TESOL Certificate Programs

Observation Notebook

Observation Report Form

Name of Observer Akito Furuya
Date
10/21

Observation
Environment*

face to
face

Observation # 8

Class

Skill/Content

Level

Teacher

Grammar

Count nouns
non-count
nouns
determiners

300

Karen Lindwall

WRITE THE OBJECTIVES ACCORDING TO THE OBSERVATION GUIDELINES:

(Students have learned about 1. count and non-count nouns 2. determiners 3. too and enough 4.
measure words in previous classes. This class is for review.)
Students can differentiate between count nouns and non-count nouns.
Students can differentiate between determiners for count nouns and determiners for non-count nouns.
Students can identify correct versus incorrect usages of too and enough
Students can choose the proper measure word, such as a piece of cake, a scoop of ice cream, and a
glass of milk.

Notes while observing:

11:00 Individual exercise T passes out pieces of paper. Ss write 5 types of non-count nouns on it (e.g.
liquid, solid, nature, idea, and group). After 7 minutes of this individual exercise, T asks Ss to present the
words they have written.
11:07 Pair work Ss get into pairs. T passes out worksheets. On this worksheet, 16 determiners are written
and students put them into three groups: count nouns, non-count nouns, or both.
After that, Ss differentiate the determiners into two groups, the ones for affirmative sentences and the ones
for negative sentences. (Here, students can refer to their textbooks.) T asks Ss to present the answers and
checks them.
11:25 Ts Presentation T explains too and enough briefly for students review. (too= exceed the limit,
enough= at the limit)
11:28 Individual work Ss do exercises from their textbooks. They identify incorrect sentences with too
and enough. (For example, He knows too much English is semantically wrong sentence since theres
no limit for knowing English.)
11:38 Ts Presentation T explains measure words (a bottle of, a piece of).
11:43 Pair work Ss do exercises from their textbooks. This is a fill-in-the-blank exercise where Ss fill in
blanks with the proper measure words from the word bank. (ice creamscoop, olivescan/jar). After they
finish, T asks them to present their answers and checks them.
11:50 Wrap up T announces the homework for next day.

Last Updated: 11/13/2016 7:34 PM

TESOL Certificate Programs

Observation Notebook

What did you learn about teaching or learning from this lesson as it relates to the
theory you have studied in your TESOL classes? Include at least one reference (with
an in-text citation) to support your response. (250-500 words)
In this class, the students worked on as many as 4 mechanical exercises in just an
hour. As stated by the teacher, this class was for reviewing what the students had done in
previous classes. In this report, I will discuss how the mechanical exercises affected
students learning and how I can apply her methods in my own lessons.
First, I will discuss the effects of mechanical exercises. According to Paulston &
Bruder (1976), the purpose of mechanical exercises is to help students learn the forms of
new patterns and procedures. They also suggest that teachers should keep in mind that
mechanical drills should be done 1) at a rapid pace, 2) with textbooks closed, and 3) with
model sentences left on the board for the first few drills in case students have great
difficulty with a pattern. These principles were reflected in her class. She set a short time
limit for each exercise so students were under the appropriate time-limited pressure.
Thanks to this, the students didnt lose interest. Additionally, the worksheets were simple,
which helped the students finish faster. For example, in the exercise where students
identified determiners for count and non-count nouns, all the students had to do was fill
in a simple chart. In addition, she spent a very short amount of time on explaining
grammatical rules. Each presentation was relevant to what students were learning, and
she did so in about three minutes or less. Her explanation was both clear and concise,
making it easy for students to understand the lesson and helped them keep their focus.
Next, I will discuss how I can apply her teaching methods in my own lessons. It is
very likely that Im going to teach either middle school or high school students in Japan.
When I adopt her methods in Japanese classrooms with a larger number of students, I
think it will be difficult to elicit all of the students responses, therefore also making it
difficult for me to check their comprehension. All I can do to solve this problem is have
students get into pairs or groups so they can help each other with comprehension.

References
Paulston, C. B., & Bruder, M. N. (1976). Teaching English as a second language:
Techniques and procedures. Cambridge, MA: Winthrop Publishers.

Last Updated: 11/13/2016 7:34 PM