Reflection on Recorded Lesson Observation 1

     Last class we watched a video of an example grade 0 lesson. It gave me a lot of ideas on how the classroom environment works. While the clip was quite short, it revealed a lot of positive and negative ideas that could be used in the future.

    First I wanted to discuss the aspects of the lesson that I found to be successful. My favorite thing was the fact that the teacher only used English and never once spoke any Polish. I initially believed that this would be a very hard feature to achieve, especially with such young students, but this example proved me wrong. The teacher used a lot of gestures, physicality, as well as visuals, like pictures, to make sure the pupils understood everything he was saying. Those aids gave students context clues and allowed for the disappearance of any direct translation. Even when correcting mistakes, the teacher would use intonation, gestures, and repeat the mistake to signal that something is wrong, but would never rely on Polish. I found that to be a very smart idea that allowed for complete immersion in the foreign language.

    Another aspect of the class that I appreciated was how interactive it was. Young children can be very impatient and all over the place, which is why it's important to make sure they are actually listening to the lesson. This teacher used songs and games to not only get everyone's attention, but also to get all the students involved. He also utilized choral repetition to practice pronunciation and make sure everyone felt confident in their participation. While I think there's many more creative tasks that could've been utilized in order to make the listeners even more invested, I still appreciated that it wasn't just a typical lesson with books and xero copies.

    An aspect of the class that I felt like was lacking was order in the classroom. While I understand that leading a group of 6 year old boys is an insanely difficult task, it felt like the teacher didn't have a lot of control. He used some techniques, like counting down from 10 (or sometimes less) to 1, but it didn't feel like those had a particularly strong effect. I think it would be a good idea to try and utilize even more active types of exercises. The boys had a hard time sitting at their desks and were constantly speaking over one another, so maybe if the exercises were more physical then the classroom would've been more organized. It's important to analyze and adapt to the type of classroom you are teaching in.

    In general, this lesson gave me a lot of ideas of how to approach teaching English to very young students. While I didn't think that the lesson worked on all aspects, I most appreciated the constant L2 usage and how gestures, intonation, and visual aids were enough to communicate all necessary messages to very young learners. There's a lot of details and ideas that can be taken and applied to when I finally start teaching.