A&HT 5301.

002 Integrated Skills Practicum

Spring 2014
Boblett
nrb 2014
1


CEP Video Self-observation
Part 1: General

1. What is the first thing (verbatim) you said to your students?

Hello everyone! Do you still remember the topic of the listening we did yesterday?

2. How did you introduce the lesson objectives?

I said that we were going to practice how to plan for writing before actually writing it and the
first step would be to brainstorm. But I think I could have done a better job by having students
discuss the different steps they go through for writing preparation at the beginning of the class.
Then put bulletin points of brainstorm, organize ideas, write an outline, add details on
the board, so it would be clearer for students where we are going after the first step of
brainstorming.

3. How did you connect the lesson (or parts of the lesson) to previous lessons or students
previous experience or comments in the class?

The first part was to write about the artificial language Esperanto, which was the listening
topic from the previous lesson. So when students were brainstorming, they were actually
recalling all the information they knew about Esperanto from the interview in the listening
exercise.
The second part was to learn to use transition words for contrasting ideas, which could be found
in the reading article we discussed in previous lessons. So both activities were built upon what
we did before.

4. Did you notice any patterns in your tendency to call on some students more than others?
If so, what were those patterns? What might the explanation be for those patterns?

For the first part, during the whole class discussion I was relying heavily on several vocal
students who were either very familiar with Esperanto or good at finding the logical connections
between ideas. I had an outline in my head and kind of hoped that students would come up with a
similar structure. Since there was no standard way to do it and my students needed time to think
to organize ideas (there were over a dozen), I didnt call on anyone and was just excited at any
idea my students gave me voluntarily so I could lead them towards what I had in mind. It was not
very cool and laid back as what I had hoped to achieve like Nadjas style. It like I was
pushing/forcing things forward to some extent.

For the second part, I was more relaxed. I asked the students to write their own sentences using
the transition words to contrast one difference between New York and their home town, between
their mom and dad etc. They were excited to share their sentences and I only called upon the
more quiet students in the second or third round of sharing.
A&HT 5301.002 Integrated Skills Practicum
Spring 2014
Boblett
nrb 2014
2
5. Were there any surprises or unexpected events during the lesson? If so, what were they?
How did you handle them?

I knew there would be different opinions in the discussion of how to organize the ideas, so this
wasnt a surprise yet I had to resolve it if it happens and it did. One student said we should put
why do people use Esperanto in the first few paragraphs and another student said that we
should put it in the last paragraph otherwise theres nothing left to discuss. I wasnt sure how to
address that and just said that usually we put the facts before the discussion, so the writing would
go from the surface/phenomenon to something deeper. They all agree with that. And then before
I started to elaborate, one of the two students looked dawned upon and said, Okay. Now I
understand. We could talk about the why first but only as a fact, like what we wrote there it
was created and used to promote international communication. But if we want to go deeper, we
could also discuss this why deeper when we talk about English being the dominant language.
She was one of the smartest students in class. I dont know if she got the idea from me. But I was
really glad that this was resolved by the students themselves.
Another surprise was that there was a huge difference between students abilities to organize
ideas logically. I noticed that some students seemed quite lost when I asked them to group
similar ideas and put them into a logical order. It might be a cultural difference. I heard that
Japanese essays are composed in a different way (not putting the topic sentence first). One thing
I did to try to bridge this gap was giving them some time for group discussion before class
discussion. After the class, one student said to me that it was helpful to her because she wasnt
very good at her logical thinking and the French student at the same table helped her a lot. But
the French student himself felt a bit bored by this. (I later found out that he was studying law in
college.) I didnt expect that while some students were confused and struggling, some were
bored. I dont know what kind of follow-up questions I should design for the advanced students.
Or is it simply not necessary to teach how to organize ideas because it is a critical thinking skill
instead of a language skill?

6. What is one compliment you would give yourself about your teaching, based on this
recording?

There were still many problems, but I made some progress. My voice projection and enunciation
was better compared to the beginning of the semester. And I was responding better to students
answers and questions instead of just saying okay/good.

7. What changes would you make to this lesson if you were to teach it again?

When I was doing the brainstorming and organizing part, I was simply writing and rewriting
things in chalk. It was slow and not very visual. If I were to teach it again, I would use big index
cards to write down students ideas during brainstorming and stick them to the blackboard. Then
in the organizing part, I dont need to rewrite anything. I only need to move the cards around. It
would be much more visual and efficient to see how randomly-thought ideas were grouped
together and it would be easier to change order test out different theories. I would also try to use
the Doc Cam to project students outlines before we went into class discussion. So we could
have different structures to discuss instead of working out the same one.

A&HT 5301.002 Integrated Skills Practicum
Spring 2014
Boblett
nrb 2014
3
8. Did you see anything on the tape that you were unaware of during the lesson? (e.g., Were
you paying more attention to some students than others? Was a student trying to get your
attention and you didnt notice? Anything else?)

(1) The first thing that jumped out right at me when I was watching myself was my body
language. When I was teaching, my whole attention goes to what I was saying and the
reaction and responses of my students. I didnt have enough processing capacity to monitor
my body language. Thats why video taping is so essential (and also painful to watch). My
body language wasnt open, inclusive and natural enough. I touched my arms very often
especially at the beginning or when I was nervous. I guess I have to work on my body
language more consciously especially when I didnt feel confident. I heard a saying fake it
until you have it. I think it applied to me as a new teacher. Since Im not gonna be 100% in
control anyway, I might as well just learn fake a level of confidence from now on until I have
it. And the confidence and ease expressed by body language is more convincing than voice
and of course it also gives more credit to me as a teacher and what Im teaching because itll
look like I know what Im doing.
(2) Another thing I noticed was that when I was bombarded by a series of questions, I tended to
dismiss or address very quickly the first few questions and only focus on the last. I should
have asked them to go one by one. If I really found that the last one should be treated first, I
could have said that well go back to your question later.
(3) At some point in the class, my attention was directed at the middle and left table, so I missed
a question from the right table. When I said Its an ideal thing to experiment on, but it didnt
work out, students in the right table were whispering Ideal? What is ideal? This could
have been a teachable moment, but I totally missed the question.

Part 2: Teacher-initiated questions

1. As you watch the video of yourself teaching, write out all of the questions that you ask
your students. Categorize them into the following groups:

a. Yes/No questions
b. Rhetorical questions (questions that cannot be answered)
c. Questions that elicit one- or two-word answers
d. Questions that stimulate student thinking or ask for student opinions

Present the list of questions, categorized into groups.

a. Yes/No questions
(1) For time management
Are you ready? Now, start!
Do you need more time?
(2) To jog students memory
Do you still remember the topic of the listening we did yesterday?
Do you know what the word skeleton means?
(3) To round up a discussion
Do you also have the habit of brainstorming before writing?
A&HT 5301.002 Integrated Skills Practicum
Spring 2014
Boblett
nrb 2014
4
Do you go through the same steps when you organize your own writing? Have you tried this
before?
(4) To elicit answers
Could you share a sentence with us? (*several times)
Would you like to share a sentence with us? (*several times)
XX (name of the student), would you like to try to fill in this blank? (*several times)
(5) To clarify meaning
You mean its a global language should go with its an artificial language. Is that correct?
(6) Others
Could you still see it from there?
Look at what weve got here: from random ideas to a structured outline. Do you feel a sense of
achievement like I do right now?

b. Rhetorical questions (questions that cannot be answered)
The current dominant language is English, right?
Thats a good question: does Esperanto really work?
(Maybe this one doesnt even count as a rhetorical question though the expected answer is no
because I was actually repeating my students question.)


c. Questions that elicit one- or two-word answers
Whats the first thing that came to your mind about Esperanto? (I was expecting some key words)
What are the transition words we learnt from the reading to contrast ideas?
Which transition word goes in this blank?

d. Questions that stimulate student thinking or ask for student opinions
How would you write it if you are asked to introduce Esperanto to those who dont know about it?
What do you do before you actually start writing a piece?
Whats the first thing that came to your mind about Esperanto?
What else? (*7 times)
When and where was it invented?
What are some of other ideas related to regular grammar?
Anyone has anything else to add to that?
What ideas would you put together? How would you group them?
When you organize the ideas, what would you put together and in what order? By order I mean
what would you write first, second and third?
What do you think would go with pronunciation as the same group of ideas?
What would be the topic sentence for those three ideas?
What about these ideas? Where shall we put them?
What about these ideas? Where do they go?
What ideas would count as the advantages or pros of Esperanto?
What did the speaker mean when she said Esperanto could save endangered minority
languages? Why could it save those languages?
How would you write your introductory paragraph? How long would it be?
How would you make the transition from pros to cons?
How would you write the concluding paragraph?
A&HT 5301.002 Integrated Skills Practicum
Spring 2014
Boblett
nrb 2014
5
What are the transition words we learnt from the reading to contrast ideas?
Whats the difference between unlike and while?
Whats the difference between on the contrary and on the other hand?
What about your hometown? How was it different from New York?
How would you connect these two sentences using this transition word? (*several times)
Which transition word goes in this blank? Why?

2. Do you notice yourself using any IRF (Initiation, Response, Feedback) sequences? What
type of activity were you doing?

For the writing activity, I used some IRF in the brainstorming part and the whole class discussion
part. I would elicit ideas and then give feedback or ask for justification (why is that?) upon
students response.
For the transition word activity, I also used some IRF in the sharing sentences part. I would ask a
student to share one sentence and give him/her feedback (sometimes a corrective feedback
because we were practicing the use of unlike, while etc.) and ask a follow-up question based
on their sentence such as So, how different is the weather in your hometown in Turkey?


3. What patterns do you notice in your questioning habits? (What kinds of questions do you
tend to use most often?)
For the sake of brainstorming and eliciting thoughts on how to organize ideas, I asked for many
times what else (could you think of)? and what ideas go with XX idea?
I also asked many times could you share one sentence with us? to elicit sentences written by
students.
It seems that the biggest number of questions I asked was type D (Questions that stimulate
student thinking or ask for student opinions) and the second biggest was type A (yes/no question).
Im not sure this has always been my pattern or it was just influenced by the nature of the task.
But I think I always ask many yes/no questions or wh- questions to elicit ideas from the students.


4. How do your students respond to the different kinds of questions you ask?
Almost every student responded very actively to my what else in the brainstorming part,
giving me dozens of new ideas. But only a few kept responding to my how/whatquestions
in the organizing part. For the transition words exercise, those quiet students called upon by me
all shared a sentence very willingly because they had been asked to write them down in the first
step.

5. Are there any times on the video when you are able to encourage student participation
without asking questions?
This is the part where Id say I wasnt very successful. As stated before, the writing exercise was
a little bit forced. So only a few students were actively participating though they did come up
with unexpected questions and arguments without the push of my questions
For the transition words exercise, some students would voluntarily share their interesting
sentences before I asked them to.

A&HT 5301.002 Integrated Skills Practicum
Spring 2014
Boblett
nrb 2014
6
6. Based on this observation, what changes, if any, would you like to make in your
questioning habits? Why?
I think I should allow more wait time for the students in the futures. I was quite afraid of the
silence, so sometimes I would look at some students eagerly, hoping they could give me a
response right away. Maybe thats why only these students were contributing during certain part
of the lesson because others werent fast enough to come up with an answer and I didnt wait for
them.
Also, I should ask more why before starting to justify the answer FOR the students. I have this
weird habit of elaborating on the ideas given by the student. This prolonged my teacher talk and
deprived the students of their opportunity to elaborate on their ideas.