Observation Stage

Observation Stage

Task 1: The school and Learning environment

Name of the student: Deisy Perez Valderas
Name of the school: Colegio Presbiteriano David Trumbull.
Number of students: 34.
Class: 1st grade of high school.
Date: April 20th, 2010.

This report is an observation of the 1st grade of high school only, since I have 5 of the six hours of English classes required for this subject with them.

The School:

Colegio Presbiteriano David Trumbull is located in Guillermo Rivera 440 Cerro Yungay, Valparaiso. It was founded in 1869 by Dr. David Trumbull. This school has a strong link to the Protestantism’s origins in our country which arrived through Presbyterianism by Reverend David Trumbull. This School is oriented to educate students with intellectual and spiritual values imparting solid Christian values in the students’ minds and hearts.
David Trumbull is a scientific-humanistic school that possesses a great variety of workshops like music, art, science, computation. It is a full-time school that has comfortable facilities. It possesses a building for primary school and a different one located in front of this one for the high school pupils, it has classrooms; laboratories; a court and a canteen, plus all the basic facilities a school must have.
The organization of the school is the following: it is directed by a general administrator Mr. Ricardo Vasquez Ulloa together with the headmaster of the school Mrs. Cecilia Covarrubias Urbano and the rest of the school’s staff: General inspectors, the technical pedagogy department, teachers, psychologists, counselor, a chaplain, school council, parents’ general center and cleaning staff.
The behavioral polices are very clear in this school and are based on respecting each other. This school has a very particular way of controlling its students. The ones that are known for their non appropriate behavior have a weekly behavioral sheet in which the teachers write their behavior during the different classes, and at the end of the week it is decided (based on the writing notes the students got) which punishment they deserve.

The Classroom:

There are four rows in the classroom and students are seated in pairs, some are formed by two girls or two boys and others are mixed. The classroom space is enough for holding the class; it is not too big nor too small, it is well illuminated and it is fresh. It counts with a large blackboard and a whiteboard located above the black one, it also has a desk for the teacher, a bulletin board, a locker, a basket, a radio and a clothes hanger.
The atmosphere of the room is okay; the students are very good at making noise but it is possible for the teacher to give the lesson. They seem to get on very well and swear words are not used among them at least within the classroom, something for me it is not very common nowadays. The teacher tries to motivate the pupils in order to get them involved in the lesson, which is a bit difficult for the teacher to achieve at first. Once Mrs. Erika (English teacher) starts the lesson most of the students pay attention to her but they do not seem to be very motivated by it, anyway they carry the activities out as it should be.
The activities and Resources:
The school counts with radios, computer labs, library, dictionaries, data shows and all the necessary thing for giving a good lesson, but Mrs. Erika uses only the book the students must buy for this subject which is called American Adventures. This book contains activities that include all the skill the students are supposed to learn in order to learn English and a workbook at the end of the same book for practicing. During this lesson the teacher works with the workbook since they are revising all what they have seen till that moment because next class a test is programmed. The aim of the class is to practice the vocabulary and grammar learnt throughout the unit and the teacher together with the students check the exercises that appear in the workbook. Once the students are told the lesson will be a review for the test they start to participate more and seem to be more motivated. The activities on the workbook for this lesson consist on fill in the gap, matching, writing questions, complete sentences with the correct forms of verbs and complete dialogs. The teacher gives them the activity they must do and then they check the answers in the board or orally. Finally Mrs. Erika asks them if they still have any doubts to what some pupils answer “yes” so she explain the doubt again for the whole class and the lesson finishes.

Task 2: Students’ Learning
In general, the students of this class are motivated with the subject, most of them perform the activities the teacher gives them. Among the different classes my guide teacher has, she says this one is cool, since the command of English some students have is very good. The class is not given totally in English, but the teacher tries to talk as much as she can in this language, asking always the students if they understood or not. She is always worried of giving clear instructions, so she explains in Spanish if it is necessary.
It is difficult for her to keep them quiet during the lesson so sometimes she must repeat the topics for them to understand. But most of the students, once the lesson starts, begin to participate in it. Despite the fact that the majority of the class has a level of engagement in this subject and they do the activities given by the teacher, they know they must do the activities given; otherwise they will be punished with an observation in the class book. This is one of the ways Mrs. Erika uses for having her students involved with the lesson since it seems to be the only way to keep some of the pupils (specially the one who have behavioral problems) working. Mrs. Erika is a teacher that never does the work for her students and since they are not used to any teacher do it for them, so from my point of view they do contribute to their learning process maybe not as it is expected to be but at least they are not against to the process.
Mrs. Erika has a very “classic” style of giving lessons, she has everything already planned and she does not uses any technological resource for her lessons anyways, she tries to motivate the students following the instructions the students’ book “American Adventures” has that is to say, introducing the topic, asking them questions and telling them the aims of the unit or activity for the lesson. The students are used to her method and do not claim for a different one, since they say they do not think the classes are bored but difficult because the teacher makes them the listening, speaking writing and reading activities that appear on the book.
The command of English they have is better from the one other students from other schools I have been to have. At least they understand more than just the basic instructions and they are able to speak a little bit.