TESOL Certificate Programs

Observation Notebook

Observation Report Form

Name of Observer :Burcu Chatham Observation # 5

Date Observation Class Skill/Content Level Teacher

Environment*
02/01/19 Face-to- Intercultural Speaking, High
face Communication Listening Beginner to Judy Nguyen
1 Intermediate

*Include the URL if the class was online

WRITE THE OBJECTIVES ACCORDING TO THE OBSERVATION GUIDELINES:

STUDENTS WILL LEARN SPECIFIC VOCABULARY RELATED TO RELATIONSHIPS AND

MARRIAGES WHICH WOULD HELP THEM UNDERSTAND THE TOPIC OF INTERRACIAL
MARRIAGES EASILY WHEN THEY LISTEN TO VIDEOS AND TEACHER.

STUDENTS WILL BE ABLE TO COMFORTABLY DISCUSS THEIR IDEAS RELATING THE TOPIC OF
INTERRACIAL MARRIAGES TO THEIR OWN LIVES WHILE ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS GIVEN
TO THEM BY THEIR TEACHER.

Notes while observing:

1:03 pm Warm Up

T has been sick and is not feeling well. The T goes over Ss’ names one by one, and then
T wants to group students in threes and make two groups out of five students, but since
one student is missing, T asks me to join one of the groups, and I do that and make the
group three.

Before T starts Quizlet competition, T provides me with the passcode to upload the
application into my phone. All of the Ss have already had the application and prior
experience with the game, so they are ready. As soon as I am ready, we start.

The quiz is about matching a definition with the correct vocabulary related to relations
and marriages. When one team matches all the definitions correctly consequently, the
game is over. We play three rounds, work together, and help each other to finish first. At
each round, T switches me to a different team to make the game fair.

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Observation Notebook

1:22 pm Presentation

T says, “Today, our lesson is about interracial marriages.”

T shows a picture of her family, she, her partner, and their baby daughter.
T writes on the board “Heritage (ancestors).”
T tells Ss more about her family, “Both (referring to her partner and her) of us are
Americans. Many Americans have different heritages. I am Vietnamese-Cambodian.”
T continues, “Everybody thinks that I am Chinese,” and then T reflects another picture
on the screen, a picture of a Chinese woman that looks like her.
T says, “My husband is American with a mixed heritage of Mexican, European, and
Salvadorian.”
As T continues, T also writes on the board following words under the word “heritage”:
Vietnamese/Chinese
Mexican (European/Salvadorian)

Then, T tells more of her daughter who is interracial.

T shows Ss a picture from the Time Magazine, which includes several people portraits
reflecting mixed heritages in the US.
T asks Ss, referring to a picture of a girl with dark skin and blue eyes, “Do you think she
is from Africa?”
Ss mumble.
T continues.

T shows Ss a newsclip about interracial couples.

T tells Ss about Barack Obama that his mother is white, and his father is from Africa.
Then, pointing to the screen, T says, “Let’s watch and listen, and I will have a question
for you later.”
T plays a video about how interracial marriage was prohibited in some states. T stops the
video and provides Ss with a short explanation about this issue in the US.
Video shows some familiar people like Obamas.

After the video is over, T writes on the board: [Latino] Heritage is from Central America,
South America, Mexico.
T tells Ss, “I live in Latino household with my partner’s family. We will raise our
children with Latino culture. Even though we are American, our daughter is leaning more
towards Latino culture.”

1:40 pm Practice and Production

T asks Ss about their cultures, “What about your culture?”

Ss answer, “Chinese,” except one student who is from Middle East.

T writes the following sets of questions on the board:

Are there any interracial couples in your family?
Are there members in your family from other cultures/countries?

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Would you prefer to marry outside/inside your heritage?

T models answers to those questions herself, “I was born in the US. I am living both
American and Latino culture, but my heritage is Chinese and Vietnamese. I can marry
somebody from different heritage as long as he is American.”

Then T groups Ss in threes, and again I get included to one of the groups.
T asks us to discuss these questions as a group.

Ss discuss the questions as a group, and in my group the Chinese female student says, “I
will not marry anybody from a different country or from a different heritage. He should
be Chinese,” and the Chinese male student says, “I am open to marry somebody from a
different country and heritage as long as she is from one of the Asian countries, such as
Korea, Vietnam, Japan, etc.” The same S says, “It will be too different and difficult to
marry somebody from a Western culture.”

1:50 pm Wrap Up
As our discussions come to an end, T says, “We are now giving a break.”

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What did you learn about teaching or learning from this lesson as it relates to the
theory you have studied in your TESOL classes? Include at least one reference (with
an in-text citation) to support your response. (250-500 words)

In this face-to-face observation, since it was a communication class focusing on

speaking and listening skills, I decided to observe how the teacher would navigate

through three stages of activities, pre-, during, and post-. It was a high beginner to an

intermediate level class composed of 5 students, four from China and one from the

Middle East. Judy’s objectives were to have her students learn specific vocabulary that

would help them understand the topic of interracial marriages easily as they listened to

videos and her, and also to have students comfortably discuss their ideas relating the

topic to their own lives.

During the pre-listening stage, Judy followed “bottom-up processes” which were

defined by Nation and Newton (2009) as “the processes the listener uses to assemble the

message piece by piece from the speech stream, going from the parts to whole” (p.40).

Students were exposed to several words through Quizlet competition, and since they

could not win the round until they answered all of the questions correctly, they learned

many new words.

Later, while the students were listening to Judy’s life and watching videos, other

new words came up, and Judy wrote them on the board. However, she did not provide her

students with any specific task to complete during the listening, and she told them that

she would have a question for them later about these videos instead. Her statement was

vague, and the students did not engage in listening much. So, the momentum gained from

the fast-paced pre-listening phase slowed down, and the lesson became more teacher-

centered. Though Judy’s story and the videos were related to the topic and interesting,

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Observation Notebook
lacking specific tasks for her students was a lost opportunity for Judy to check their

comprehension.

Post-listening phase included a speaking activity assigned to the students through

questions they would answer as a group, and they were interesting questions which

triggered a true communicative practice as it included the three features of

communications: “information gap, “choice, and feedback” (Larsen-Freeman &

Anderson, 2011, p.122). Judy modeled the questions herself, which made the activity

easy to follow, however if Judy had modeled them with a student, the lesson would have

become more student-centered.

In conclusion, I experienced successful bottom-up processes during the pre-

listening stage through Quizlet competition and a highly engaging communicative

speaking activity during the post-listening phase. Once again, I realized the importance of

assigning tasks to the students during the listening, so I will definitely pay close attention

to this stage and also provide my students with as many speaking opportunities as

possible throughout the class. Overall, I felt really lucky to have a chance to watch such

a dynamic teacher and be part of several engaging activities.

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References

Larsen-Freeman, D. & Anderson, M. (2011). Techniques & principles in language

teaching. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press

Nation, I. S. P. & Newton, J. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL listening and speaking. New

York, NY: Routledge.

Last Updated: 3/8/2019 12:57 PM