VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

CLASS OBSERVATION REPORT

FUNDAMENTALS OF TEACHING ENGLISH FOR YOUNG LEARNERS

GROUP: 1 - CLASS: QH2020.E23

1 Lê Như Hà Phương 21040072

2 Hoàng Kim Ngân 21040497

3 Hoàng Hoài Phương 21040418

Group 1: Lê Như Hà Phương
Hoàng Kim Ngân
Hoàng Hoài Phương
Observation Date: 11/10/2023
Location of Observation: Fansipan School
City: Thanh Hoa

PART I - OBSERVATION

1. Profile of the class and class physical environment

This report documents the observations made on a third-grade class of 24 Pre-A1

students (11 girls and 13 boys). The lesson’s duration is 35 minutes, which starts from
7:15 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. The lesson is one out of six periods a week. In terms of the
physical environment, the seating arrangement of the classroom is fixed with 3 columns
of pairs. As the session involved some pairwork, the setting made it easy to pair up
students while giving the teacher space to move between pairs to keep track of students’
progress. There is also a blackboard and a TV for the teacher to present the visual
materials. In addition, there are colorful posters at the end of the class involving the
students’ ranking and the schedule for cleaning up the class for the students.

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 A general view of the class

2. Class progress description

Besides, based on the class observation, it is evaluated that the lesson is

developmentally appropriate for young learners. The content of the lesson is developed
using Unit 11 “Things we eat and drink” in Fun for Movers. During the whole lesson, the
teacher utilized vivid visual aids including slides or videos to enhance the interest in the
lesson as well as catch students’ attention. Moreover, several activities in the lesson were
also designed in the form of games, individual and group work, which not only increased
learning motivation but also boosted the interaction among class members.

For the warm-up part, the teacher organized a stirring up activity called “The
mystery box”, in which students chose a card from the mystery box and did the actions
on the cards. In the pre-teaching stage, the teacher provided students with some new
words about food and drinks and reminded them of the previous grammatical knowledge
about the present simple tense. Subsequently, the while-teaching phase involved a

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controlled and guided activity. Specifically, the controlled activity required students to
put all the given words in the correct box. For the guided activity, students were asked to
look at food pictures and say which one was different and why by using the prompts. The
lesson ended with the presentation activity, in which students worked in pairs to draw a
mind map about different types of food. After that, each pair presented their work in front
of the class to get comments and marks from the teacher. This activity is an appropriate
free activity since it allowed students to practice the new words and present tense as well
as encouraged students to produce their own language. As could be seen from the
example, the outcomes of the previous activities turned out to be the materials for the
subsequent activities, which highlights the scaffolding that is normally seen in English
lessons, particularly ones for young learners. Through the logical sequence of the
activities, the language had the chance to be recycled, which reinforced students’
understanding and use of the new words and phrases.

Warm-up activity

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 Controlled exercise

Mindmap presentation

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 Classroom management is an important factor worth considering. Regarding the
language used in the lesson, English was utilized as the main means of communication.
To manage students’ behaviors with routines, the teacher set up short forms of
instructions in English like: “Sit down!”, “Open your book”, “Take out your colored
pencils...". Moreover, the teacher also applied attention-getters to make the students quiet
down. For instance, the teacher used the technique of counting backwards from 5 to 1 in
order to keep the class silent.

PART II - GROUP REFLECTION

Overall, it was a golden opportunity for our team to observe and gain valuable
insight into how an English class for young learners works in reality. Through our
experience, we have seen the value of combining accuracy and fluency activities in
teaching young learners. Especially with young learners, prioritizing accuracy helps them
build a strong foundation and gain confidence. Equally important is teachers' scaffolding
and support, which creates a safe space where young learners can freely express
themselves and work with the language.

However, there is still room for improvement. To begin with, the teacher could
reduce time spent on reviewing grammatical knowledge from the previous lesson since
the students have already learned it thoroughly; hence, more time could be allocated for
fluency activities. Additionally, an activity introducing authentic contexts could have
been included to help students better retain the language they learned. For instance, a
song about food or a dialogue about their favorite food is highly recommended.

To recapitulate, our group recognizes the importance of integrating valuable

teaching techniques into our future classes. Firstly, we aim to simplify our instructions for
young learners, ensuring clarity and understanding in our future sessions. Additionally,
the effective integration of stirring up and settling down activities is what we find useful
for managing the class successfully, which is worth considering in the long run.