Fieldwork Grammar Observation for ELLs Students

OPTION 1

EDDN 638
Teaching English as a Second Language through Modern English-
Approaches to Grammar
Spring 2022

Your Name: Francesco Mannino

Description:
The many aspects in a classroom such as classroom setup, student rapport, student

interaction, and teaching methods and strategies all have a significant effect on how well

students can learn the content being taught by the teacher. Over the course of the semester, I was

lucky to have observed a second grade reading class at a school in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. I had a

rewarding experience at this school after looking at the many aspects in a classroom such as

classroom setup, rapport between students and teacher, the interaction amongst the students, and

the methods used in the classroom to execute teaching. The classroom I observed was a class of

twenty-four students with four ELL students. The following paragraph shares a general summary

of the class I observed.

In this lesson I observed students reading and talking in groups about a book called

“Calendar Mysteries: September Sneakers” by Ron Roy. I observed the teacher talking about

different clues and classifying them as an object, a character’s physical appearance or behavior,

or suspicious dialogue coming from one of the characters. After, I observed students

independently reading a portion of the text and placing post it’s on the parts of the text where the

student’s found clues. The students then did a turn and talk and were talking about the many
clues they found. The teacher then asked the students to come up and talk about the different

clues that were found in the reading. After the students were done sharing their clues, the teacher

then instructed students to go back to their seats to read their independent mystery reading books

and to continue searching for clues and classifying what kind of clues they found.

I really liked the classroom setup because of how easily accessible everything was in the

class and the space that students had for learning. Specifically, what I liked the most was that the

teacher was able to call he students to the meeting area on the carpet, and the students would go

in their circle spots on the carpet directly in front of the smart board. This was great because the

students had a direct visual of what was happening on the smartboard while the teacher was

teaching. The entire lesson was very interactive, and the students were engaged using simple

manipulatives to help organize their clues. I also liked that students were already grouped into

their book club groups which through interviewing the teacher after, she had said that they were

grouped by reading level. Each group had four students and it reflected through the six table

groups spread out around the carpet (meeting area). Even though the students were further from

the smart board when they were at their seats, each student was able to clearly see the board, and

was able to participate in the lesson even from their seats. Overall, I think that the classroom

setup was supportive to the teaching style of this teacher.

Throughout the lessons that I observed, I saw that the rapport between student and

teacher was very strong. The teacher was always very respectful to the students and the students

were also very respectful to the teacher. I noticed that the teacher was able to speak to the

students in a way that would engage the students interests by often bringing in some real-world

examples by comparing things from the lesson to things that these students know from outside of

the classroom. For example, one of the tv shows that came up during the mystery lesson was
“Scooby Doo” and the teacher made a comparison between finding clues in a book and how the

characters in “Scooby Doo” would do the same. Many students raised their hand that they

watched “Scooby Doo” and they looked very engaged. I think these small connections that are

made between student and teacher really help in building rapport with the students. I also am a

firm believer that if you are very respectful with someone, they will treat you with respect. I

think this is also the case for this classroom. Although problems do arise in the classroom, I feel

the teacher is able to maintain calm in dealing with all the different situations that arise in the

classroom.

The part of the lesson that shined the most was the group work interaction and the share

of the individual students who wanted to share the clues that their group had come up with. In

the book, a hamster named Goldi was missing and who ever took the hamster left a green and

orange sneaker key chain in place of the Goldi’s cage. I saw the groups reading through their

books and placing post it’s on pages while writing clues and identifying what types of clues they

are. I observed a student say that “orange and green sneakers were left on the lawn” and that this

was a clue. I saw the students write “object” on the page where they saw the sneakers. I heard

another student say that a teacher in the book stole the hamster because “she was wearing a green

and orange shirt, bought broccoli and carrots from the supermarket (green and orange) and had a

big shopping bag with her where she could be hiding all different things that she has stolen

throughout town”. I was very impressed with this observation and from here, I thought that this

was a great activity because the students were trying to figure out the mystery in the book. I then

was very impressed by the students who came up in front of the classroom and read their clues

from their post its. I was very surprised by the amount of work the students put into this with the
few minutes they had to complete the activity. Overall, I feel that this was the best part of the

lesson where students were interacting with the materials and took on a role as a detective.

After observing this teacher, I have found that there are several strategies and methods

that were used to help students in completing the activities and learning about mystery books.

The first strategy I observed was the use of visuals to help the visual learners in the classroom.

The teacher was able to provide visuals from the text they were reading to help support visual

learners in understanding what was happening in that part of the book. I also saw that all students

received a handout with all the vocabulary words on them, and I feel that this was helpful

because the students were interacting with the academic language in the lesson. I also saw that

some students were given a graphic organizer to help organize their ideas and clues. Toward the

end of the activity, also saw that the teacher was calling up students and asking a few questions

to those students. In doing so, I think she was checking for understanding and reading

comprehension.

If I were to teach this lesson, I would make some minor improvements, more focused on

supporting the students just a little bit more. I would like to have improved the technology

integration in the lesson. I think the ELL students would benefit from having an audiobook

version of the book so that they can go back and listen in case they did not understand

something. I would also like to integrate technology with all the other students, possibly having

students type their clues into Padlet along with their names so that the teacher has a long list of

clues that each table has contributed. The students can then present their clues to the class. I

think this would be the only improvement I would make, and I am making this improvement

because I don’t see much technology being used in the classroom. I really think that all the

students would benefit from using technology especially because we are surrounded by
technology every day. It would be very easy to include because most of the students already

know how to use these devices, especially in the second grade.

I was very happy with watching this observation because as a music teacher, I don’t get

to see much of what happens in these general education classes, and so it was insightful to get

into this class and see how well these students work in their own learning environment. I was

very impressed by the activities that the teacher had created around reading mystery books and

was surprised to see that the second graders were able to find the clues in the book and keep a

record of all the clues they found. Overall, I had an amazing experience in my fieldwork and

learned so much about how the different methods, strategies, student interaction, rapport, and

classroom setup can have a significant impact on student learning.

**Lesson Plan on Next Page**

Lesson Plan:
Lesson Plan Cont.
Lesson Plan Cont.

Lesson Analysis:
According to the lesson that was being taught and the lesson plan, it does seem like the

lesson objectives are aligned with both state standards and TESOL standards. I can see this

information in the beginning of the lesson where it is being connected to a literacy standard.

Directly below this, there is an ESL performance indicator which serves as the standards for

TESOL. The content and language objectives are aligned with these standards.

In this classroom the grammar approach being used is the inductive method. One of the

strategies I observed in grammar correction is repeating what the student had said. When the

teacher would repeat what the student said, the student knew that he had made a mistake and

tried to correct him/herself and often would do so. If the student was still having trouble, the

teacher would then help them to say the sentence correctly. Another strategy I observed was the
use of pointing when the teacher went around correcting grammatical errors in sentences. The

teacher would point to the grammatical errors and ask the students around the table how we

could help to correct the sentence. The group members would chime in to help their friend

correct the sentence. The last strategy that I observed was the use of differentiated instruction to

teach the students. The teacher included visuals from the book, graphic organizers, and a

vocabulary list to help the students to complete their work.

I think that the lesson was grade and age appropriate because the students were able to

complete the tasks included in the lesson. They were also having a lot of fun with the activity

and all the students were very engaged.

I think that the teacher did provide differentiated instruction for all students through

visuals, graphic organizers, vocabulary handouts, and manipulatives. The vocabulary handout

was specifically important because it got the students using the academic language from the

lesson. I noticed that with that vocabulary handout, the students were using many more words

from that sheet when they were speaking with the teacher or their friends.

I think the grammar principal that was incorporated into this lesson was the inductive

method because while interviewing the teacher, she had said that she doesn’t teach grammar but

corrects work when necessary (adda247, 2021). She said that the grammar is taught every day,

but not with a specific focus, but through the daily activities that students must do (speaking,

reading, writing). One of the activities observed in the lesson for example is where students had

written the clues that they found in the book and had to present them to the class. Before the

students had to present the clues, the teacher went around the room and corrected any

grammatical errors written on their papers. This made it easier for the students to share what

clues they found and made it easier for other students to understand (it made the lesson flow
better). After reading about the inductive method, I did notice that the class was student

centered, where the students were assigned a task of finding clue and the class revolved around

the students completing the tasks and sharing their results. The only moment where the lesson

was less student centered was in the beginning where the teacher was giving an explanation

about mystery books.

Background of the student or students interviewed:

Guadalupe is a seven-year-old female student, in the second grade whose native language is

Spanish. Guadalupe grew up in Mexico until she came to the United States three years ago. After

speaking with the teacher, she told me that Guadalupe is a great student in the class. Her favorite

content area is Art. When I asked her why her favorite content area was Art, she responded “I

like art because I like drawing”. While observing Guadalupe in class, she seemed very engaged

with the other students. What surprised me the most was that the other students were helping

Guadalupe. They had formed a team and were working on finding clues together. When I asked

Guadalupe what her least favorite aspects of English are, she responded by saying “I don’t like

writing”. When I asked why, she stated “I don’t like writing because I make a lot of mistakes

(misspelling, grammatical)”. I asked Guadalupe what she liked about the lesson her teacher had

taught on mystery books. She said “I really liked trying to find clues, and I liked that I was with

my friends. I liked using a post it to find clues. I also liked that we were able to share our clues

with the class”. When I asked what the challenges were, Guadalupe responded with “having to

write down the clues was a challenge”. She said, “I am not very good at writing”.

Alex, who is the other student I interviewed is a seven-year-old boy from Russia. He is

currently in the second grade. His native language is Russian and has been in school in the
United States for two years. When I asked Alex about his favorite content area, he replied “I like

Math”. When I asked him why, he said “I like Math because it’s very easy for me”. In the

classroom, Alex was a little shy, but others still included him in the classroom discussions. When

asking Alex what the least favorite aspect of English is, he replied “I don’t like speaking because

I am afraid that I will make a mistake”. When I asked Alex what he liked about the lesson about

mystery books, Alex responded “I really liked the lesson because it was easy for me to find the

clues. I really liked working in a group with my friends”. When I asked Alex what the challenges

were in the lesson, he responded “the challenge for me was having to speak to the class. The

teacher picked me to speak, and it was hard. I am happy the teacher helped me”.

Interview Summary:
When interviewing the students, apart from asking the above question, I also asked the

students what they liked about the lesson and what were the challenges. Here are the student’s

responses as well as a reflection on the interview and future implications.

Guadalupe told me that she liked the lesson on mystery books. She really enjoyed trying to

look for clues in the book and acting like a detective. She also enjoyed the use of post its and

placing them on pages where she thought there was a clue. She also said that she liked working

with her friends because she didn’t feel alone when completing the task. She liked that at the end

of the lesson, she was able to share with the class with the help of her friends. The challenges

that Guadalupe told me that she faced were having to write down the clues after she had found

them. She doesn’t like writing because she told me she makes a lot of mistakes.

Alex told me that he liked the lesson on mystery books. He said that it was easy for him to

find the clues in the book. He also told me that he liked working with his friends on finding the
clues. One of the challenges that Alex faced was speaking to the class because the teacher had

picked on him to speak. He told me that it was hard to speak but that he was happy the teacher

had helped him to get through the clue sharing.

Interview Reflection:
After completing the interview, I found it to be a rewarding experience because I was able to

see what the students thought about the lesson and gain valuable insights behind the students

thinking. When interviewing these students, I was happy to be speaking to them because based

on what the students think, the teacher can change her teaching style to accommodate the

students. After interviewing these students, it became clear to me that in the future, there are

certain things that I would need to include in my lesson.

One of the things that I would include in my future teaching practice is group work. I think

that group work is so important for our ELL students because it provides them with that extra

support, they need to complete their work. I am also a firm believe that if you are around

students that are speaking English, and you don’t know English yourself, you will be able to

better grasp the language because it will force you to speak the language. I can speak for myself,

where my wife is from Brazil and speaks Portuguese. When we went to Portugal, and I was only

around others who spoke Portuguese, I was speaking very well! I really think it’s the best way to

learn a language being that I have already had that experience.

I would also include the strategies that had taken place in the classroom. Specifically, I really

liked how the teacher gave out a vocabulary list to all the students. The vocabulary list was very

helpful in that it gave the students the language to use in their lessons. The students started to use

the terms and academic language in their responses to questions or even when interacting with
the other students in the class. Overall, I think this was a great strategy in which I would love to

include in my future teaching practice.

I loved the idea of providing an engaging activity, almost as if it were task-based learning.

The students had a goal and were slowly working up to that goal. While working up to the goal,

they were having fun engaging with the material and interacting with the other students. This is a

goal for me in my future lessons, to have all the students having fun and interactively learning

the material.

Post Lesson Reflection/Conclusion:

In reflecting on the lessons that I have observed, I have thought about the different

grammar strategies that have been effective, the challenges that the students have faced, their

reaction to the lesson, and the interview that took place with the teacher. All these things have

really provided a valuable experience for me, and I wanted to write about how these experiences

helped shape my future teaching practices.

I feel that the inductive method is one of the best methods because students are not told

the many different rules of grammar. Instead, the students are learning grammar as they are

learning about the other necessary content needed for the year. I think this is more exciting for

students rather than learning about the rules of grammar. I really liked that this method is student

centered and the lesson that I observed is proof of it. The engagement level was so high, and all

the students really loved acting like a detective.

The other strategies that I observed and that I loved was the use of visuals, graphic

organizers, and the vocabulary list handout. The use of these items served to differentiate the

instruction as well as provide supports for the students who needed them. I think that these were
necessary supports but could have been improved a little by using technology. I think that if the

students were using technology in the lesson, they would really enjoy the lesson even more. I

also think that if the ELL students had audio books, they would be able to understand the text

better because they would be able to go back and have the audiobook re-read a certain part in the

text that they didn’t understand.

One of the other few strategies that I liked was when a student was speaking about the

clues that he was presenting and when the student read a sentence wrong, the teacher repeated

his error out loud. This made the student think about the sentence and he immediately corrected

himself. This happened many times throughout the lesson and this same strategy was used. The

students were able to correct themselves. I also loved when the teacher was walking around and

checking all the tables and their written clues, she would point out any grammatical errors and

ask the students at the table how they could fix the sentence. The students would all chime in

together to fix the sentence. I thought that this was a good strategy because its student centered in

the sense that the teacher is not giving the answers out. I like to have my students working and

engaging with the material as much as possible and always lead the students to the correct

answers instead of just giving them out easily. I think that leading the students to the correct

answers promotes problem solving which is a life skill that all students will need to have in their

careers when they get older.

After learning about the challenges that students faced, I thought that maybe these

students would need to have a support for them so that we can help support these students

through the difficulties in the lesson. Guadalupe had trouble writing and I thought how can we

help Guadalupe so that she would be able to easily write. I immediately thought that iPads have

an auto correct feature built into the iPad and maybe if we gave Guadalupe an iPad, she would
feel more confident in writing because she would be making less mistakes. I think that this

would be a perfect support for Guadalupe and some of the other ELL students who don’t like to

write. While Guadalupe is using the iPad, she is also seeing the edits the iPad is making and is

learning how to write better. I think that with this support, Guadalupe would only use an iPad for

a few months before not needing an iPad anymore. I think that Guadalupe would benefit from

this support very much.

I also think that Alex would benefit from using an iPad. After speaking with Alex, I

noticed that he is very shy and that maybe this is hindering his ability to speak out loud. This

maybe the reason why Alex finds speaking to be a challenge. I was thinking that maybe an iPad

with a voice recorder would really benefit him. The teacher could ask him a question and give

him the time he needs to record his response on his iPad. I think giving Alex this extra time

would really help his fear in speaking and would also help him to provide better responses to

questions.

After talking to both students and their reactions to the lesson, they both agreed that they

really liked the lesson, and that they really liked being grouped up with their friends. I think they

really liked being grouped up with their friends because it provided an extra support for them,

and the total workload did not rely solely on them. This is something that I would like to

incorporate in all my future activities will ELL students. After interviewing these students, I

think they have really shaped my future teaching practices in the sense that I will now include

group work with all my activities.

After the lesson, I briefly talked to the teacher. We talked about how the classroom is

setup, how the students are grouped, the strategies that were included in the lesson and more.

This discussion has really opened my eyes about grouping students. The teacher explained that
she groups students based on reading level and that this has helped the students so much and

made teaching easier. She explained that if she needed to support one student in the group, most

likely all the students in that group needed that same support and so she would create supports

for all four of those students instead of thinking of just that one student. I agree with this in that it

does make teaching easier because I feel that the students will grow together and learn at the

same pace. The students in the group will also help each other to succeed.

I was also happy with the classroom setup and how everything was so accessible. I had

told her that the students would be able to follow the lesson from anywhere in the room. She told

me that when she was looking at possible setups for the classroom, she wanted to make sure that

all the students can see the smartboard and so that’s what she did. She included the meeting area

right in front of the smart board with the desks around the carpet.

When we started to talk about strategies, she began to tell me about all the different

strategies she uses from differentiating, to checking for reading comprehension. She listed all the

strategies such as pointing, questioning, differentiation (vocabulary list, pointing, visuals,

graphic organizer). I think that all these strategies are very important and that all teachers need to

include these in their teaching, especially when teaching ELL students.

Lastly, I asked the teacher what she thought of the lesson she taught, and she said that she

thought the students were engaged and that they had fun. She did tell me that she struggled with

supporting some of the ELL students in the class and so I mentioned to her that maybe giving an

iPad to Guadalupe and Alex would help give them the support they need. I then explained to her

that maybe Alex can use a voice recorder app and Guadalupe can write on her iPad and that

maybe, these supports would be what they need to feel more confident in the classroom. The

teacher loved the idea of voice recording for Alex and told me that she had never thought of
doing something like this. She had said that she would want to give Alex a try with recording his

voice on his iPad when he would like to respond to a question. I also told her that Guadalupe

would be able to write on her iPad for some of the assignments in class because I feel that she

does not have the confidence to write because she is afraid of making a mistake. I told her that

the iPad would fix any mistakes she would make and that it also provides a learning experience

for the student. The teacher agreed with everything I said and told me that she would like to try

these ideas with these two students.

The experience that I have had in doing this fieldwork has given me tremendous insight

inside many different aspects of teaching. It has given me insight on the thought process that

students go through when learning. It helped me to understand how classroom setup, student

rapport, student interaction, and teaching methods and strategies all have a significant effect on

how well students can learn the content being taught by the teacher. Overall, this experience has

been very insightful, and will help to shape my future ELL teaching style.
References:

Adda247. (2021, January 11). Methods of teaching English grammar – download English
pedagogy study notes free PDF. adda247. Retrieved May 7, 2022, from
https://www.adda247.com/teaching-jobs-exam/methods-of-teaching-english-grammar/
Observation Notes:

 Lesson about mystery books: Book titled: September Sneakers by Ron Roy
 Teacher calls students to sit in circle spots – introduction to mystery books
 Students will be identifying clues, clues classified as object, character appearance,
suspicious behavior, or dialogue
 Students to use post it’s to mark down specific clues in the book that they find –
(manipulative)

 Teacher models how to use post it’s to find clues by showing the student show to put post
it in the book and marking it as object, character appearance suspicious behavior or
dialogue
 Students working in their table groups to find clues
 Student says that he found a clue, “orange and green sneakers left on the lawn”.
 Another clue student points out that teacher in the book was shop lifting based on the
following clues: orange and green shirt, bought broccoli and carrots (orange and green).
 Teacher calling up students for reading comprehension
 Differentiated instruction: vocabulary list for all, visuals from the story, graphic
organizers
 Students using academic language when vocabulary list was handed out
 Teacher uses gestures such as pointing to correct grammatical errors in writing. Calls on
group to correct grammatical errors
 Teacher repeats students sentence that seems to be formatted wrong. Student catches the
mistake and corrects himself and laughs it off
 Lesson seems grade appropriate with most of the students engaged and acting like
detectives. The students love the activity
 A lot of talking in groups, four students to a group
 I don’t see objectives on board, will wait for lesson plan
 Differentiation for all students, vocab list, visuals
 Class can benefit from using iPads – recording voices and writing apps
 No other tech but the smart board

**Classroom Setup Below**

 Classroom Setup:

Smart Board
Manipulatives

B W

TABLE #1 Carpet (Meeting Area) TABLE #6 O I

O N

K D

S O

TABLE #5 S
TABLE #2

TABLE #3
TABLE #4 Teacher Desk

Door Closets