OBSERVATION STAGE
Task 1: The School and Learning Environment
Name of student: Paulina Olea Vergara.
Name of School:
Colegio nueva Era Siglo XXI, Curauma.
Number of students:
27
Date: September, 9th .
Class: 7th grade “B”
Briefly and objectively describe the following aspects:
1. The school:
Describe the general background of the school including the physical location, organisation, student population, philosophy and educational and behavioural policies.
The school is located in Avda. Cardenal Samoré 1850, Curauma. It is located in the centre of this “new” town. The school is almost new; it has just five years in Curauma. This school belongs to a corporative group of schools called “Nueva Era Siglo XXI” that are located in different regions of our country. The students’ population is about 450 from kinder to high school level.
The philosophy of the school is founded under the principles and values of the Christian humanism, paying special attention on the human uniqueness and goodness. The most important values that are under these principles are; love, truth, justice, tolerance, freedom, responsibility and honesty, among others.
The educational policies of the school are established according to the skills and values that people of the new millennium must have to face it. Therefore the meaningful learning is one of the main educational policies of the school, valuing life experience as the cornerstone of knowledge and life. They try to get these meaningful learning developing critic students, with consciousness to assume their responsibility in their role in life.
In spite of the fact that the school has as respect as a main principle, the behavioural policies are not so strong, the students are used to not to follow rules, they don’t like formality, they miss classes, or are used to leave the school at any time calling their parents.
2. The classroom
Describe the atmosphere of the room and the levels of engagement in the room. Make notes on seating, sight lines, space, air, light, whiteboard, equipment, etc
The room is big enough to 27 students, but no more than that. It has luminosity, because it has big windows in both sides of the room, but it is quite cold, because the sun never reaches the classroom. The air is quite good because in Curauma the weather is windy most of the time. The students are arranged in four lines of double tables and normal chairs.
There is a medium size whiteboard, a big table for the teacher, some furniture for students to keep their workshops or materials and some hangers at the end on the room. The room is painted in blue, the windows have curtains and there is an empty bulletin board. The school has equipment as a computer lab, data show and radios, but must be required with anticipation to use them during a lesson; they are not inside the classroom for free use.
3. The activities & resources
a) Make notes on the kind of activities used, the nature of student involvement, balance of student doing things and teacher doing things
The kinds of activities that I have observed are mainly listening tasks, reading comprehension tasks and role playing tasks. The students are very used to them and are really good at those kinds of tasks. They really love the role playing tasks because, they have the opportunity to speak in English, and they feel that they can handle the language. Some students are really involved in the lesson with the tasks because they usually use their English books “travellers”, and they enjoy their lessons. Of course that are some students that sometimes do not feel as motivated as others do, because they feel afraid of not having the proper pronunciation in English, but the teacher always give them confidence to do the tasks successfully.
b) Describe the resources used and the materials available within the school. How are the resources used in the classroom?
The resources and materials available within the school are computer lab, data show, radios, DVD players, the library and the copy centre. The radio is widely used by the guide teacher, because under the guidance of the ministry of education and the program of 7th grade the reading and listening skills are the most important to develop, so that is what he has done.
Task 2: Student´s learning
In this second observation task, you should focus on the things that help to create conditions for effective learning and on the aspects that play a part in preventing learning.
1. The learners
How motivated are the learners? Why? To what extent are they taking part in their own learning? To what extent are they expecting the teacher to do the work for them?
Since I have been observing my class, I have realized that most of the students are very motivated to learn English, they are surrounded by it, because of music, TV, sports; video games etc, so they are very interested of knowing more about the language.
They are very used to understand the meaning of words or content through body language, context or translation, but most of the time they are not expecting the teacher to do the work for them.
2. Behaviour during classroom activities
Describe the ways students are encouraged to participate in activities. Are there any particular strategies for managing issues and motivating students? Are there any students with special needs?
I have observed that my students have a really good relationship with their teacher, he is really supportive with them, and I think that is why students are so motivated. Furthermore I do believe that they are intrinsically motivated to learn English.
The teacher every class writes on the board the goal of the lesson, and starts it, and the students react very well. It is certainly true that there are some days that students are really hectic, because they are adolescents, which are growing up, but sometimes behave as children. Sometimes the students show some misbehaviour attitudes that appear because not even the school manages that well the rules of behaviour for students (it is a big issue among teachers, parents and the headmaster of the school)
In my class there are not students with special needs, there is only a girl called Leidy, which has a problem with her right hand, and she always keep it in her pocket. But she is not at all target of bulling within the class, nor the school.
3. Discuss the learning styles and levels of English in the classroom.
The learning styles are very similar; they are very skilled at listening and reading. When the students are asked to produce writing tasks they are very good at it too, but it is not as regular as the other skills are used in the classroom. I do believe that the level of English is very good, the students are very motivated to learn English and they really have a good base of knowledge. They know how to ask for help and guidance, when they face problems dealing with tasks, and have really good understanding of the language.
