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Appendix A: Takakos Observation Report I Name of Teacher: Takako Kobayashi Date of Teaching: Sept. 27, 2012 Location of Teaching: Peace Resource Center (PRC) , Seaside, California Description of the Lesson: 1-hour topic-based lesson: How to Order Food at the Restaurant; this was a high-intermediate level English reading and writing class. Description of the Students: There were 4 adult Hispanic female ESL students. Focus of Observation: Error treatment (Allwright & Bailey, 1991, ch. 5) Observation Description Before describing the observed lesson, it is important to understand the class setting of the Peace Resource Center. Because the students level were mixed and since two teachers were assigned for a Thursdays class, Takako (the observed teacher) and Alice (the other teacher) decided to divide the class into two groupslow and high-intermediate levelto meet the students needs better. They divided the class only a week before this observation through students self-assessment of their level and their preference (faster paced vs. slower paced class). Therefore, this week was the first week the teachers and the students try out the new divided setting. Since Alice wanted to teach the speaking and listening class, Takako decided to teach the reading and writing class. For the first hour, from 6 to 7 PM, the high-intermediate students would go to Takakos reading and writing class, while low-intermediate students would go to Alices speaking and listening class. After one hour, from 7 to 8, the students would switch classes. The rationale for doing this was to enhance students learning by having a class with similar level students and by having two different teachers focusing on two separate skills. The lesson topic for this day was How to order food at the restaurant. Takakos class had four Hispanic female students. Before coming to the class, Takako and Alice knew approximately how many students would be in their class based on the self-assessment decision from previous week. It is important to note that the students were not surprised to see me because they knew me from the summer class session, and I also visited the week before this observation,

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without recording the lesson, to familiarize myself and to reduce nervousness among the teachers and the students. Figure 1 shows the classroom setting of Takakos class. Figure 1: Takakos Classroom
Whiteboard Whiteboard T T S1 S2 S3 S4

Since Takako did not mention what she wanted me to observe in her class, I decided to observe her teaching method, specifically, how she interacted with the students. Within just 10 minutes since the class started, I noticed a significant pattern. The moment when Takako lost eye contact with the students by turning around to face the whiteboard to write words/sentences, the students began chatting in their native language, Spanish. It was clear to me as an observer who understands Spanish that the conversations were irrelevant to the class topic and most of the times, the conversations were loud. Takako seemed to ignore their Spanish conversations because she did not ask the students why they were giggling or laughing when she was writing something on the board. I also knew that Takako did not understand Spanish. Another interesting situation happened during my observation. It was an error correction moment, and one of the students decided to ask me a question, instead of asking Takako. In the Observers Commentary section, I will analyze the type of this error correction and the possible reasons for involving different participants in error correction situation. Episode 1 shows the scenario:

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10

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Episode 1 T: [Erases the whiteboard] S4: [Stares at the handout and laughs silently] S2: Cual? (what?) Ss: [All students staring at S4, teacher still erasing the board] S4: No. [pause] [looks at her handout] Loaded? (The teacher turns around but looks back at the board to write something) S2: Es, es comomuchas (its, its likea lot) S4 Load, load? S2: Si, es como un (Yes, its like) [with a motion of pouring something in]= S4: =Puo? (a handful) S2: =Si, es como un puo (Yes, its like a handful) S4: Load? [5-second pause] S2: Creo (I think). [slight laughter] T: [Turns around to face the class and reads what she wrote signature soup] (After the teacher discusses the meaning of signature soup, she writes down an example of a signature soup) T: [Faces the board and writes loaded potato and bacon] S4: [Reading each word the teacher writes] loaded potato [turns to the observer O and asks] Que es loaded? (What is loaded?) O: [Motioning a large round circle with hands] LOADed S4: [Smiles] Ah! loaded. S3: [Smiles to S4 and nods] S4: Hmm [faces back to the teacher] what do you mean loaded? T: [Softly laughs, pointing at the word loaded] Ok, Ill explain [smiles and turns around to face the board] S4: Oh, ok, sorry [smiles]. T: [Finally writes the word, soup, after loaded potato and bacon] S4: [Looks at her handout] T: Ok, writing this makes me hungry! [laughter] Ss: [laughter] T: So, loaded. You were asking me, What is the meaning? [looks at the board, underlines the word loaded, without looking at the students] It means a lot. Many! S4: [Faces S2 and smiles at her] S2: [Smiles back at S4 and nods] Observers Commentary As shown in Episode 1, there were several attempts of initiation and repair of the word loaded. According to Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sacks (1977), there are four possible combinations of initiation and repaira.) self-initiated other-repair; b.) self-initiated self-repair; c.) other-initiated self-repair; and d.) other-initiated other-repair.

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The first initiation happened in line 6 when student 4 (S4) asked for the definition of the word loaded. The question was not directed specifically to her peers because she did not look at them. When Takako heard S4 ask the question, Takako turned around to look at the class but then she turned back and resumed to write on the board. That is when student 2 (S2) intervenes and provides repair (line 8). This was the first self-initiated other-repair scenario. However, as shown in the transcript, S4 seemed to be either unconvinced or unsatisfied with her peers definition because she attempted a second initiation. While Takako was writing on the board and when S4 saw the word loaded, she attempted her second initiation, but this time, she turned to me and asked for help (line 19). I did not give her the exact definition because I wanted her to self-repairI gave her a hand gesture, implying a lot. When S4 responded, Ah, I thought she understood the definition. Initially, I thought this incident was a self-initiation and self-repair, but because she attempted another initiation, I am not quite sure if it was a true self-repair. The third initiation was right after S4 had asked me for the definition. This time, she asked Takako directly (line 24). Although Takako did not respond to S4s question immediately, when she did define the term loaded, S4 finally seemed to be convinced because she smiled and nodded to her peer S2 who provided her the initial repair. This final initiation and repair shows that maybe this whole time, S4 wanted to hear from Takako, or maybe, it normally takes S4 several attempts to be fully convinced. Reflections After observing Takakos lesson, I thought about how to help her to better manage her classroom, especially when students switch to their native language, Spanish. Based on my observation, students switched to their native language when Takako turned around facing the

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whiteboard. Therefore, I plan to advice Takako to minimize facing the board when writing and to increase eye contact with the students. I will also suggest to Takako to give students a task when she needs to face the board to write something on the whiteboard. Finally, I want to encourage Takako to join the peer feedback/correction conversation. According to Allwright and Bailey (1991), when peer feedback is encouraged, the teacher should provide a tone of mutual support (p. 108). By joining the peer feedback conversation, I think her students would appreciate her participation. In S4s case, if Takako had joined the conversation during the first initiation (line 6), then maybe S4 would not had attempted several times to seek repair (if all she wanted was Takakos feedback).

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Appendix B: Alices Observation Report Name of Teacher: Alice Chan Date of Teaching: Sept. 27, 2012 Location of Teaching: Peace Resource Center, Seaside, California Description of the Lesson: 1-hour topic-based lesson: How to Order Food at the Restaurant; this was a high-intermediate level English speaking and listening class. Description of the Students: There were 4 adult Hispanic female ESL students. Focus of Observation: Timing and pace (Wajnryb, ch. 6.4) Observation Description This observation was right after observing Takakos reading and writing class (see Appendix A). The four Hispanic female students who were in Takakos class came to Alices speaking and listening class. These female students had to wait about 5 minutes because Alice was not done with her low-intermediate class. Figure 2 shows the classroom map. Figure 2: Alices Classroom
Whiteboard

O T

S4

S3
S2

S1

Prior to this observation, Alice wanted me to look into her classroom management skills. As I observed her class, the focus narrowed down to how she handled timing and pace in her lesson. Similar to Takakos class, the lesson theme was still How to order food at the restaurant. However, Alice explained to the class that they would do a role-play. She told the students that each of them would take turns to be the waitress. When one person was the

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waitress, the remaining students became the customers; Alice joined as one of the customers. Alice told the students to imagine themselves in Dennys restaurant and to use the words from the handout as their menu to order food. She asked for a volunteer to start as the waitress. Student 4 (S4) volunteered herself and stood next to Alice. However, she was not sure how to start the role-play, so she asked Alice, What do I do now? Alice smiled and suggested different ways to greet customers, such as How may I assist you? and How can I help you? Alice asked the students if they wanted her to write these greetings down on the board, and the students all said, yes. S4 went back to her seat to write down these greetings. When Alice turned her back to the students, students began chatting in their native language, but not too loudly. After writing these greetings, S4 voluntarily came to the front of the class and told the class, Im ready! Alice then pointed at S3, instructing her to ask her first. S4 confidently said, Hello, welcome to the restaurant. How may I help you? The time at this point was 7:10 PM. The role-play activity and her wrap-up conversation with the students ended at 7:40 PM. In my observation, the students used all the vocabularies shown in the handout during the roleplays. All the students including Alice went as a waitress taking orders from the other students. However, the class ended 20 minutes early. When Alice realized that there was still 20 minutes left, she came to me quietly and told me, I dont have anything else planned. Should I let them go early? I asked her if she had any back-up activities to do and she said, no. As an observer and her supervisor, I was not prepared for this. Thus, I gave her a quick suggestionto have students write a mini-reflection on how they felt about todays class. Observers Commentary In this section, I try to analyze the possible factors that affected Alices timing and pace in her lesson. According to Wajnryb (1992), the length of a lesson may be affected by a number

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of factors, such as the age of the learners, the intensity of the learning program, other subjects being taught, timetable constraints within the school or learning context, etc. (p. 116). In Alices case, not only these four female students had a higher English proficiency and a higher confidence level (based on their self-assessment) than the low-intermediate students, but they also had just learned the vocabulary words and the phrases from Takakos class. Therefore, the class pace might have been faster because these students were already familiar with the terms. In addition, Wajnryb (1992) discusses how beginning teachers are not yet adept at predicting the time an activity or phase of a lesson will last (p. 116). The lesson that Alice had planned might have worked well with the low-intermediate students, but the lesson might have been too easy for the high-intermediate students, especially since they just learned these words from the other class. Because this week was the first week to divide the students into two different levels, it is understandable that she did not know the pace of these two different groups. Reflections Although Alice ended her lesson early, the pace of Alices class was great because all the students were motivated, on task, and engaged. However, Alice failed to prepare a longer lesson/activity because she was not aware of how fast the class would go with the highintermediate students, as this was her first week having them. At the post-observation conference, I plan to give various her tips on how to be more adept at planning the time. For example, I will suggest to her to always have back-up activities, especially since there are some cases when students do not come to class. Moreover, I will recommend her to create pre-task and post-task to prepare her students to the main activity. Finally, for the high-intermediate students, I would advice her to provide extra vocabulary words that are related to the lesson.

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Section III: Post-Observation Conference II of Takako Name of Teacher: Takako Kobayashi Date of Teaching: Oct. 4, 2012 Location of Teaching: Peace Resource Center, Seaside, California Description of the Lesson: 1-hour topic-based lesson: How to describe symptoms to a doctor; this was a low-intermediate level English reading and writing class. Description of the Students: There were 8 adult Hispanic ESL students (6 females and 2 males) Focus of Observation: Receptivity as attention (Allwright & Bailey, 1991, ch. 10) Description This observation was a follow-up observation after my first post-observation conference with Takako. During the first post-observation conference, we discussed about different ways to improve her interaction with the students. For instance, I suggested her to give tasks to the students when she needed to turn around to write something on the whiteboard. Also, we talked about making frequent eye contact with the students, as well as being more confident when interacting with the students. In todays lesson, Takako incorporated all the feedback I mentioned and the students seemed to be receptive to Takakos lesson. Figure 3 shows the classroom map: Figure 3: Takakos Classroom
Whiteboard

S1

S5 S6 S7

S2

S3

S3

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This lesson was about how to describe symptoms to a doctor. Takako started her lesson by reading and defining each term in the handout, such as fatigue, stomachache, headache, painful, and dizzy. Takako checked to make sure that her students understood all the words, by asking, Do you understand? or Do you have any questions? To define some of the terms, she used her personal stories to help students understand the meaning of the words better. For instance, to explain the word, painful, she told her recent bicycle accident. She also talked about how she feels dizzy whenever she eats or drinks a lot. Her simple stories seemed to engage the students because everyone laughed, nodded, and agreed with her stories by saying, Me too! There was one term when some students seemed to be confused. When Takako introduced the term, fatigue, she pronounced it as [fr-ti-gju]. Nevertheless, one of the students understood the meaning of fatigue, so he switched to his native language and silently told his peers the definition, es fatigar (its to be tired). After defining all the terms, Takako asked the class to be in pairs to make sentences using the vocabulary words that they just learned. When she saw them doing the task, she then turned around and wrote on the whiteboard. Observers Commentary Compared to my last observation of Takakos class, students seemed to be more engaged and receptive to her lesson for this observation. Takako was successful in getting her students attention by explaining the terms using her personal stories. As language teachers, it is important to consider learners attention because in my opinion and experience, it affects students openness to learn and to process information. According to Allwright and Bailey (1991),

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[i]f our learners attention wanders away from the task at hand and they start thinking about, say, how long it is to lunchtime, then surely there is very little chance of their learning anything more until their attention is once more attracted somehow. (p. 169). Furthermore, Takako incorporated some of the suggestions I made through our last post-observation conference. For example, Takako asked the students to be in pairs to create sentences. Once she checked that they were on-task, she then turned around to write things on the board. This was an important change in her teaching style, because as described in her last observation report, Takakos students were chitchatting in their native language and giggling every time she showed her back to the students to write on the board. Another change she made was making a frequent eye contact with the students. Takako showed that she was interested in what they had to say and was attentive as a teacher. She regularly checked her students learning by asking them, Do you understand? or Do you have any questions? Reflections Although there was one instance when Takako mispronounced the word, fatigue, overall, Takako did a great job in engaging students in her lesson. From our last conversation in our post-observation conference, she mentioned how she did not feel confident as a teacher. However, I think Takako should feel more confident in her teaching. As a supervisor, I felt proud to see Takakos progress in her studentteacher interaction as well as her efforts in showing interests to the students. For upcoming my post-observation conference with Takako, I hope to encourage her more, telling her to keep up the good work. I would also tell her to continue reflecting on her teaching every week so that she would be able to enhance her teaching as well as her students learning experience.

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References Allwright, D., & Bailey, K. M. (1999). Focus on the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wajnryb, R. (1992). Classroom observation tasks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.