they learned the sentence ‘my favorite season is…’ and

the question ‘what is your favorite season?’ Next, the teacher taught contractions and had the
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students repeat ‘what’s our favorite season?’ by themselves. Then, the students started practicing

the question and answer in pairs. After finishing the practice, the teacher had them work on the

worksheet for all questions and answers they learned in this class as a review. When a student

used her native language, the teacher told her to use only English during the class. While they

were working on, he wrote all the questions and sentences that they learned today on the board,

but he only wrote the first word and some words in the sentences to let the students guess the

blanks. Once they finished the worksheet, he corrected the answers as a whole class.

As the last part of the practice, the students were asked to practice all the questions and

sentences they learned in the class in pairs. The teacher also asked them some questions

individually to check how much they understood the class and how well they can pronounce the

sentences. After the teacher finished asking, he had them ask him questions.

Evaluation

For the evaluation part, the teacher had all the students come to the front and gave them a

piece of paper. He demonstrated the activity with one of the students. Once the students

understood the rules, he told them to do the activity without him. He jumped into their

conversation when someone made a mistake, but most of the time, he encouraged them to keep

the conversation going by themselves for five minutes. After that, he corrected some mistakes as

a whole class, and the class was finished.

Conclusion

Throughout the class, the teacher focused on practicing the questions and sentences many

times until all students get the correct pronunciation. Also, when he introduced a new sentence or

the students were struggling, he gave them some hints instead of teaching them the answer. This
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method makes the students think about the answer by themselves rather than waiting for the

answer to be given.
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Reference

Westergaard, C. (ESL teacher). Tips and Tricks for Teaching Beginners.

https://laulima.hawaii.edu/access/content/group/HIL.12213.202030/Video/ESL%20Begin

ner%20Demo%20Lesson%20w%20Tips%20_A1_%20-%20Seasons.mp4