Проблемы наблюдения за уроком во время школьной практики

“Иқтисодиёт ва инновацион технологиялар” илмий электрон журнали. № 5, сентябрь-октябрь, 2015 йил

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N. Akramova,

A. Nigmatullina,

Ferghana polytechnic institute

THE PROBLEMS OF LESSON OBSERVATION DURING THE SCHOOL

PRACTICE

Мазкур мақолада ўрта мактаб ва лицейларда дарсларни кузатиб

учрайдиган муаммолар ва уларни ҳал қилиш юзасидан таклифлар келтирилган.

В данной статье рассмотрены проблемы, встречаемые при наблюдении

уроков в средних школах и лицеев, а также авторы статьи предлагают как
решить эти проблем.

Key

words

:

lesson observation, curriculum, English language department,

observation week, school practice, learner observation.

The School Practice is compulsory for students of graduate level enrolled in the

English Language Departments of higher institutions in Uzbekistan. Students
undergo the School Practice at local schools, and follow the Curriculum destined for
the School Practice issued by the English Language Departments. According to the
foregoing Curriculum students during the School Practice should observe lessons of
the English Language teachers and afterwards conduct lessons in different grades of
the secondary school or the boarding school.

Lesson observation is one of the major components of the School Practice

which involves one week for the graduate students. Observation week is devoted to
observing lessons and familiarizing with the school’s facilities, policies, procedures,
pedagogical practices, and the preparation of timetable.

During the Observation Week students have to observe lessons given by their

monitor teachers to be aware of the methods and techniques of her/his teaching. In
addition to it they observe the relationship between the teacher and students, students’
learning styles and their behavior. To get better understanding of the learners’
personalities student teachers are recommended to observe lessons across other
subject areas that are taught for the class they are allocated. At the same time pre-
service teachers observe lessons of other experienced teachers who display
exemplary teaching practices, and novice teachers to evaluate various teaching
techniques at different levels of professional experience.

During the Observation Week students are required to record their observations

of ten English language classes to be assessed. Students must have daily entries of
their observations reflecting on various types of teaching or participation experience.
Moreover, student teachers are strongly recommended to conduct peer observation
and provide feedback on at least one lesson per day, and written feedback on at least
two lessons per week during the Teaching Weeks.

There are no fixed observation instruments in the Curriculum of the English

Language Department. Every English Language Department compiles their own, in
ethnographic or structured format. Some Departments prescribe that students must

“Иқтисодиёт ва инновацион технологиялар” илмий электрон журнали. № 5, сентябрь-октябрь, 2015 йил

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keep diaries, whereas others provide trainees with observation schemes. The former
technique requires that pre-service teachers have to describe their reaction to the
lesson observed, learners, the relationship between teacher and pupils, school policy
in general and their initial teaching experience in the form of narration. The latter
ones are introduced in different formats; it is either a detailed structured check-list
with pre-specified categories of the teacher’s or learner’s behavior and the trainee’s
role is to record their occurrence, and accompany with evidences or jotted comments
that they consider relevant to the observation, or a general lesson reports where
student teachers make notices about plusses and minuses of the lesson observed.

Many studies on lesson observations show that the comments of trainees are

mainly descriptive; the student teachers note down what the teacher and the learners
have done during the lesson and whether the learners are "interested", "involved",
"active" or not. Trainees face problems with identifying the aims of the lesson, means
of transition, teacher’s prompts and learning outcomes. There is very little analysis or
reflection. They observe that the teacher has no problems with discipline, but do not
ask themselves why it has been so. Very few trainees have made any connection
between observations and their own teaching.

Students teachers face some problems during the Observation Week. Pre-

service teachers are formally introduced to observation skills and strategies. Student
teachers need help in observation which guides them to conduct observation, further
analysis and reflection in collaborative way with the School Practice supervisors and
methodologists from the local schools. The format of the observation schemes seems
to limit the student teachers very much. They feel obliged to fill in the space often
repeating the same remarks in subsequent observation sheets. Finally, observation
sheets prescribe categories or tasks in the form of broad statements without
explaining the reason of observation, what to write and in what sequence. Teaching
process is a complex procedure that covers teaching behavior, learning behavior,
patterns of interaction, and patterns of group dynamics. Some aspects of these
procedures are overt, for example, question-answer work, but sometimes it is far
more covert, such as learner’s interest. So student teachers face the dilemma what is
noteworthy to mention, how to interpret teacher’s, learner’s remarks or behavior,
what size the notes should be.

Student teachers should know that the reason of observation and filling the

observation sheets is that we want them to learn something from doing so, and only
then grade them. The features of a good observer should be made clear to them. They
should realize that the skills of observation can be learnt. The School Practice
supervisor or methodologists from the local schools should try to transfer some of
her/his observation skills by observing a lesson, and analyzing observation sheets
after a lesson she has observed with the trainees in a collaborative and consulting
way.

The main suggestion concerns the format of the observation schemes.

Numerous schedules of observation have been introduced: the Flanders System of
Interaction Analysis (FIAC) by Flanders (1970), the Foreign Language INTeraction
(FLINT) system by Moskowitz (1971), FOCUS by Fanselow (1977), COLT by
Allen, Frölich and Spada (1984), the Stirling system by Mitchell, Johnstone and

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Parkinson (1981). For teacher training education we need reliable observation
instruments based on scientific grounds that develop observation skills gradually and
improve them with practice.

Observation tasks have been introduced by the Professor Wajnryb (1992) and

are widely used in a modified way round the world in teacher development
programmes. She clearly identified the advantages of observation tasks. They limit
the scope of observation and allow an observer to focus her/his attention at one or
two particular aspects. Concrete subsequent statements provide a convenient means
of collecting data and free student teachers from interpreting the behavior and making
evaluation during the lesson. A list of questions after a lesson guide them what
aspects of the teaching/learning process they should reflect on. What is more they
allow student teacher to personalize the data and to view their own teaching
experience. Thus the nature of the task-based experience is ‘inquiry-based, discovery-
oriented, inductive and potentially problem-solving’ (Wajnryb 1992).

However, initially classroom observation tasks have been introduced for

teachers’ professional growth but not for teacher training education. That is why they
need to be adapted for this purpose as well. Learner observation tasks offer samples
of categories to the student teachers without restricting them. Student teachers could
decide in which form to take notes, either putting down actual utterances or jotters. It
is important because it allows student teacher to be independent and autonomous.

The two main purposes of the tasks can be formulated as to raise trainees’

awareness about the aspects of the teaching process and guide student teachers to
make their own decision about the teaching process. In addition to them observation
tasks may occur as the basis for further deeper case study research and provide
student teachers with data for writing a diploma work.

In order to observe properly student teachers should be aware of the following

observation instruments. They are: field notes, the case study, diary/journal,
anecdotal records and others.

Field notes

are records of naturalistic observation in the natural context of the

behaviour researched through direct listening and watching. The main focus of
observation notes is accurate description rather than interpretation. An observer can
write down interesting details on various aspects of school life in general and of the
teaching process in particulars. ‘Each observational note represents a happening or
event – it approximates the who, what, when, and how of the action observed’.
McKernan considers field notes as a useful tool as:

- are simple records to keep requiring direct observation
- outside observer is necessary
- can be studied in the teacher’s own time
- can function as an aide-memoire
- provide clues and data not dredged up by quantified means.

At the same time an observer should consider some drawbacks in the use of

this technique presented by McKernan (1996) as follows:

·It is difficult to record lengthy conversations
·They can be fraught with problems of researcher response, bias, and
subjectivity

“Иқтисодиёт ва инновацион технологиялар” илмий электрон журнали. № 5, сентябрь-октябрь, 2015 йил

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·It is time-consuming to write up on numerous characters
·They are difficult to structure
·They should triangulate with other methods, as diaries, analytic notes.

Elliot and Ebbutt (1986) treat

case study

as a research technique in which

teachers identify, diagnose and attempt to resolve major problems they faced in
teaching for understanding. Richards (1998) considers case materials help students to
explore how teachers in different settings ‘arrive at lesson goals and teaching
strategies, and to understand how expert teachers draw on pedagogical schemes and
routines in the process of teaching’. McKernan (1996) reminds that the researcher or
an observer should use a ‘conceptual framework’, which can relate to existing
science. So, the researcher employs various concepts to make sense of the observed
data.

Richards (1998) enumerates advantages for using case studies in teacher

education:

·students are provided with vicarious teaching problems that present real issues
in context;
·students can learn how to identify issues and frame problems;
·cases can be used to model the process of analysis and inquiry in teaching;
·students can acquire an enlarged repertoire and understanding of educational
strategies.
·cases help stimulate the habit of reflective inquiry.

Some suggestions to students on the lesson observation

Learner level

Before the lesson:
1. Arrange to observe a class.
2. Meet with the teacher and find out the learner’s language level. Have the

student’s grade as a key. You might have made your assumptions about their level
during previous observations.

3. Make yourself familiar with the chart below.
During the lesson
1. Look for overt evidence of the students’ level. Consider language

competence (vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation), communicative competence
(fluency of speech production, initiation, adequate response). Try to make records of
students’ speech production.

2. In the far right column, record the strategies used by the teacher to adjust

learner level. For example,

- speed of speech;
- complexity of language;
- length of wait time;
- on stronger students’ for ‘model’ answers;
- other.

“Иқтисодиёт ва инновацион технологиялар” илмий электрон журнали. № 5, сентябрь-октябрь, 2015 йил

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Student

Level/grade Learning

activities

Signs of level

Teacher’s strategies

Anora

3

vocabulary
work; matching
pictures

and

words

3 mismatches
among 6 total
words

appeal

to

another

student as a model

Farid

4

Text reading

speed of the
reading is fast
but
mispronounced
two words

repeats with raising
intonation,

asks

to

correct;
reminds the rule of
reading

of

–ph

combination

After the lesson
1. Share your findings with the teacher. Talk about any students whose level

appears to be different from that designed before.

2. Consider the data you have collected. Is there the linkage between students’

level and the level of difficulty of tasks?

3. Was the level of difficulty of learning activities appropriate to the level of

students?

4. What were the overt language problems during the lesson?
Reflect
To what extent the task should be challenging for students?
How can you construct the instructions of the tasks in accordance with the

level of competence of your students?

Is there any connection between seating arrangement, learners’ motivation,

learning styles and learner levels?

Learner as doer

Before the lesson
1. Arrange to observe language and learning behaviour of students at a lesson.

Describe the manner of doing and materials they use. For example, students might

a. respond in a low voice but accurately;
b. speak fast but with errors;
c. produce long utterances without haste and emotions;
d. think for long time before giving the answer
e. highlight some passages with fountain pen or marker;
f. volunteer to go to the blackboard;
g. give the answer first to the comprehension question after first listening;
h. finish fill-in the gap exercise on the blackboard first;
i. face his partner during the pair-, group work;
j. use colloquial expressions in the cues;
k. volunteer to dramatize the dialogue
2. Think of the learner’s affective (extroversion, introversion), cognitive (Field-

dependent, Field-independent), and sensory (auditory, visual, kinaesthetic)
preferences in accomplishing learning activities.

3. Make yourself familiar with the chart below.

“Иқтисодиёт ва инновацион технологиялар” илмий электрон журнали. № 5, сентябрь-октябрь, 2015 йил

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During the lesson
1. Observe the lesson from the point of view of what and how the learners

actually do.

2. Make notes in the chart below.
- outline the learning activity;
- describe the action and the manner of doing;
- comment on learners’ preferences, for example, whether the learner is good at

working independently, or in cooperation with the partner, receiving or producing the
language.

Learning activity

Learner’s

name

What & how

learner does

Comment on

learner’s

preferences

e.g. presentation
of the dialogue

Philip

dramatizes a

dialogue with

emphatic

intonation

Enjoys and good
at acting, prefers

to produce

language. FI,

kinaesthetic

After the lesson
1. Together with the classroom teacher group students according to their

learning preferences.

2. Considering the data you have collected which activities in the lesson do you

consider the most valuable for the learners? Explain your thoughts.

Reflect
What is the congruency between learners’ behaviour, preferences and learning

activities?

To what extent the teacher should cater for learning preferences in planning a

lesson? In what way learning activities can develop students’ learning styles?

Which approaches, materials, or techniques are you going to employ which suit

student’s natural learning styles and can develop other skills in future planning of the
lesson?

At the end of the School practice observation sheets or diaries must be included

in the Practicum Folder to be assessed. There is another problem a supervisor faces.
There are no explicit criteria for assessment student teachers’ observation sheets. Gill
S., a university teacher from the Czech Republic, in his feedback to the experience in
different countries noticed: ‘What we use to arrive at these decisions (assess or not
assess student’s observation schedules) is our internal and doubtless highly subjective
criteria’. These criteria include the full answer to the questions, evidence of student
teachers’ ability to describe what they have seen and link it to the activities of the
lesson, evidence of reflection, and language explicitness. It is evident that all these
criteria sound ambiguously. What should we treat as ‘the full answer’, ‘evidence of
reflection’ and ‘language explicitness’? This is another issue to survey which can
introduce scientific criteria for assessment of observation for research purpose and
adapt them to observation as a learning tool for teacher training education.

“Иқтисодиёт ва инновацион технологиялар” илмий электрон журнали. № 5, сентябрь-октябрь, 2015 йил

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Reference:

1. Allwright, D. (1988). Observation in the language classroom. London:

Longman.

2. Bailey, K. (1990). The use of diaries in teacher education programs. In J.C

Richards,. and D. Nunan, editors,. Second language teacher education . Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

3. Flanders, N.A. (1970). Analyzing teaching behaviour. London: Addison-

Wesley.

4. Wajnryb, R. (1992). Classroom observation tasks: resource book for

language teachers and trainers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.