Observation report n°1

I observed a class of children between eight and nine years old. The group’s

name is “children 1”. The class started in the playground; the teacher, by using

flashcards, asked students “what’s this?” in order to recover the vocabulary studied in

the previous lessons. After those minutes, the teacher told the children to go to the

classroom. Once in the classroom, the teacher played a song the children sang

enthusiastically. The song was about going to school and related vocabulary. All

students knew the song. As the song repeated many school objects, the teacher invited

the students to stick the flashcards on the board. After that the teacher asked students

individually, “can I borrow a rubber/ruler/pencil?” the students answered, “here you

are” and gave the teacher the element. Once the teacher had all the objects, in order to

give them back she asked “whose is this pencil?” and students answered eagerly

“Mateo” for example. After that, the teacher directed students ‘attention towards the

activity book. They had to do a listening activity in which students had to number four

short dialogues which consisted of short exchanges with the expression “can I borrow

a…?” This was an individual activity, and students carried it out in silence and focused

on getting the correct answer. The teacher checked the activity by asking the whole

class. Children had no problems in doing it. The next activity was a puzzle that required

the kids to write the names of the objects. All Students worked and some of them asked

the teacher if they could open the book for some help. Some students finished this

activity faster than others did; those fast finishers started talking and asked the teacher if

they could paint the drawings. The teacher accepted so the rest of the class finished the

task. Then, the teacher told the kids to open their classbooks. In the book, students had a

story first the teacher directed students’ attention towards the characters, drawings and

elicited students’ ideas on what was happening in the story. In this activity, some

students were not paying attention to the teacher’s questions. As regards the use of L2,

students answered in Spanish, they used only few words in English such as “it’s

red/blue” or to name the characters. They were easily distracted. Then, they completed

some of the dialogues and read aloud the story. In those activities, children were much

more engaged. Finally, the teacher asked students to take out their copybooks and copy

the date because they were going to play a game. The game was a “running dictation”

which the children played in the playground. The game consisted in the children

copying the list of words the teacher had written on a sheet of paper. Students needed to

run from one end of the playground to the other and copy the words in their copybooks.

In the activity children participated actively and they enjoyed the game. They all wanted

to win and to write the words as fast as they could but they paid attention to the spelling

since they knew they could not make mistakes. Throughout all the class, students

worked quite well and were very energetic. They really enjoyed some activities and they

liked to get an excellent once they finished the written work in the activity book. Some

of them were easily distracted and started talking. As regards the use of the L2, they

only spoke in English when the teacher asked or when they for example wanted to go to

the bathroom. However, to talk to their classmates, they used Spanish. As an observer, I

learnt that children are unpredictable and that teachers need to take into account many

aspects during a class. For example, fast finishers, talkative students, the timing, and the

resources we may need if an activity does not work. That is, having alternatives to deal

with an activity is necessary. What is more, teachers need to know if an activity is as

challenging as they may think or if it is too easy or too difficult for the students to do.