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A reflective report on classroom observations and teaching philosophy

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Sabiha Sultana
University of California, Santa Barbara
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Running Head: REPORT ON CLASSROOM OBSERVATIONS 1

A Reflective Report on

Classroom Observations and Teaching Philosophy

Sabiha Sultana

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

REPORT ON CLASSROOM OBSERVATIONS 2

A Reflective Report on Classroom Observations and Teaching Philosophy

Introduction

This reflective report is based on the “The Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol”

(SIOP) (Echevarria, Vogt, & Short in Echevarria & Graves, 2015, pp. 52-53) which was used as

the checklist for observing the classes in a public high school’s English Language Learning

(ELL) program in Western Massachusetts. The aim of this report is to describe various

approaches, methods, instructional techniques, and strategies the observed instructor used under

the light of theories and methods for sheltered instruction in ESL. The purpose of this report is

two-folded. This report describes the characteristics of the classroom as well as the analysis of

the instructional practices and their applications to my future classroom practices.

The characteristics of the classroom

The school provides nine courses through the ELL program at three different levels;

beginner, intermediate and advanced. The observed classroom includes students from ninth

through eleventh grades whose proficiency level is intermediate. In other words, their language

proficiency is defined as the “Level 3 - Developing” in terms of WIDA levels of language

proficiency. They have difficulties in comprehending abstract content areas and in producing

rich cohesive ideas using compound and complex sentence structures. The observed students

learn intermediate literature, composition, and world history as the part of ELL program in that

school. Most of the observation records are from the world history classrooms. The number of

students in the classroom is thirteen. There is one teacher and one paraprofessional in the

classroom. Most of the students came from working class families of El Salvador, Puerto Rico,

Cape Verde, Congo, Portugal, and Turkey. Therefore, their socio-economic, linguistic, and

cultural backgrounds are diverse.

REPORT ON CLASSROOM OBSERVATIONS 3

Analysis and application of the instructional practices

The teacher used scaffolding throughout the observed classes which supported

Vygotsky’s idea of the zone of proximal development (Gibbons, 2015, p. 13). The students had

access to comprehensible input that was “just beyond their current level of competence” (Lucas,

Villegas, & Freedson-Gonzalez, 2008, p. 363). For example, the teacher asked the students to

write a summary in groups after reading a lesson about Roman empire. Writing summary is

beyond students’ current level of understanding but they have background knowledge about the

topic. After the completion of the group work the teacher projected their writing on the board,

identified the errors by elicitation, and jointly constructed the sentences. The strategy of asking

students to identify their errors assisted them achieving their self-regulation (Brown & Lee,

2015, p. 470) as well. This collaborative endeavor helped the students to internalize the

grammatical features of English languge as well as content of history for their future writing. The

teacher’s scaffolding through review and formative assessment helped developing students’

comprehension skills. In my future teaching, I will incorporate this strategy. The intentional

focus on language form with the help of content will help students building inner speech

(Gibbons, 2015, p. 14) and higher-order thinking skills. I will choose content that is neither too

difficult nor too easy compared to learners’ existing competence levels. I will start teaching from

learners’ existing levels of knowledge so that learners can relate their previous knowledge with

the new information.

Even though the classes were content focused, the teacher used form-focused instruction

(Brown & Lee, 2015, p. 466) for meeting both content and language standards. The teacher’s

instructions ranged from implicit to explicit treatment of linguistic rules throughout the content

teaching. For example, the teacher was giving feedback on a writing task which aimed at
REPORT ON CLASSROOM OBSERVATIONS 4

students’ content knowledge about the “fall of Rome”. At the same time, she was teaching how

to write complex sentences while analyzing their writing. Apart from the content knowledge, the

teacher’s emphasis was “on the learners’ noticing their knowledge about grammatical features,

which is necessary for successful target language use” (Brown & Lee, 2015, p. 469). In a TESOL

context, I will also use content-based foreign language instruction which will focus on “an

eclectic blend of tasks, each tailored for a specific group of learners studying for particular

purposes in geographic, social, and political contexts” (Brown & Lee, 2015, p. 40). Therefore, I

will focus on both linguistic and content properties in my teaching based on the learners’ needs.

In the observed classes, the students were engaged in high-support but high-challenging

activities where they produced meaningful output in authentic contexts. For example, the

students were engaged in a writing task (Appendix 1) which was challenging for them but the

teacher formed groups and assisted them by thinking-aloud strategy. Their group work not only

encouraged but also required talk. The teacher’s scaffolding worked as the context-embedded

clues (Cummins in Echevarria & Graves, 2015) in students’ engagement with authentic and

cognitively challenging tasks. For my future teaching, I will create an atmosphere for scaffolding

where students will get frequent opportunities for interaction with both the students and myself.

Additionally, language learning through groupwork is always contextualized because “asking

questions, exchanging information, and solving problems all provide a context where words are

repeated, ideas are rephrased, problems are restated, and meanings are refined” (Gibbons, 2015,

p. 50). However, my scaffolding strategies will be different in quality and quantity which will

help remaining the learning outcomes similar for all the students.

Being aware of the diversity, the teacher used teaching materials based on the learners’

language backgrounds and tailored the teaching-learning strategies accordingly which is crucial
REPORT ON CLASSROOM OBSERVATIONS 5

in second and foreign language teaching and learning. For example, the pacing of the lesson and

speech was appropriate to students’ ability level. The teacher used simplified instructions, and

clear explanations of the tasks by using demonstrations, gestures, body language and the like. As

the second or foreign language learning population is not a homogenous entity, I will consider

the learners’ cultural and linguistic diversity in my future teaching as well. However, there was a

strategy in an observed class which I would demonstrate in a different way in my teaching for

taking the advantage of linguistic diversity. For example, the teacher faced difficulty in

explaining the word “Messiah”. The students did not understand the meaning of this word. In

case of my future teaching, if I know a learner’s mother tongue I will use direct translation to

some extent and will let the students use bilingual dictionary for teaching vocabulary. A

language learner’s first language plays important roles in learning a second or foreign language.

Hence, I will emphasize culturally responsive instruction (Au, 2009) in my future teaching for

“creating a supportive, nonfearful, nondefensive atmosphere” analyzing learners’ needs,

interests, goals, and individual differences” (Brown & Lee, 2015, p. 46).

The teacher designed sequential activities in the content areas by providing authentic

contexts which helped the students to construct experiences through the language alone. For

example, the students worked in groups, discussed the topics and shared their ideas to the whole

class. Students had to make the language explicit for the benefit of the audience while sharing

their ideas to the class because they know that the audience is not familiar with their group

discussion. Teachers assisted students to talk eventually in abstract contexts. This strategy is

known as the literate talk (Gibbons, 2015, p. 81) which promotes both content knowledge and

academic language in content-based second or foreign language classrooms. I will use this

strategy in my future teaching as well because producing literate talk provides students gaining
REPORT ON CLASSROOM OBSERVATIONS 6

access to academic language which amplifies their linguistic resources. Students learn

vocabulary and language repertoire of written discourse because they assimilate technical words

as well as grammar while mastering academic language.

There were intentional (Brown & Lee, 2015, p. 480) exposures to some lexical items in

the observed classes which helped the students to develop vocabulary skills. For example, the

teacher explained the word “Barbarian” in the light of the concepts of Roman empire. She pre-

taught the word by morpheme analysis, literal meaning, and concept elicitation related to barber.

Again, she summarized all the concepts associated with “Barbarian” with the help of this word at

the end of the reading. I will follow these strategies to teach vocabulary in my future teaching

because some vocabulary help students to clarify the concept and others help constructing new

concepts. Based on the significance of the words, I will categorize them into tiers and will follow

Calderon’s (2007) preteaching vocabulary strategies to teach them. Since most of the ELLs may

not be aware of the functions of vocabulary while focusing on the meaning, I will draw their

direct attention to the functions of those vocabulary. Therefore, I will pre-teach some of the

vocabulary with intentional exposure before reading for developing learners’ text comprehension

skill.

Conclusion

To sum up, the observed teacher followed structured lesson preparations for the classes

highlighting both the content and language objectives for meeting state standards which were

appropriate for the students’ age and educational levels. Learners’ knowledge and skills were

amplified using supplementary materials like, videos, charts and the like. The students got ample

opportunities to be involved in meaningful activities that integrated the four skills: listening,

speaking, reading, and writing. In my future teaching, instead of just focusing on contents, I will
REPORT ON CLASSROOM OBSERVATIONS 7

also consider what are the bigger insight and wisdom learners should gain and what skills will be

effective for the learners in future. Hence, in addition to topical questions, I will integrate some

overarching questions (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005, p. 113) to develop learners’ both content

and language skills.

REPORT ON CLASSROOM OBSERVATIONS 8

References

Au, K. H. (2009). Culturally responsive instruction: Application to multiethnic, multilingual

classrooms. In Helman, L. (Ed.), Literacy development with English learners: research-

based instruction in grades K-6. (pp. 18-39). New York: Guilford Press.

Brown, H. D., & Lee, H. (2015). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language

pedagogy (4th ed.). New York: Pearson.

Calderon, M. (2007). Teaching reading to English language learners, grades 6 – 12:

A framework for improving achievement in the content areas. Thousand Oaks, CA:

Corwin Press.

Echevarria, J., & Graves, A. (2015). Sheltered content instruction: Teaching English language

learners with diverse abilities (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Gibbons, P. (2015). Scaffolding language, scaffolding learning: Teaching English language

learners in the mainstream classroom (2nd ed.). New Hampshire: Heinemann Publisher.

Lucas, T., Villegas, A. M., & Freedson-Gonzalez, M. (2008). Linguistically responsive teacher

education: Preparing classroom teachers to teach English language learners. Journal of

Teacher Education, 59(4), 361–373.

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design. Merrill Prentice Hall: Pearson.
REPORT ON CLASSROOM OBSERVATIONS 9

Appendix 1
 REPORT ON CLASSROOM OBSERVATIONS 10

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