RUNNING HEAD: OBSERVATION REPORT

Observation Report
Yueting Zhang
University of California Riverside: < English Grammar Structures and Methods>
<10/24/2016>

Observation Report

Name of Observer____Yueting Zhang_

Observation # __2____

Date

Observation Environment*

Class

Skill/Content Level

Teacher

10/24/2016

Face to face

Grammar

Grammar

Karen Lindwall

300

WRITE THE OBJECTIVES ACCORDING TO THE OBSERVATION GUIDELINES:

STUDENTS SHOULD BE ABLE TO COMPLETE A GRAMMAR WORKSHEET ABOUT COUNTABLE

Notes while observing:

NCC (a bottle of) water

T asks Ss the three magic words and writes off on the blackboard trying to trick Ss.

T gives different nouns and asks students to use measurements, then changes. Ss practice with T
orally. e.x. a jar of honey/pickle

Practice 11:10-11:30
T asks Ss to take out their handout and check answer with their partners.
T asks Ss to read the answer one by one while she explains some new words and corrects
pronunciations. e.x. Whats mineral water?
EXERCISE 1: 5 Fill in blank questions
T finishes this handout exercise by saying good job and asking any questions?
T asks Ss to open their book to page 45 to check the answer of their homework.
T gives directions and examples first then goes around the classroom to check the answer.
T checks Ss understanding by asking wh- questions or simple yes/no questions.
e.x. Do you eat soap? Whats wrong with? Why?
T also writes the wrong forms to trick Ss to check their understanding.
OB: many progress? much
EXERCISE 2 on page 45

T leaves page 47 homework and goes the exercise on page 48 very quickly.

EXERCISE 3 on page 48
T gives handout to practice determiners student errors. T leads the Ss to do one together,
then asks Ss to do the rest themselves. That is a busy job. T wont ask Ss to rewrite the whole
sentences, just find them, circle and fix.
EXERCISE 4

Presentation 11:30-11:40
OB: 1. I have elephant.
2. My friend goes to an university.
3. He lives in igloo.
4. She is a honor student.
T asks Ss to talk to their partners to find mistakes in the sentences.

T corrects the sentences with Ss together and leads the rules of articles. When to use an/a.
T asks Ss to open their books to page 95 to check the rules while she shows PPT and explains.
Rule 1: Meaning

consonants V.S. vowels

Rule 2: u sound
Rule 3: consonants h
T gives examples and pronunciation.

Practice 11:40-11:48
T asks Ss to do the exercise on page 96 and gives them a vocabulary list in this unit.
EXERCISE 5 on page 96

T goes through very quickly all the questions.

What did you learn about teaching or learning from this lesson as it relates to the theory you
have studied in your TESOL classes? Include at least one reference (with an in-text citation)
to support your response. (250-500 words)
In this observation, I focuse on how grammar practice related to the three drills which are
mechanical drill, meaningful drill and communicative drill. There are around 15 students in the
class and most of them are from Arabic while 3 or 4 of them are from China. I want to see how
the instructor teaches grammar and gives effective exercise.
How to carry out effective practice to check students understanding is very important in
a grammar lesson since that grammar is usually considered the most difficult part to explain in
language teaching. When I first became a teacher, I always presented a lot because I was afraid
that students could not understand the rules. In this class, I observed the teacher left most of the
time to give students practice. The pace of her class was very fast almost without even one
second break. She always mentioned that she was a crazy teacher which I think she was right.
She gave five exercises in all besides some oral practice. I found that most of them were
mechanical methods. As Paulston and Bruder(2016) mentioned, Mechanical drills should be
drilled at a rapid pace. If the teacher did not catch up her speed, the students will lose their
interest. I felt surprised at the beginning about the rapidity. Later I realized that the purpose of
the mechanical methods was to help students study and get the pattern forms of a new grammar
point. Students finished the exercises without thinking like a robot. For example, in exercise 5
above, students just need to circle the right article after they know the rules. They neednt think
about the meaning of the whole sentences. Forms of the new pattern is the point. Meanwhile, we

could see that the teacher gave directions and examples before the students did the exercises
independently. I think that was the use of mechanical drill. According to Paulston and
Bruder(2016), the teacher gives the cue, the students respond, and the teacher give the next cue
without repeating the students response. They also demonstrated that each drill should contain
about seven to ten questions what was exactly we could see here in exercise 1, 2,3,4 and 5.
Therefore, the assignment was sufficient to evaluate what level the students have mastered the
grammar points they learnt in the class. The teacher just used one meaningful drills at the
beginning of the class when she reviewed the countable and non-countable nouns the students
learnt last week. For this point, the students already knew the pattern so that they could think
about the meaning of the phrases and give varieties answers. The teacher could fresh their
memories and extent vocabulary. The teacher did not use any communicative drills in this class
because the level of the students were low intermediate. Even though they had some basic
already, they still need help to finish practice. The communicative drills mainly focus on what
the the language said instead of how it is said, according to Paulston and Bruder(2016).
Therefore, in my future teaching, I think I will use communicative drills after mechanical and
meaningful drills.
Besides my focus in this observation, I also noticed that the teacher used deductive and
inductive approach together when she first introduced the grammar. We could see the
presentation from 11:30-11:40, the teacher first wrote down 4 sentences on the board. Then she
asked students to discuss and discover. That was inductive approach which starts with examples.
After that, the teacher showed the rules on the book and her PPT, followed by examples. That
was deductive approach. I think it was clear and effective to use both of the approaches when
presented grammar. After all, it was very excellent class with all the drills used in the classroom.

Reference
Paulston, Christina bratt & Bruder, Mary Newton (2016). Teaching English as a Second
Language: Techniques and Procedures.
Zwier, Lawrence J. & Holden, Harry (2014).Grammar and Beyond Workbook.
Lindwall, Karen (2016). In class.