Fieldwork: Problem Identification #2

I visited Ms. T's high/intermediate ESL class from 8:30-9:30 on Tuesday, September 21st. My goal for the day's observation was to target 2 problems in the ESL classroom in order to implement action research and case study.

TEACHING ISSUES

What identified problems related to teaching, lesson delivery, materials, and related strategies are present?

On this day there were 9 students present: 8 Hispanic and 1 Chinese.

Most of the problems I observed in Ms. T's classroom had little to do with methodolgy and teaching strategies, but with incomplete homework and failure to stay on task. The students today were not organized and did not follow instructions. Ms. T. regularly manages the room like an open forum and goes in between formal and informal instruction regularly throughout class. Today seemed to be "one of those days" where the students decided to take advantage of the informalities and do less work.

The class lasts approximately 1 hour, and Ms. T has a lot to cover. She begins the lesson working from the "Green Book," a science book published by National Geographic. The class works on Science first and then spends the rest of the hour on Reading. In the Science class, she incoporates ESL instruction by teaching types of sentences. During the Reading class, she teaches main idea and identifying climax for reading comprehension.

Two problems in delivery I observed were:

1) "Ms. T, how do you spell? Ms. T, how do you spell?" The students are constantly asking Ms. T how to spell words. The students did not appear to have immediate access to dictionaries.

2) I overheard the use of the word catched by the same student in 2 consecutive sentences directly spoken to the teacher. Ms. T did not correct the student to let her know that the proper form of to catch in the past tense is caught. Little correction of grammatical errors was noticed.

What problems or issues related to teaching - in general - did you observe?

The most obvious problem in regards to teaching was that out of the 9 students, only 6 of them had completed their homework. This is a problem because due to the small size of the class, it is difficult to proceed with the day's lesson. Ms. T dedicated the last 20 minutes of the 60 minute class period to finish homework. This time also extended into the student break.

What concerns emerged with regard to grouping, interactions, etc.?

The problems in this classroom are very different from my own, so it was an interesting experience. I am used to college aged students -- middle school is a whole different cow. In this classroom, students are constantly and openly speaking out loud and disrupting class. Sometimes they raise their hands, sometimes they don't. At one point of the class, Ms. T said, "You are all talking about nothing that has to do with the story."

Ms. T said it best herself, "It's so easy in this small room to distract eachother."

Also, the Hispanic students all interact with each other and the teacher; however, the one Chinese girl interacted with no one. Her work was complete, but the whole class period she said not one word in class and was not encouraged to participate.

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION (SLA)

What did you observe that worked well in promoting SLA?

Ms. T introduced the first part of the class by reviewing Types of Sentences. First, she reviewed the 4 types of sentences: 1) statement; 2) question; 3) exclamation; 4) command. She routinely incorporates inductive reasoning to promote higher level thinking and to demonstrate understanding in her teaching.

She wrote the following sentence on the board: "Greg Marshall made the first critter cam in 1987." She then asked the students what type of sentence this was. The students correctly responded: statement. Teacher asked, "Why is this a statement?" Students responded. She proceeded with the next sentence: "Show me a picture of a critter cam." "Command," the students responded. Again, she asked why, and they responded.

Next, she asked the students to turn the statement into question sentences using question words. "Who is Greg Marshall? What is the critter cam? etc."

Ms. T promotes SLA through identifying sentences and creating new sentences in the English language. She does this by engaging and actively providing structure for student interaction and questioning in order to fully understand proper sentence structure.

What type of interactions took place that encouraged SLA?

The teacher and the students interacted actively throughout the lesson. At the lessons conclusion, Ms. T asked, "Which of the question sentences were easiest to pick out?" The students gave their answers. They are also not afraid to ask questions. "Hey, what about Why?" one student said. "Yeah, what about Why?" Ms. T responded. She then went in to why.

This classroom is an extremely active community of learners.

What materials were best suited for the specific SLA learners in this setting?

Students in this class like visuals. I observed Ms. T's lessons really take off when she utilized the board and asked questions. They also like to be questioned. "If I use the question word "when,' what can I take out of this sentence to put when in there?" Visualization and challenge are the best proponents for achievement and understanding in this classroom. They really enjoy responding to real and unreal conditions.

ETHNOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE

What information do you need (as an ESL professional) to better meet the needs of L2 learners in this environment?

As an ESL teacher, I think it's important to be aware of student cultural backgrounds and the learning styles from their countries. I recognize that teachers must more consciously be diligent in observing and meeting the needs of the minority.

How was culture integrated into teaching and learning?

Culture is integrated in this classroom by incorporating an open forum and inductive method of instruction. This seems to be what the students like best. They seem to hate periods of individual work and make efforts to resist such time slots for instruction. For example, when the group is working aloud on content they interact and discuss relevant materials. In independent work, they go off task. "Hey! Tomorrow is picture day!." Ms. T has her hands full.

What issues or concerns related to culture, multiple perspectives, and linguistic diversity emerged?

One concern was the lack of participation from the Chinese student. In my own teaching, I have noticed that culturally, my Chinese students are not normally outspoken participants in class. They repeatedly need encouragement in their speaking and personal invitations to participate. In this particular class, the student was quiet; however, in a previous observation, the same student was invited to a differnt class in order to help out a new student who was non-proficient. It is hard to gauge how Ms. T meets the needs of this student from a one hour observation.

The other students are outspoken conversationalists culturally.

FINAL THOUGHT:

I don't really think that classroom management is a problem here, but I think the problems in regards to incomplete work and instruction could be better addressed simply by writing homework on the board. This would save Ms. T a lot of hassel. Also, I really think there should be more dictionaries in the classroom more readily available for student use. Finally, when errors in structure occur they should be corrected. Overall, however, this is a great class!