Observation Report Write Up

8/13/2019 Observation Report Write Up

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Bethany DeiblerLIN 4365, C. Stuart

November 17, 2009Observation Report

Beginning French class Taught by Andrea Taylor

Observed on Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Part 1

Early in the morning at 8 AM, students meandered into the classroom. Andrea spent thetime passing back previous homework or quizzes and asked students questions in French. At the

beginning of the class time she asked a student to write the date on the board in French as the laststragglers showed up to class.

She began with a picture of four friends using some site or CD related to the textbook.She asked questions about the picture and called on individual students to answer. Then sheclicked on the sound button and they listened while a speaker read the dialogue. She wentlooking in her bag and pulled out a pointer so she did nt have to keep gesturing to the picture thatwas far above her reach. After the dialogue was read, she continued asking questions about the

picture to cement the information given. She took time to teach the abbreviated words so thestudents could recognize it.

A student then asked what a word meant from the dialogue. She asked the other studentsto help her out and answer the question for her. She then taught them a new word by writing it onthe white board and using it in several sentences. Then she asked the students to make their ownsentences with it. They talked about what the people are wearing in the picture. Andrea made themistake of saying the word for house instead of the word for hat. She laughed at herself and usedit jokingly with the students asking if they have a house. A student then asked a question inEnglish to clarify a word.

At 8:15, Andrea switched over to a power point she made about French friends. The firstslide was of a beautiful lady. She asked the class to describe her and later asked who she was. Noone knew so she showed the following picture beside it and the class discovered that it was theFrench president and his wife. Then they described him. The students joked among themselves inEnglish. There were four more pictures that they were asked to describe. She added a side noteabout what is respectful in asking the age of a person. A student asked how to say something andshe responded that they should try to stick to the words they already know. She also remindedthem to use the correct article for referring to people instead of objects.

At 8:40, she told the class to turn to a partner and describe his/her roommate to eachother. They could invent things if necessary. During this time, Andrea circulated through theclass and stopped with each pair to ask if there are questions and help with any problem. Whenshe had finished visiting each group she asked them to write one thing that the partnersroommate is not. When the students had finished writing on the board she went over each oneindividually asking the class if it was correct. If not she corrected them with a marker.

Next, she had the class go over the masculine and feminine forms of several words as themasculine form is rarely used in class due to the one male student. They repeated after her bothforms of each word. She also asked them to describe their fathers to implement the use ofmasculine adjectives as well.

At 9:00, Andrea told the class that they would be working on pronunciation next. Sheused the text reference again and played a script. A man described the pronunciation of theending of French words on the recording. She touched on the subject of French names, such asthe use of Michelle for both men and women.


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Bethany Deibler

The last activity was in pairs. The groups did an activity out of the book and once againAndrea circulated among them helping with any questions. At 9:20 the students begin packingup their things even though Andrea was still helping someone. She briefly reminded them of aquiz on Friday and passed out the rest of the quizzes from before. She stayed a bit after to discusscatching up on homework with a couple of students.

The students seemed rather focused on the lesson and enjoyed it as well. Andrea wasrelaxed enough to make fun of her mistake one time as well as joke with a couple of othervocabulary words asking students if they owned a house or had white hair. The classroom wasset up with the chairs in rows and students seated in random places wherever they desired.Andrea had a relaxed way of standing off to the side of the screen pointing to the objects shewanted named or described. The students often had their fingers in the back of the chaptermarking the page with vocabulary. While the pressure wasnt overwhelming to get the correctanswer, they were expected to know the vocabulary. When students asked questions in English,Andrea would either answer in French with minimal English or ask the students to answerquestions for each other.


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Bethany DeiblerLIN 4365, C. Stuart

November 17, 2009Observation Report

Part 2

This beginning French class was taught quite well and used a variety of exercises to help

the students learn. The class was based mostly on speaking and listening. The students also had a

lot of interaction with both the teacher and their classmates. For a beginning French class, there

was only a small amount of English used in the classroom.

The broad method of teaching utilized in this class was the direct method that is

described in Omaggio Hadley (ch. 3, p. 108). From the six points mentioned, this class matched

up specifically with four of the points. The first, which states that language learners should start

with the here and now, was implemented when Andrea used common things such as students,

friends and roommates for discussion. The students could relate to the language talking about

school, friends and roommates as well as learn about some of the French culture and popular

people. It was a good blend of subject matters and could potentially help students, if they were to

study abroad in France, to know about some of the culture as well as communicate information

about people. The second, which states that the teacher should avoid the use of translation byusing things from the culture of the target language for discussion was also used. When a

question was asked in English, she either had other students help explain or used the whiteboard

to explain in French as much as possible. Her error correction consisted of asking for it to be

repeated. The students understood that if she asked for it again, they had an error and needed to

fix something. If the student could not figure out the problem, she would ask another student.

The third, which states that complete and meaningful sentences should be used the entire class

period, was also put to good use. The book suggests using a question and answer technique to

accomplish this. Andrea also used questions and answers to get complete sentence replies from

the students instead of one word answers. The fourth, which states that correct pronunciation, is


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Bethany Deibler

an important part of language learning was important in class as well. She insisted on correct

pronunciation and had students repeat when incorrect. The other two, which state that grammar

rules are not explicitly taught and that readings are to be done without dictionaries or any

translation were not specifically shown in the class. However, I suspect that these are not

normally used in this class as it is very difficult to accomplish correct and efficient use of the

language with these methods.

Hypotheses 1 and 2 from chapter six in Omaggio Hadley were also demonstrated in the

class. Both of these hypotheses deal with the idea of simulating target culture practice and

experience. The first hypothesis states that there must be opportunities for using language in arange of contexts. There was a variety of contexts that were taught to the students, as well as

several different tasks that were accomplished. The different contexts the students worked with

were both structured and free. They did activities from the book that were very structured with

precise details as well as create some of their own ideas. The exercise when the students

described their roommates to each other was a good example of a sort of free context to use the

language in a creative way. The second hypothesis mentions that the students should practice a

range of tasks. This was also incorporated in the lesson as the students wrote, talked, described

and listened to instructions. Describing people and listening to instructions is probably one of the

key things to learn in a target language if the student was going to be in the culture for any

amount of time.

While reading the text, it focuses on the teachers point of view, and while observing the

class it is more from the students point of view. Was the lesson interesting? Did she actually

teach something or was it a waste of time?


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Bethany Deibler

However, the theory of teaching is a completely different aspect than the actual teaching

in the classroom. In creating a theory, the teacher cannot predict how well the students will

understand, how well they will focus, or what questions they will ask. This can sometimes cause

a disruption in the class room when a student asks a question that is off topic or on an

unpredictable subject. It is up to the teacher to decide whether to talk about that subject more in

detail, since it has the interest of the students, or to continue with the planned lesson. However,

studying these methods and theories can help teachers decide which they think will work best

with their students. Also, the research done on each method can be helpful in deciding which to

use. Teachers decide personally what kind of error correction they want to use as well as whichof the four learning areas they want to work on most. Each classroom is a personalized

environment. A teacher should also create an environment that not only works for the teacher,

but also for the students as they are the ones who are actually learning the language.

In my opinion, following one method entirely would not be the best way to teach a class.

Picking and choosing bits and pieces from several methods would get both the teacher and the

students a wider variety of thought processes. As was seen in this French class, Andrea followed

four of six points of the direct method. This worked well for her class as the students would be

overwhelmed if grammar was not taught and readings were done completely without dictionaries

or translation help. The most efficient way for teaching a class is to pick and choose and create a

personalized method for teaching.

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