Critical Comments

Facet B and C
Lesson Number: 1 Date: 25th, 10, 2018
Student Teacher Isabel Duarte

After reading the text students reviewed the structure of the reported speech, through examples from
the text. The production part of the lesson asked students to think of a situation in which they have
encountered someone as in the text and reported what they have said to them. Students chose their
classmates as reference for this activity. As for a closing, students checked the vocabulary through
mimics. As far as the objectives were complete the activities were developed successfully on time due
to some adjustments.

During the development of the activity students were asked if they had understood the activity. The
rapport of the class was highly supported by jokes, as well as making a link to their previous
experiences. As the activity was almost out of time it was shorten to include a closing for the class.
New words were introduced so they were once again reviewed. Students waited to the bell to ring to
finish the class.

The activities were thought as challenging but due to certain aspects as time, difficulty and mean of
expression they were confusing. Students were mainly participating in the class though in a messy way
without rules to express themselves. All in all, students showed pride in their answers, accepting
correcting feedback from the teacher. This was a class on which students needed to check their
understanding of the reported speech, a previous introduced structures but also they needed to
understand new vocabulary as a way to comprehend the text and the activities. At first it was a little bit
stressful as students did not respect the rules, but it was because I did not know the rules of the class to
make them clear before the activity. The uncertainty if students would be able to understand the
activities or my level of English was a little bit discouraging these lead to not let students work on their
own.
This is one of the weakest points from my performance and needs to be improved. This is related to the
standard B3 from the national standards for teaching. Ur (2012) tell us about challenging conditions in
which students might learn if they do not face a challenge they would not improve or learn.
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2018
Students did express themselves without worrying to make a mistake. Through the activity students
were able to express what they think should had be the answer. I performed strategies such as including
students who did not interact that much with the class, as well as letting participate actively those who
were mostly outside of the classroom due to a test being reintegrated at the end of the class. Anybody
could answer the questions asked by the teacher and they could speak freely about they experience with
encounters. The feeling of students answering without being afraid in response of my performance was
stimulating and encouraged me to ask other students who might not understand but did want to
participate. As it was said before interacting with the students is one of my strongest points so it does
not feel difficult in that sense.

Finally as a conclusion this lesson was successfully performed, but in a future lesson the organization
of time and the knowledge of the rules of the class need to be improved. The point strongest point was
the interaction with the students so they could express freely with not fear of failing.

In a future as Ur (2012) and Harmer (2007) propose I need to organize the time of the lesson in a more
structural way. In order to achieve this I will calculate the time with different degrees of alteration and
keep in mind that not always activities are going to go according to the plan. The application of the
rules must be fundamental to carry out a successful class. As Marzano (2007) says Rules are the base
for understanding. As well, student should agree in the creation of the rules and consider the context of
the same. In a next class rules need to checked with the students before performing the activities.

References

Harmer, J (2007). The Practice of English Language Teaching (4th ed.). N.p.: Longman.

Thornbury, S (2002). How to teach grammar. Pearson Education Limited. England.

Ur, P. (2012). A course in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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2018
 Critical Comments

Facet B - C

Lesson Number: 1 Date: 25th of October, 2018

Student Teacher: Consuelo Matamala

Contextualization of the class

The section of the class that I implemented included the warm up, the pre and while segments
of the class. After greeting the students, we proceeded to the warm up part and the students were in a
row to play the game. Then, we got into the keywords section where I presented new vocabulary that
was related to the text they were going to read. For this part I asked the students about what they could
associate based on the image and the word and did some mimics to reinforce the words. After that, I
handed the worksheet to the students and proceed to explain what the activities will be about. The first
part was matching related to the keywords we just worked on, and reviewed the correct answers with
the students, and used to translation of the definition to make the words clearer for them. Then, we did
the prediction of the text together before reading the text and confirmed them. For the understanding of
the text I asked the students what was the overall story and then they answered the activities related to
comprehension, as I monitored their progress, and reviewed the correct answer afterwards.

Development of reflection

The most critical moment of the lesson was the fact that whenever we worked together and
reviewed the content and some students talked on top of each other, they did not wait for their turn to
speak and I did not actually fix those issues, instead I just accepted it. During these activities there were
a lot of moments where students had difficulties behaving themselves when giving their opinion, they
talked over each other several times, and it made me lose track of what they were saying.

Throughout the lesson, I was initially impressed by how the students, mainly in the front row
were eager to participate even if they could be wrong. That made me feel a bit more relaxed while
being in front of the class even though they could be a little overwhelming when they were

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participating. However, the fact that they all talked in the same time and did not respect turns
concerned me.

The part that left me the most satisfied is that the students do know English, and wanted to
participate even though they may be wrong in their answers. However, that brought some problems in
the aspect of class management, and that is because, as a lot of students wanted to participate, they
were all talking at once and it was difficult for me to make sense on what they were saying, and make
them raise their hands to speak was a hard task to accomplish with them. The fact that I did not pay that
much attention to this and continued to listen to their answers, and not set some rules beforehand, may
show how insecure I was of breaking the flow of the class, if I started talking about discipline I feared
the students would stop trying to contribute, so I refused to mention it. Now I realize that could have
worsened the students’ attitude for future lessons, as they felt free to do whatever they wanted, even if
that disrupted the class.

The problem clearly has to do with classroom management and the use of rules, aspect of B4.
Throughout the lesson I tried to make them all part of the class and I tried to be as emphatic as possible
with them. I mostly took an easy-going way of presenting myself so the students could feel confident
and participated in the class. However, that could have caused some difficulties when trying to get them
to participate in an orderly manner, and I failed in doing a proper monitoring of these behavioural
aspects in the students. Simple acts like raising their hands to speak were sometimes impossible to
perform. This greatly impacts how beneficial is a classroom environment for students, since setting the
setting of the classroom can also particularly affect students’ learning (Marzano, 2007). There are some
signs that show how a class is being developed correctly, including the smoothly interaction between
student and teacher, the teacher shows a clear control of the situation and the class is carried out
according to what was planned (Ur, 2001). The lack of management and rules clearly affects the flow
of the class, and may even threaten to not letting the class and the objectives be reached as intended.

The mayor problem was that they were all answering at once, instead of raising their hands to
speak. they were Harmer (2007) mentions how relevant is to be precise when these kind of behavioral
problems and act immediately, not focusing on the student itself but the class in general, treating
everyone equal and fairly, because students are quick to sense favouritism. Ur (2002) also mentions the
importance of making sure the students understand the rules of the activity by illustrating them yourself
and making connections with previous material. The most effective way of making sure students

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behave in a way that works, is by setting a code of conduct (Harmer, 2007), set rules with the help of
the students and negotiate with them in order to create a better classroom environment. In the case I
stumbled in a similar situation I would make emphasis in paying attention to what the students need
and how they behave, and make sure they respect the set of rules that we had previously established.
This way, in this case, students will also become more used to wait for their turns and respect their
classmates’ opinion, and several other rules that can be applied too, consequently the class develops in
a more smoothly way to ensure the students’ learning.

This lesson has a lot of issues concerning the management side of it. It is important to take into
consideration the way students are behaving and try to act accordingly, but in a way that does not
disrupt a proper classroom environment, because that could lead to even more problems for us and the
students. Overall, I felt it was a class that developed well enough, dismissing the fact of these issues
that I have previously mentioned, the students were able to practice the topic and fulfil the main
objective of the class.

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 References

Harmer, J. (2007). The Practice of English Language Teaching (4th ed.). N.p.: Longman.

Marzano, R. J. (2007). The Art and Science of Teaching. Virginia: Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development.

Ur, P. (2012). A course in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Didáctica II – Práctica III

2018