OBSERVATION GRID 222

OBSERVATION GRID
1. THE LEARNER
1.1 Attending to the learner
Strategies deployed by the teacher: call Ss by name, nod, smile, eye contact, reprimanding
look, touch.
Reflective questions:
 Were some Ss named or attended to more often than others?
 Does the seating arrangement lend itself to a particular spread of teacher attention?
 Do weaker or stronger Ss tend to ‘disappear’?
 What general conclusions can you draw about attending behavior?
1.2 Motivating the learner

Consider the students’ response to the teacher, involvement in tasks, willingness to ask when
uncertain, tolerance of other students.
 Were Ss involved in the learning process?
 Did Ss exhibit willingness to ask when uncertain?
 To what extent were Ss tolerant of their peers?
1.3 The learner as doer

Learning by doing embraces a large range of activities, cognitive (thinking), affective
(feeling), and physical.
Tasks may involve: thinking, feeling, acting, moving about, prioritizing, ranking, making
judgements, negotiating, interacting with others, consulting other sources of information.
 What the learners do?
 What does this involve?
 What is the teacher’s purpose?
 What is the balance of cognitive, affective, physical activities involved in the lesson?
 Is the teaching methodology congruent/compatible with the learning styles of the Ss?
1.4 Learner expected level

Recognize the overt signs of learner level as well as aspects of teaching that indicate that the
teacher is accommodating the learner level.
Accommodation strategies:
re-formulates directly to learner, uses Ss as a model of lg pattern, varying speed of language,
varying complexity of language, varying length of wait time, calling in stronger Ss for
“model” answers, pairing and grouping arrangements.
Indicators of challenge
Non-comprehension in facial expression, Ss wait time before response, first respondent does
not offer the correct answer, a learner looks sideways at a neighbor before starting writing.
Indicators of ease
Ss gets started quickly, plethora of responses to teacher’s questions, expected time needed for
tasks over-calculated.
 How aware are you of the levels within the class?
 How keenly is this awareness reflected in your teaching?
 What aspect of the lesson most reflect this awareness?
1. LANGUAGE
2.1 The teacher's use of meta-language
Here it is used to mean teacher talk which is not related to the language being presented: the
language a teacher uses to allow the various classroom processes to happen, that is, the
language of organizing the classroom. This includes the teacher’s explanations, response to
questions, instructions, giving of praise, correction, collection of homework, etc. While a
general aim of the classroom is to minimise teacher talking time (TTT) so as to encourage
student talking time (STT), meta-language itself is an important source of learning because it
is genuinely communicative. For example, when a teacher praises a student or asks
another one to be quiet, or sets up a task, the language used is genuinely contextualised,
purposeful and communicative, and therefore a potentially rich source of input.
2.2 Adequate use of the language of questions

Yes/no questions
short answer/retrieval-style questions
Open-ended questions
Display questions (requesting info already known to the questioner: what color is this pen?)
Referential questions (requesting new info: what did you study?)
Non-retrieval, imaginative questions (questions that do not require the learner to retrieve
given information but instead call on inferred information or information in which an option
or judgement is called for) ‘What do you think the writer was suggesting by making the
central character an animal?’
2.3 Helpful language of feedback to error

It has been said (Zamel 1981) that the information component of teacher feedback is crucial to
the learner’s learning process. According to Zamel, feedback is most effective when it:
— points out critical features of the language;
— gives information that allows the student ‘to discover by oneself’ rules and principles of
language;
— reduces ambiguity of choice for the learner.
On the basis of your analysis, comment now on the language of feedback in these terms:
a) Was the information supported by other messages through different media, such as gesture,
visual?
b) Was the message appropriately limited (not overloaded)? Did it reduce, rather than
increase, ambiguity?
2.4 Using language echoes

Echoes do not further an exchange; they are in fact ‘dead ends’. One common criticism of
echoing is that an echo is ‘not a-natural response’: that is, it is unlikely to occur in contexts
outside of the classroom
2.5 Using language as the negotiation of meaning
Interlanguage studies (e.g. Doughty and Pica 1986; Long and Porter 1985) have revealed that
the language used by learners in the classroom, in the actual processes of engaging with
materials and with each other, is a significant factor in their language learning.
(“Interlanguage’ refers to the language produced by non-native speaking learners who are in
the process of learning.)
Language operations through which meaning may be negotiated:
A confirmation check, a comprehension check, a clarification request, a repetition.
The term conversational modification, used by Doughty and Pica (1986), refers to the various
means by which learners negotiate the meaning of input so as to make it comprehensible and
personally meaningful.
3.LEARNING
Few would now doubt that people learn best when they are relaxed, comfortable, unstressed,
interested and involved in what is going on, and motivated to continue. Regrettably, there is
no hard-and-fast, definitive list of what makes an environment conducive to learning. We
cannot, for example, say that ‘the more a teacher smiles, the more relaxed the students are’ as
this is absurdly simplistic. Nonetheless, there may be a lot to be gained from developing an
awareness of the affective factors that influence learning.
One difficulty in this task is that the very presence of ‘an outsider’ among the learning
community will affect it in subtle, perhaps imperceptible ways. This is difficult to avoid but
might be minimised by your awareness and your maintaining a very low profile. (your
presence should be as unobtrusive as possible)
3.1 Clear learning objectives
Smart objectives, linguistic, functional, contextual aspects.
3.2 Appropriate learning environment

Physical factors (room size, ventilation…) teacher behaviour (smiles, nods, calls by name)
3.3 Preparing for learning

Warm up, pre-teaching of key vocabulary items,
3.4 Checking learning

Checking should be consistent throughout the stages of the lesson and it should propel the
lesson onwards towards its objective. forms of checking: verbal, non-verbal signals.
3.5 Learning and teaching compared

The construction of meaning is an essentially personal experience for each individual. “each
lesson is a different lesson for every learner” there is no one-to-one correspondence between
teaching aims and learning outcomes.
4.THE LESSON
4.1 Lesson planning
4.2 Openings
Linking the new lesson to the previous one, review,
Closures:
Signaling the end of a lesson with an abrupt ‘Stop! is clearly not a conducive way to wind
down a lesson! How can a teacher ease the end of an activity into the end of a lesson?
b) Is making space for questions from students a good way of closing a lesson?
c) Is it important how students feel as they leave the classroom?
d) Is it worthwhile to review the lesson’s aims and content at the end of the lesson?
4.3 Clear lesson stages and transitions
4.5 Dealing with lesson breakdowns

An interruption to a lesson, covering anything from minor hiccups to a major impasse. It is a
point in a lesson when due to a communication problem or misunderstanding, the lesson is
unable to proceed. In the language learning classroom, where the target language being
learned is also the medium of instruction, it is highly probable that breakdowns, small or
large, will occur. It is important to note that the term ‘breakdown’ is not a negatively-laden
term and does not imply hostility or failure. Furthermore, the language used to negotiate the
breakdown is itself meaningful and valuable and as such, constitutes an important source of
real input for language learners. One might call it the very heart of the communicative
classroom.
5. METHODOLOGY
5.1 The methodology of teaching is appropriate to the component taught
5.2 There are skill-getting tasks/activities
5.3 There are skill-using tasks/activities
6. TEACHING SKILLS AND STRATEGIES

6.1 Teacher presence
6.2 Teacher checks
6.3 Teacher responses to students’ responses
6.4 Giving instructions
6.5 Managing error
If teachers corrected every language error made in their class, far too much classroom time
would be given over to correction. This has negative implications in that it might reduce
learner willingness to take risks and experiment.
Teachers necessarily differentiate between errors that require immediate attention and errors
that are better ignored or treated in another way or at another time. This is one of the many
choices a teacher makes in regard to learner error.

OBSERVATION GRID 222

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

OBSERVATION GRID 222

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

OBSERVATION GRID 222

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

OBSERVATION GRID

1.2 Motivating the learner

1.3 The learner as doer

1.4 Learner expected level

2.2 Adequate use of the language of questions

2.3 Helpful language of feedback to error

2.4 Using language echoes

3.2 Appropriate learning environment

3.3 Preparing for learning

3.4 Checking learning

3.5 Learning and teaching compared

4.5 Dealing with lesson breakdowns

5.2 There are skill-getting tasks/activities

5.3 There are skill-using tasks/activities

6. TEACHING SKILLS AND STRATEGIES

You might also like