A&HT 5301

Fall 2015
Boblett

CEP Video Self-observation

Part 1: General
1. (How) did you introduce the lesson objectives?
I offered a little preview at the beginning of the lesson by saying today were going
to focus mainly on speaking and pronunciation. I also gave a general overview of the
activities.
2. (How) did you connect the lesson (or parts of the lesson) to previous lessons or students
previous experience or comments in the class?
Since the class had already had one lesson on syllables before, I reminded students of
that lesson and told them that the focus of the present one would be stresses and that
together we would dig deeper into stressed words in a sentence as well as their functions.
After the introduction of lesson objectives, I asked two of the students to share their
experience the day before, because at the end of the previous lesson they told the class
that they were going to Lincoln Center the next day. Then the class had a bit discussion
about the plans they had for the coming weekend (the present lesson took place on a
Friday). This was also intended as a memory challenge game so that in the following
Monday they would be asked about their classmates plans during the weekend.
3. Did you notice any patterns in your tendency to call on some students more than others?
If so, what were those patterns?
Yes. I realized that, since sometimes it was hard for me to understand students with a
Spanish or Portuguese accent, I tended to call on Latin American students less. I felt I
was able to understand Japanese and Korean students better, so I often called on them.
4. Were there any surprises or unexpected events during the lesson? If so, what were they
and how did you handle them?
Yes. Most of the surprises came from unexpected responses from the students. If the
answers were unexpected but correct, I would give students credit for that but still
continue to elicit more answers. If they could not come up with more, I would in the end
provide them with mine. On the other hand, if the answers were incorrect, I would pause
and give students feedback.
Another source of unexpected events concerned my delivery of instructions. For
example, at one point I asked students to come up with one thing that they could do
together during the weekend in groups of three. Nonetheless, before that I had asked them
to open their textbook, where the language for negotiation was illustrated. Students,
naturally, did not begin talking instantly because they were all reading the textbook, and I
did not allocate time for that. What I did was to stop them from reading and tell them that
they had already got the language (because we had talked about that before), so that they

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A&HT 5301
Fall 2015
Boblett

could start talking immediately. However, I do not think I handled that quite well,
because students needed time to refresh their memories. It would be more appropriate to
allow them the time to read the textbook instead of rushing them into the group work.
5. What is one compliment you would give yourself about your teaching, based on this
video?
I think I was able to build the lesson upon students experiences and therefore make it
motivating. One of the goals of the lesson was language for negotiation, so I asked
students to come up with plans that they could do together during the weekend in groups
of three. It was relevant to their lives and it generated a lot of negotiation because they all
had different timetables.
6. Did you see anything on the tape that you were unaware of during the lesson?
One salient thing I noticed was that I used the word like a lot. It was a silence filler
for me, but too many of it just sounded really annoying. I also used hand gestures too
much. Finally, as I had mentioned before, it was not until I had watched the video that I
realized I tended to call on Japanese and Korean students more than those from Latin
America!
Part 2: Interaction/CLT
1. As you watch the video of yourself teaching, write out all of the questions that you ask
your students in 1 (only one) of the 2 hours. Categorize them into the following groups:
a. Yes/No questions
Did you watch a movie or an
opera?
Did you see a lot of clowns?
Is it a big circus?
Do you know a haunted
house?
You know zip lining?
Do you have any plan for the
weekend?
Do you have a specific time in
mind?
Are you throwing a party?
Do they have a day off?
Are you working today?

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b. Questions with one- or

two-word answers
Who else likes to play in
haunted house?
Who also gets up at six
everyday in the morning?
Do you have any particular
costume in mind? Like
Superman?
Four a.m.? What for?
With the elbow? Really?
Have you bought the bus
tickets? How do you go
there?
What kind of glasses?
Where are you going again?
Who of us are sleeping on
Sunday?

c. Questions stimulating
thinking or asking for opinions
Tell us about it. What did you do
there?
When you were young? You like
ghosts? Why?
Think about what are you doing
on Sunday.
What are you doing on Sunday?
How do you do that? Its
amazing.
Why do you like Korean
traditional music?
Tell us more about it!
What about xxx?
What else?

A&HT 5301
Fall 2015
Boblett

(cont.)
a. Yes/No questions
Do you want to do that? Next
week? We can do that.
Are you sculpting?
Are you participating or just
watching?
Do you know an appointment?
Do you have any questions
about these sentences?

b. Questions with oneor two-word answers

Have you ever been to
any of the museums in
New York?

c. Questions stimulating thinking or

asking for opinions
What kind of style is New Yorkers
style?
How do we disagree with each
other? What do we say?
How do we start the sentence?
What about how we agree with each
other?
Why do you want to have Mexican
food?
What else can you say to suggest a
time to meet?
What would you say if you want to
suggest a time to your boss?
How do we suggest another time?
How do you accept that suggestion?
What are some other ways?

What kinds of questions do you tend to use most often and how might that affect the
quality of classroom interaction?
I think it might depend on the goals of the particular lesson. I was comfortable asking
referential questions (i.e. questions stimulating thinking and asking for student opinions)
when teaching speaking and listening, but in grammar and reading lessons it would seem
that most questions I asked were yes/no questions or those with short answers.
Referential questions stimulated a lot of teacher-student interactions in class, and
sometimes even gave rise to student-student interactions during whole-group discussion.
Since students knew there were no definite answers, they were more at ease and more
likely to respond to each other.
Also, I realize that I asked a lot of yes/no questions for comprehension check. I would
often repeat part a students response with a rising tone to make sure that the other
students and I had understood him/her correctly.
2. Comment on your ability to design pre-, during, and post-activity segments for each
activity.
The entire lesson featured two big activities. One activity highlighted speaking
practice on negotiation and the other focused on pronunciation practice with stressed
words in a sentence. With both activities the pre- and during stages went quite well. In the
speaking activity, students were quite engaged by talking about their own experiences
and ideas. After that, they were able to brainstorm about the language for negotiation in

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A&HT 5301
Fall 2015
Boblett

the during stage. In the pronunciation activity, the pre-stage followed quite naturally from
students responses in the post-stage of the previous speaking activity. Also, students
were able to refresh their memories on what they had learnt before. Then they worked in
pairs with the help of a worksheet in the during stage.
Compared with the pre- and during stages, the post-stages were a little weak. In the
speaking activity, the post-stage was the whole-group report of students group work. My
feedback featured nothing specifically on the target language. It would be better if I had
asked them the particular language they had used when they negotiated during the group
discussion. With the pronunciation activity, the post-stage was merely an assignment that
required students to eavesdrop during the weekend about how native speakers stressed
words when they spoke. Perhaps I could have asked them about the importance of
stresses in speaking so as to provoke a little self-discovery.
3. When appropriate, were you able to respond to students responses? Did other students
respond? Give specific examples.
Yes. I tried to give responses to students contributions in class. More often I would
offer an evaluation or ask questions to elicit more information. For example, at the
beginning of the class, two students said that they went to a circus in Lincoln Center the
day before. I responded by asking what they saw there and after that, offering what I
knew about another Halloween-related activity in New York.
I was happy to notice that students responded to their classmates responses during
whole-group discussion in the video. They seemed comfortable to speak and were not
afraid of making mistakes. For example, a student said that she was going to play tennis
for the first time in the coming Sunday. Another student responded by offering advice on
playing tennis. Then one other student cut in and talked about why playing tennis was
hard.
4. Name at least 2 take-aways from this assignment. How might these take-aways affect
your teaching in the future?
1)

2)

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As it has been mentioned before, I notice that I tended to call on students whom I
understood better. It was unfair to other students, so in the future I will try to call
on students equally and moreover, pay more attention to those who are often silent
in class.
Another thing I notice is that I did not make the purpose of each activity clear
enough for the students. The connection between the language they were learning
in class and the application of it in the world outside was not made explicit. In the
future I would state the objective of each stage in an activity before setting students
off. Also, in the post-stage of the entire activity, I will try to promote students selfdiscovery by asking them how they may want to use the language and why it is
important to learn it.