Thursday, Sep 14th in Dong Anh, Hanoi at ICE IELTS

Class: Pre-IE 03

Teacher: Theodore

Duration: 1 hour

Observed by: Med

Class Observation Report

Warmer: Nice self-introduction and connecting with students asking about their names

and age.
Language: Simple, relatively slow-paced (fit the students level) - Well-mastered
Preparation: Well-prepared
Delivery: Direct, T-S at first, then S-S

Act 03 : (synopsis)
- Ss were invited to read the card and make guesses about what’s in the card. Meanwhile, a few
vocabularies were explained. Then, students listened once and twice to do the definitions
activity. Later, the audio was played and paused each time to allow students to guess the answer.

After having finished with the activity, students were invited to prepare their own speeches using
the model in the book. Eventually, students started delivering their speeches to the whole class
one by one. Later, students were invited to deliver their speeches to each other.

Demonstration:
- smooth, through word root derivation on the board.
- Reliance on translation, which wasn’t negative at all, but could have been minimized to allow
students to establish the meaning themselves i.e. it could have been used to check students’
guesses of meanings.
- Words spoken rather than written on the board.
- Handwriting illegible at some stances
- New vocabularies were explained along with translation on the board
- Exemplification was theoretical and done verbally
- Students could have been invited to make use of the target language they’d just learnt.

Interaction:
- There was no much interaction made by students. That might be due to shyness, which is quite
normal for them while meeting a teacher for the first time.
- TTT was dominant.
- Students answers weren’t checked.
- Pair work and group work weren’t encouraged primarily, which would have made the class
more interactive and productive.
- T moved all throughout the classroom to instruct Ss individually on how to tailor their speeches.

Overall,
Considering all the surrounding factors, the lesson went smoothly with having Ss learnt some
vocabularies and spoken to address IELTS Speaking Part 02. T presents some knowledge of the
IELTS Test Format and requirements. T could effectively establish connection with Ss and easily
have them pay attention and participate. What is to be worked on is TTT and the demonstration
methods and tools to be employed to help students better build meanings and ideas. Less
reliance on translation is also to be encouraged. It is noteworthy that the lesson was somehow
high-levelled and irrelevant to the Ss interests. The lesson was about work and future jobs, which
wasn’t familiar to Ss at all.