OBSERVATION REPORT OF 7/8 WEEK

SCHOOL ATTENDED : Petrol Ofisi Primary School
CLASS : 2/F
Yonca Özkan - Seray Çiçektakan

Dilem Berk & Gizem Papatya Uğurdil


OBSERVATION TASK 1

     In order to draw up a report for our 7th week, we observed  the class paying regard to following questions:''What is there about the classroom, the activities, the teacher and students that helps create conditions for effective learning ?'' and ''What aspects of the lesson might hinder learning ?''

     Entering  the classroom, we came across with a snapshot of a conventional public school's learning environment. Layout of desks was well-ordered and in collaboration with low number of students, we knew that wasn't the best, we thought there were enough learning space for students. Besides, positioning of teacher's table was appropriate for effective observation. Although the sources of light were sufficient, teacher wanted to take adventage of daylight. According to us, this athmosphere was less oppressive and more spacious. The space between desks gave chance students to act nimbly, in case they involved in an activity or as a result of impulsive behaviour; such as when she/he dropped pencil to the floor, she/he attempted to reflexively stoop to pick up it. In addition, near the door there was a small cabinet where the extra papers, materials, napkin, boardmarkers were stored. In forthcoming seconds of lesson, one of the students spilt water over  herself and the floor, then she automatically went towards this cabinet to take some napkin. We set forth that cabinet undoubtly was the other positive factor. Besides all this good points, there were one or two negatives like a dustbin looked like quite unhealty and poor air circulation that reduces education standard in classroom. Through the end of lesson, breathing was really getting hard.

     Activities in the classroom were conformed with replicating real-life interaction. Simulation and role-play from which students derived immense benefit were used to encourage oral fluency. In our opinion this was the most exemplary case of effective learning. The other point is about cooperative writing; using peer evaluation, the teacher provided opportunity to enhance having more than one person working on it. Generally, activities were satisfying in reflection and sense-making.

     For effective learning, predominantly the teacher was ideally suited. During whole lesson, she bolstered and tried to persuade students to think that they would be in a safe environment while they were learning. Sometimes she approached motherly to them and if we consider students' average of age, this behaviour was pretty supportive. It was obvious that she designed lessons to enjoin the idea that learning is a process and making mistakes is common part of learning.

     With the help of convenient learning climate, students took responsibility for their education by collaborating with other students, actively participating and using teacher's feedback to develop their studies, improving predictions, explanations using evidence. But unfortunately we noticed that some of them carried feeling of failure and there was lack of a sense of accomplishment. May be, teacher shold intensify beat of her positive feedbacks.



OBSERVATION TASK 2

     For the 8^th week of our observation, we beholded whether the activities in a specific lesson are oriented towards fluency and accuracy.

     Primarily, the teacher focused on decoding the words rather than having students apprehend and read a text in a fluency way. As in first language acquisition, students engaged in segmenting the speech stream in target language. She tried to be careful in use of language to explain meaning. In writing part, she used revising and editing for what students wrote down as answer of comprehension questions. But, before stylistic accuracy, she concentrated on accuracy on grammar presentations. Because of the fact that students hadn’t gained automaticity for word recognition, she needed to explain which one is short answer and what they should do to make it short, like omitting some words or phrases. Exactly meanwhile, she tried to divide sentences into meaningful chunks. After that, it was easily observed that students gained relatively chunks recognition. At the same time she employed multisensory activities to empowered word recognition such as tracing, writing words (on the board/in the air) and copying. Students were just at beginner level so rate of word per minute was not important. Rather than fluency, she studied on speeding up words/chunks recognition and making students produce grammatically correct written and spoken language.