LESSON OBSERVATION 4

PETER MASON

OBSERVER: BARBARA CHAMBERLAIN

ROOM 15 ST. GILES INTERNATIONAL BRIGHTON

MIXED NATIONALITY ROLL-ON-ROLL-OFF GENERAL ENGLISH B2

09.00 21/4/2017

DISCOURSE

Overview

Teaching Point

• Discourse for writing: Linkers of Contrast

Class

• General English

• Mixed Nationality

• 9 Upper Intermediate (B2) students

• Room 15, St Giles International Brighton, 09.40-10.40, 31/03/17

Materials

• Interactive Whiteboard File (attached as PDF) [own material]

• Cut-up sentence activity (x3 sheets – clauses, linkers & punctuation) [own material]

• Consolidation worksheet [own material]

Aims

Students will:

• Have their existing knowledge of linkers of contrast consolidated (with particular focus on whereas/while and despite/in spite of).

• Have their awareness of the use of linkers of contrast raised (with particular focus on position and punctuation).

• Be prepared to write a text of their own which utilises linkers of contrast.

Subsidiary Aims

• Speaking around the topic of holidays/family/injuries.

• Writing a text using linkers of contrast (N.B. this will be done in the lesson immediately following the observation)

Evidence

• Feedback sessions, monitoring and activities.

• Students’ writing (N.B. after the observation takes place)

Personal Aims

• To do something a little out of my comfort zone.

Rationale &

Timetable Fit

• Topic: The Coursebook Outcomes is used as the course syllabus for this class. This week’s unit was “Banks and Money”, which, with the average age of the class being much reduced with the arrival of new students this week, hasn’t proved the most engaging topic for these learners. I have chosen to do something on ‘Holidays and travelling’ as a more light-hearted and hopefully engaging topic that is more meaningful to the students. This also recycles the previous two units just completed – “Travel & Transport” and “Health & Medicine”. Within the tasks there are items of lexis recycled from these units. Also, hopefully the topic will invigorate a language point which is typically taught in a rather dry way.

• Language Point: In this class, we do either one extended piece of writing or a lesson on discourse to build to a shorter piece of writing. We have previously studied linkers of addition and linkers of cause and result. These linkers are then used in the extended piece of writing every other week. I’ve noticed that while these students can use linkers of contrast fairly competently, they often make common errors with punctuation and order – which the first task of the lesson is intended to clarify. Furthermore, they struggle to use despite / in spite of and whereas / while correctly. The second few tasks are intended to clarify this element.

• Input + Activities: I have chosen to begin the lesson at the micro level, focusing just on one sentence and different ways to link the clauses within, and end the lesson at a more macro level, with students working on a complete text as a consolidation activity. What is important is that it is one complete text (although they only start with the first sentence). I feel it is important to provide the language in context. This text, whilst not fully authentic (it is rather contrived in order to focus on the linkers of contrast), is a true story about me – which may further engage learners, as it is ‘real’. Furthermore, this text is to function as a model for the text the students are to write in the following lesson. Finally, lexis used in this text recycles previously taught material.

Overview

The aim of this lesson is to prepare students to write a text accurately using linkers of contrast. This will almost certainly take place after the observation (though should students whizz through the activities, it may begin towards the end of the observation). The content of this lesson will be in clarifying and consolidating the use of these linkers.

Potential

Problems & Possible Solutions

• Technology failure The classroom has an interactive whiteboard and I have prepared a file of slides to be used in the lesson. However, should the tech let me down, I shall bring an alternative worksheet that can be used for all tasks.

• Lack of engagement This class has undergone vast changes in the past two weeks, with a large influx of under-18 Swiss. There hasn’t been enough time to build up a decent rapport with most of the students and it seems that they are rather hard to engage and

keep on task. To counter this, I’ve developed an initial ‘kinaesthetic’-style activity which may prove more engaging for them.

• Language point Students will definitely have come across most if not all of these linkers of contrast before. They may feel that they are not learning anything ‘new’. However, I think the way the lesson has been designed will keep it interesting and useful for the learners. Also, should anything prove too unchallenging, the speed of the lesson can be upped.

• Time management Time management is a key weakness of mine when it comes to teaching – and it’s made worse when being observed. During unobserved lessons, I use only very loose and vague timings to allow for the possibility of responding to affordances as and when they arise in the lesson. I plan by the week and know that anything not covered on one day can be picked up the following day. I set a lot of homework, so I may set an exercise I had originally intended to cover in the class for it so that the time in class can be spent more usefully. I teach this class again immediately after the break after the observed lesson finishes, so if this lesson was running slightly behind, I know that I have a further hour to play with and wouldn’t worry about completing the lesson before that break. However, for the purposes of this observed lesson, I must be a bit stricter with the timings and make sure I achieve my aims within the hour. Also, with observed lessons I tend to over-prepare and get stressed out when I start running behind which then in turn affects my teaching. For this lesson, I have thought long and hard about my timings. Previously, I would build in to my lesson plans many ‘optional’ stages that I could drop if time was running low (as is my propensity to overprepare). However, I intend to get my timing down more accurately this time, so I am not allowing myself the safety blanket of stages I can drop.

• Stress I find observations stressful and do not feel I teach well when being observed. In fact, I feel observations actually tend to showcase the worst of my teaching, rather than the best. It’s something I am slowly overcoming, and I shall endeavour once more in this observation to relax.

Notes

• Should any pronunciation issues arise, I shall be using Synthetic Phonics rather than the IPA.

Class Profile

AM15

Upper Intermediate (B2)

Roll-On-Roll-Off General English

10 Mixed Nationality Students

I have been teaching this class for almost four months now, however, due to the roll-on-roll-off nature of my school, the class has significantly changed in the past three weeks (since my last observation). In my last observation, most of the class was at C1 level, despite the class officially being a B2 class. I had had many of the students for a long time and seen great improvements in them. However, in the past few weeks, many of the students have finished their course and left the class and we had an influx of shorter-term students, mainly Swiss. This means that the level of the students, in general, has dropped from C1 to mid-B2. When this happened, I then decided it would be better to move the stronger C1 students to a separate C1 class and remain with the majority working back at B2 as there was such a split in level among the students. All of these changes have left me with a thoroughly different class with different learners and their different needs to the one I had a few weeks ago, although on paper the class is still listed the same – General English B2. However, the nationality balance has vastly changed. What was previously an extremely mixed class with no two students of the same nationality has become a predominantly Swiss class. The average age of the students has also dropped significantly, as the influx of newer students are younger. This has led to more difficult classroom dynamics and more of a segregated atmosphere – the class are splitting into different groups, whereas previously it was thoroughly mixed. I am doing my best to deal with this through various Classroom Dynamics techniques inspired by Jill Hadfield, but due to the fact that many students are now much shorter-stay, the atmosphere in the class is a little more unpredictable and unstable these days. Due to the various fluctuations in student numbers at the school at the moment, I am also unsure on how long this particular group of students will be staying together.

Student Profiles:

Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Falah Kuwaiti Arabic 19 M

Falah also joined the class 4 weeks ago with Rafael and Bea. His speaking is quite accurate, natural and fluent, yet his pronunciation is often unclear or mumbled, meaning he is often difficult to understand for the other students and myself. This has been the case since he arrived in the class, however, he has been given special activities to focus on improving this side of his English. It has improved quite a lot since he first arrived and we have specifically worked on it in previous classes, but it is still a point that needs some attention and improvement.

Also, whilst his production is fairly good, his knowledge of language is very low. For example, he was at first unable to name different structures such as “present continuous” or “present simple” or even word forms like “noun” or “adjective”. He also has difficulty processing instruction, either from the teacher or written in the book, often leading him to attempt tasks incorrectly without a clear understanding of them. He is also not the most pro-active student, and requires monitoring to keep on-task. All of these elements have improved significantly over the past two months, however. Falah was a slightly problematic student in the class as, from the very first week, he didn’t always attend classes and, when he did, it was rare that he was on time. This led to him missing key lessons. However, something seems to have changed in the past month, as he now attends every class and is always on-time. This is probably more down to external factors (he is sponsored by his government) than me. He is studying General English for the next month before moving on to an IELTS preparation course and his ultimate goal is to study at a British university. To provide him with relevant preparation for his goals, I have incorporated some IELTS material into previous classes. Ironically, of all the students, he engaged with this material the least despite it being more imminently relevant to him than other students. Overall, he is a pleasant presence in the class, albeit one that needs special attention. Falah is pretty much ready to change into a C1 class. This will be his final week with me.

Individual Student Aims This lesson is particularly important for Falah, as he has his IELTS test on Saturday – his writing also needs a lot of consolidation.

Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Helene French French 24 F

Helene joined this class around two months ago. She is a pilot and is in the process of joining EasyJet, for which she needs a good level of English. She hasn’t integrated as well into the class as other students – but, as this class is more integrated than most, that is understandable. Within the class she works hard and always tries her best, but she is lagging behind some of the other students to an extent. She is a good fit for this level and is a solid B2 student. Pressure from her ongoing job application process seems to be having quite an affect on her motivation, but she does work well and tries hard at all tasks in class.

Individual Student Aims Helene has an eye for detail, I believe she will complete all of this lesson competently.

Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Pran Thai Thai 19 M

Pran was initially placed in a C1 class over two months ago, yet opted to go down a level as he found it too intimidating and challenging. Since then, he has barely been present in my classes and is often absent, or at best, late. The student welfare department is looking into helping him with whatever issues he may have, but for the moment he is an infrequent attendee of this class and is very quiet and withdrawn when present. He seems to be fairly able in the language (hence him being placed in C1 when he first arrived), but I don’t see him enough to make an accurate assessment of his strengths, weaknesses and needs. He has made a concerted effort recently to come to more classes, as he is aware that should he miss any more classes, he is likely to be expelled from the school.

Individual Student Aims Pran’s writing is rather good, but is let down by punctuation. This is an opportunity for him to focus on that element.

Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Do-Eun (“Ellen”) South Korean Korean 24 F

Ellen has recently joined this class after completing an FCE course. She is very quiet and has typical L1 interference when it comes to her pronunciation. She also needs to work on her writing. She is unsure of how much longer she is going to stay at the school, and is undecided between attempting a CAE course in future or leaving the UK sooner with her FCE qualification. She isn’t the most frequent attender to class, and I haven’t seen much of her to particularly assess her strengths and weaknesses in detail. She is rather shy and withdrawn in class, which makes it a little harder to assess, especially in recent weeks where the class has been extremely busy and changing.

Individual Student Aims Ellen herself admits that writing is her weakest point. Often uses linkers of contrast – incorrectly. This will be an opportunity for her to improve her writing – particularly with whereas, which she often misuses.

Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Clemence Swiss Swiss-French 16 F

Clemence joined this class a week ago. Her writing is of high quality, but her speaking lacks fluency. She is also extremely quiet and shy and it takes a lot of effort to get her to engaged into more speaking-centred tasks. She is here for around 4 more weeks before returning to Switzerland where she will continue to study English at school. She doesn’t appear to be particularly motivated to be here and to learn English and I get the sense that she’s more here at the behest of her parents.

Individual Student Aims Clemene’s writing is quite good lexically, but often lacks cohesion. This lesson will improve that side for her.

Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Anne-Sofie (Sofie) Danish Danish 20 F

Sofie is a Danish librarian who wants to improve her English in order to move into publishing and possibly translation. She is a strong yet reserved speaker of English whose lack of fluency may be more down to her own shy personality than her actual ability. She has only been a member of this class for a couple of month or so and as she is rather introverted, it has been hard to gauge the strengths and weaknesses of her spoken English. Her written English, however, is of high quality. She may well be moved to a C1 class next week.

Individal Student Aims Sofie has a strong understanding of writing, but needs more work with punctuation – which this lesson will give her. Also, she often makes mistakes with ‘despite’ – this lesson should fix that.

Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Anna Swiss Swiss-German 26 F

Anna is another recent addition to the class, joining last week. She is a little different to the rest of the Swiss students at the school as she is on a gap year and is here to learn English out of her desire to travel, rather than being sent here by her parents or by her school/job, as most of the other Swiss students are. She is very quiet or has been in the few days that I have taught her, and is lower than the general level of the other students. She seems quite keen, but her production is rather slow and stilted in her speech. Her writing is a little better.

Individal Student Aims Anna hasn’t been here long enough for me to see any of her writing and gauge her use of linkers. However, based on her speaking, I would imagine this would be very useful for her as her sentences lack cohesion.

Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Valentin Swiss Swiss-French 26 M

Valentin is another recent addition to the class, joining last week. He is very quiet and does not seem to particularly gel with the rest of the class. In his first week he seemed rather stressed out by being in the UK and having to use English. He is also visibly and openly worried about his level of English in comparison to others in the class. Hopefully, this is something that will calm down over his time here and I will endeavour to make sure he is more included in the class so that he feels at ease a little more.

Individal Student Aims Valentin hasn’t been here long enough for me to see any of his writing and gauge his use of linkers. However, based on his speaking, I would imagine this would be very useful for him as his sentences lack cohesion.

Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Luca Swiss Swiss-German 16 M

Luca is a new addition to the class who joined on Wednesday. First impressions are he is rather low for this class and unfocused.

Individal Student Aims It is difficult for me to gauge what Luca will get out of this lesson as I haven’t seen enough of him or heard enough of his language. However, based on what I have heard, I get the sense a lot of this will be new to him.

Name

Nationality

Mother Tongue

Age

Sex

Mathis Swiss Swiss-German 16 M

Mathis is a new addition to the class who joined on Wednesday. First impressions are he is rather low for this class and unfocused.

Individal Student Aims It is difficult for me to gauge what Mathis will get out of this lesson as I haven’t seen enough of him or heard enough of his language. However, based on what I have heard, I get the sense a lot of this will be new to him.

Lesson Plan

Procedure

Rationale / Purpose

Interaction

Time

(mins)

Lead In 1. Open class question: I ask the students what their plans

are for the weekend. Students who are completing my motivation study for the SLA module will be given their questionnaire for the day.

2. Students discuss in pairs the question on the board. 3. Open-class feedback. 4. I elicit from the class if I prefer to go on holiday with

friends or family, using the pictures on the IWB.

1. This is a standard routine for a Friday morning. I

believe it keeps students engaged. Also, students at this institution are far from the most punctual – it is common practice to wait until a few minutes after nine to start the lesson properly. Some students are assisting me with research for SLA, so I will need to collect data on them for this lesson.

2. To ‘set the scene’ and activate schemata. 3. To show interest in student ideas and to lead in to

the next task. 4. To build context for the next task.

T>S S>S

SS>T

6-15

Task 1 1. Students look at the board. I tell students about my

holiday and elicit who the person in the photograph is. I elicit clause 1. I then reveal the second picture and elicit how I am feeling in the picture. I reveal clause 2. I elicit how these two clauses can be linked.

2. Next page of IWB. Using ‘but’ I elicit from the students where it can be positioned.

3. I elicit any other linkers of contrast they know other than but. I reveal the linkers for task 1.

4. In groups, students are given cut up clauses, linkers and punctuation. In groups they work together to decide the order, position and punctuation used when linking the two clauses. Monitoring.

5. Open class feedback. I board what students give me.

1. To generate interest, engagement. 2. To give a model of the task they are about to

complete. 3. To check students existing knowledge. 4. To raise awareness/consolidate existing knowledge

of the position and punctuation used when using linkers of contrast.

5. To clearly show on the board for all students the correct answers (as these tasks focus on things like punctuation and the lesson is intended to improve writing, it makes sense to show students always a written answer).

T>SS SS>T S>S

SS>T

15-25

Task 2 1. Probably, despite / in spite of was elicited earlier in task 1.

If this is the case, I will tell them then that we will look at it later. Next IWB slide, I show ‘in spite of / despite / despite of’. Open class question, I ask if there is any mistake. Elicit ‘despite of’ is a mistake and remove it.

2. I then focus students on ‘of’. I ask what usually comes after ‘of’. I elicit / reveal the three possibilities that can follow ‘despite/in spite of’.

3. Students in pairs work together to link the sentence with ‘despite / in spite of’. Monitoring.

4. Feedback and I board answers.

1. To raise students’ awareness of the common error

of ‘despite of’. 2. Students often don’t know what follows despite,

but they have previously studied gerunds following prepositions – by focusing on ‘of’, this should hopefully build on their existing knowledge.

3. To practise using linkers of contrast they are less familiar with.

4. To clearly show correct answers.

T>SS SS>T S>S

SS>T

8-15

Task 3 1. Next IWB slide. I explain my sister and I are different,

using the pictures as visual aids. I reveal the two sentences with ‘whereas’ and ‘while’ jumbled.

2. Students work in pairs, de-jumble the words. Monitoring. 3. Feedback. Reveal on board, and focus on the nature of

‘whereas/while’ for comparison.

1. To introduce context and whereas / while. 2. To provide the answer to students whilst still

providing a (small) challenge. 3. To raise awareness of the difference with whereas

and while with the previously focused-on linkers.

T>SS S>S

SS>T

4-12

Task 4 1. Students are given consolidation worksheet. They work

through the sheet. If time is pressing, they do it in pairs and they may only complete the first 8. If not, they pair-check. Monitoring.

2. Feedback. I board the answers.

1. To consolidate all that has been previously

covered. 2. To clearly show answers to all students.

S S>S

SS>T

8-20

Speaking 1. Students discuss the discussion questions in pairs.

Monitoring. 2. Feedback.

1. To activate schemata and prepare students for the

forthcoming writing task. 2. To bring this stage of the lesson to a natural close.

S>S

SS>T

5-10

Writing (After The Observation – though may start before the end if students have whizzed through the previous activities)

1. Students write a story using linkers of contrast. 2. Monitoring.

1. To put into practise all that has been covered over

the previous hour. 2. To assist students where necessary.

S T>S

15-40