Hour 1- Sketch/description

The class was conducted using the LMS (Learning Management System) Zoom. There was a

total of 28 participants in the class which included one teacher, 23 students and four observers.

The teacher used the screen share feature of Zoom to share her PowerPoint slides with the

students. She also used another LMS, ‘econestoga’ during the class. The teacher had her mic and

camera on during the whole duration of the class. Five students had their camera switched on

four of which had their mic switched off. The rest of the 18 students had their mic and camera

switched off the whole time.

The five students who had their camera switched on were middle aged females probably 30 years

and above. One female student was wearing a white hijab with black t-shirt and had white wall

background with white sliding doors. Another female whose mic was switched off was an Asian,

also had white wall as her background, had short black hair and was wearing a grey t-shirt. One

of the females had her mic switched on and was wearing a white and black hijab. In her

background, she had half white wall with one white switch outlet and half white door with

golden doorknobs. One female was wearing black spectacles, yellow t-shirt and had her brown

hair in a bun. She had her mic switched off and had a black pen in her hand. Another female had

blonde hair and was showing her half of the face through her camera. She had a white wall as her

background. There were some exceptions with the 18 students when two of them switched on

their mic and asked questions to the teacher. The teacher had short brown hair and was wearing a

pink t-shirt along with a pair of golden circle earrings. As her background, she had a brown

cabinet with pink walls around it.

There was no student-to-student interaction in the class. The students were only interacting with

the teacher unless they were put into breakout rooms. The students were regularly asking

questions to the teacher and the teacher was responding to them.

 Hour 2 – Summary

The class started with the teacher reviewing the 14 vocabulary words with the students which

were a part of the lecture audio. The students listened to the audio of a person talking about the

difference between ‘Titanic’ and ‘the Costa Concordia’. After listening to the audio, the students

were put into breakout rooms where they did a group activity for 15 – 20 minutes. The students

compared the notes they took while listening to the audio and were asked to work together to

summarize the audio lecture in their own words. They also worked together with their peers on

the comprehension questions provided on ‘econestoga’ which included 5 True/False and 4 short

answer questions. The teacher gave written instructions using PowerPoint slides and showed the

students where they have to upload their notes on ‘econestoga’.

The most interesting part of the class for me was the group work students did in the middle of the

hour after listening to the audio lecture and taking notes. The students were asked to summarize

the lecture in their own words with their peers. Weissberg (2006), asserts that a collaborative

learning environment, as opposed to a passive learning environment, helps students learn more

actively and effectively. Collaboratively working with peers to come up with a summary may

have helped the students to actively learn and understand the lecture.

Reference:

Weissberg, Robert. (2006). Connecting speaking & writing in second language writing

instruction (No. Sirsi) i9780472030323). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
 Hour 3 – Focused observation - Teacher’s instructions

The hour started with the teacher giving instructions to the students about the listening test they

are going to take in the same class. The teacher started with explaining the students what they are

going to do. She said, “You will listen to a recording and take notes”, “I will play the recording

2 times”, “You can see if you have missed something the first time and take notes on it”, “After

listening for the first time, I am gonna give you 2 minutes to check what you have written”. She

gave instructions a total of 12 times in the whole hour before the students started their test which

also included the steps of uploading the test notes on ‘econestoga’ for assessment. She also

responded to the student’s query of when they have to submit the notes and was giving

instructions consecutively one after the other.

One of a crucial aspect of giving instructions is the pauses between and after. This can facilitate

as well as hinder the student’s learning. As Scrivener (2011) argues, pausing after giving

instruction is important as it allows the students time to absorb the message the teacher is

providing. The teacher was instructing the students consecutively and paused only one time

when one student asked a query. This does not allow the students to absorb what they have to do.

This can block the learning for some students as they might not be comfortable in asking the

teacher questions, they have about the instructions given by her. Some students might think that

it is not important to delay the test considering there was 27 students in the class. They might

think that there is no need to ask questions and they will figure it out on their own when they will

be taking the test. Giving instructions one after the other can also facilitate learning for some

students as the teacher was repeating some instructions 2 times while speaking. Ur (1996) asserts

that students need to be told what to do more than once in order for them to understand the
instructions. The teacher was repeating a few instructions such as “you have to submit your

notes in this particular drop box in ‘jpeg’ format”.

References:

Scrivener, Jim. (2011). Learning teaching: The essential guide to English language teaching. 3rd
ed. Oxford: Macmillan Education.

Ur, Penny. (1996). A course in language teaching: Practice and theory. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
 Hour 7 – Summary

The hour started with the teacher explaining the students how they can use different symbols

while taking notes such as, ! for ‘important’, + for ‘add’. The teacher shared a Google doc link

with class using the chat feature of Zoom. The teacher instructed the students for the group

activity by saying, “Look at these sentences and show how you would take notes.” She provided

the students with 6 sentences and asked to take notes using the symbols and abbreviations. There

were 3-4 students in one breakout room. One student shared his/her screen with the rest of the

group and was typing while discussing what to write. The group work lasted for 15 minutes. This

activity was followed by a listening activity. The teacher shared her screen with the class and

asked them to take notes using the symbols and abbreviations they have learned as well as

thinking about the organization of their notes. She played the video which lasted 9 minutes. The

class ended with the teacher informing the students about their next class. She gave the students

homework which included watching the video as many times as possible.

There was one type of activity the teacher did with the students which I have not seen before in

the class. The teacher introduced the students to symbols for taking notes which was interesting

to me and I may use it in my own teaching. Bourdin (2002) asserts, learning how to take notes

from a spoken presentation, in terms of spelling, and syntactical processes, is a slow and gradual

process. The students took notes from the video using symbols and abbreviations taught. The

students may need practice of taking notes in this way and it might be a helpful tool for them in

their language learning process.

Reference:

Bourdin, Béatrice. (2002). Apprentissage de la gestion de la production etcontraintes de

capacité [Monitoring learning of writing and capacity constrains]. In Michel. Fayol
(Ed.), Production du language [Language production] (pp. 149-169). Paris: Hermès
Science Publications.
 Hour 8 – Focused observation – Format of Materials

The hour started with the teacher using the screen share feature on Zoom and showing the

students an authentic video titled ‘Americans and their jobs’. Tomlinson claims that an authentic

material is “one which is produced in order to communicate rather than to teach” (Tomlinson,

2012b). The teacher used two types of materials in the class: a video and a Google doc. The

video was 9 minutes 35 seconds long and was of a professor giving lecture in a classroom. The

teacher provided the students with an authentic video for their listening practice task. After

watching the video, she provided the students with 4 questions related to the video and asked

them to discuss with their groups: “What did the researchers learn about the amount of work

that people feel they are doing?”, “What are the three reasons for the increased feeling of

busyness among working people today”, “What is the big change in the workplace that is

causing workers to feel busier?” and “Although people are busier, they like their jobs. Why is

this true?”.

The teacher provided the students with the authentic video only once during the starting of the

class. After the discussion, the teacher shared a Google doc link in the chat box of Zoom with the

class. The material included a table with 6 rows of different discussion gambits such as ‘Enter

the discussion’, ‘Contribute to discussion’. After the table, there were 2 questions asking about

students’ personal life and 3 questions about the lecture. She asked the students to use the

‘discussion gambits’ and discuss these questions with their peers in groups.

Providing the students with authentic materials can hinder as well as facilitate learning. Rost

(2002) argues that authentic materials can represent the real language use of native speakers, thus

playing a role in making the connection of classroom activities and real-world situations. The

video provided by the teacher for the listening activity included an American native speaker
(professor) talking about the real-world situation of people’s view about their jobs which can

facilitate the learning as the students can find themselves in a situation where someone can ask

them about their work experience. While this can facilitate the learning, it may also block it.

Richards (2006) claims that the students can find the authentic materials especially in the case of

listening materials too complex. Some of the learners may not be able to comprehend the

information provided by the speaker in the video, which can hinder their learning.

References:

Richards, Jack. C. (2006). Materials development and research—making the connection. Relc

Journal, 37(1), 5-26.

Rost, Michael. (2013). Teaching and researching: Listening. Routledge.

Tomlinson, Brian. (2012b). ‘Materials development for language learning and teaching’,
Language Teaching: Surveys and Studies, 45 (2), 143–79.
 Hour 9 – Summary

The class started with the teacher asking about the video the students were asked to watch. She

asked the whole class, “Did anything surprise you about the video?”. A few students replied, “It

was interesting to see how people waste their clothes”, “I never recycle my clothes”. After

listening to the students’ responses about the video, the teacher explained the details of the quiz.

She informed the students that they will be taking the quiz for about 30 to 40 minutes. Around

the end of the quiz, she will invite 4 students in the group discussion where the rest of the

students will be in the waiting room where they can finish their quiz. The teacher showed the

students where to go on ‘econestoga’. She said, “Go to your class”, “listening and speaking”,

“look for the word ‘content’”, “go to week nine”, “you will see the assignment 2”, “you can

click on start quiz and you will get 35 minutes to complete the quiz”, “I will mute myself”, “I am

here if you have any questions about the quiz”.

Something which I realized about teaching and learning through observing the lesson was the

importance of instructions for the students. Ur (1996) claims that students would face no

problem understanding the activity if their teacher thinks of its instructions and use the right

words as well as the illustrations while instructing. The teacher logged in as a student and

showed the students where they can find the quiz through the screenshare feature of Zoom. This

may have helped the students to find the quiz online easily.

Reference:

Ur, Penny. (1996). A course in language teaching: Practice and theory. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
 Hour 10 – Summary

The hour started with the teacher inviting four students from the class for group discussion while

the others were in the waiting room on Zoom. Prior to this, the students watched a video which

was a CBC market-place episode about ‘Fast Fashion’. The teacher instructed the students, “You

will get about 8 minutes to do group discussion”, “Don’t forget to use the discussion gambits”.

The students were also given 10 guiding questions which they may choose to answer. There was

no penalty if all the questions were not covered in the discussion. Some of the questions were:

“How long do you usually wear your clothes?”, “How often do you buy clothes?”, “Do you

recycle your clothes?”, “Do you think fast fashion is environmentally dangerous?”. The teacher

read all the questions before the group discussion to the students. During the hour, there were a

total of 6 groups, 4 of which had four students each and the last 2 groups had three students each.

A new insight I have gained about teaching through observing the lesson was the importance of

collaborative learning for the students. Stahl, Koschman & Suthers (2006) claims that group

work can have a positive effect on the students because it promotes a more active and

responsible role on the part of the students. Collaborative learning makes the students depend on

each other for learning and makes the learning process more meaningful and interesting. The

collaborative learning method also provides the students with a social support which occurs

through interaction and negotiation with their peers.

Reference:

Stahl, Gerry, Koschmann, Timothy, & Suthers, Dan. (2006). Computer-supported collaborative
learning. In R.K. Sawyer (Ed.), Cambridge handbook of the learning Sciences (pp.409-
425). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.