February Observations

Yes, I haven't written in over two months, perhaps I need Prof. Easton asking me for outlines, rough drafts and bibliographies so I can stay up to date. The blogs that follow are an abridgment of the last two and half months.

February:

This was the first month of class observations. I decided to observe all the English teachers at least twice so i could get a sense of how each one of them facilitates and manages a class. Unlike US schools, where teachers have a specific classroom, at my school the students have a classroom where they stay for the whole year.  The first day was very different from any first day I had been a part of in the US. Like many US schools, they have a "Home Room" system in which each teacher is the "advisor" to a specific classroom. However, many things in the coast operate on a "need to know until the last minute" basis. The teachers didn't find out what classrooms they were going to advise until about 30 minutes before school started.

Most of the students knew where they were supposed to go since they have been together since the 6th grade and it’s very uncommon for groups to be split-up. I find this to be a double-edged sword, they can either be a bunch of hooligans (boys and girls) or they can regulate themselves very well.

Classes started at 7:30 am, I chose to observe the 6th grade English teacher, who happened to be in the auditorium along with three other classes. She introduced herself and dove into the school manual, there aren’t enough manuals for the students to have and there are barely enough manuals for each teacher. She started reading the manual to the kids but this proved to be very difficult seeing that the other three teachers were doing the same. After struggling for 30 minutes she decided to go to their assigned classroom and continue reading it there. She also copied the school's vision and mission on the board for the students to copy on the first pages of their notebook.

All this time I was waiting for her to ask each student to say his or her name but I waited all day. At 9:30 the bell rang and I moved to a 9th grade classroom. The teacher introduced me and I gave a short spiel about my self, my purpose as a volunteer and my observations. I asked them if they had any questions and without fail, regardless of the grade, top 3 questions they asked were: "Am I married? Do I have kids? and Do I have a girl friend?" 

The 9th grade teacher told me that the first week was designated as a diagnostic week. Her diagnostic this day was a "get to know you" activity in which each student was supposed to say, in English, their name, last name, where they are from and one other random thing (favorite color, food, hobby) most of them chose a color. Most of the students I observed were able to say their name and last name in complete sentences but they struggled with the "where you were from" and their favorite thing. I found the "where are you from" question could have been replaced by another question since 98 percent of the students are from "Pasacaballos or Cartagena" and the teacher knew that.

The rest of the week I observed 6th thru 9th grade classes and their diagnostic activities. It was unfortunate to see that all grades were reviewing the usual suspects: verb "to be" (still cant go a week without reviewing that), pronouns, colors, numbers 1-20, and family members. Most teachers asked students to write these things on a sheet of paper to turn in, one them asked the students to draw a picture and another asked them to come to the board (this is the worst thing you can do to a student here, some of them fall asleep instantly, others laugh hysterically and others act like if you asked them to kill one of their relatives). I tried to stay in the back of the classroom or wherever there was a chair, sometimes there weren't enough chairs for me to sit so I had to borrow one from the library or from another classroom. For the most part the teachers understood what I was just observing although a couple of them asked me to pronounce some words.

I hoped that in the second week of school actual classes would start but this was designated as orientation week. Each teacher had to write down on the board the topics, objectives, standards and grading policy. Students had to copy this on their notebook. The school makes this a requirement since they are "certified" by some independent agency. Another week down the drain, teachers and students were quite content with this. Actual classes didn’t start until the 3^rd week of February and of course, all grades started with the verb ‘to be”!

It was quite frustrating to observe some of the classes, mostly because the teachers had not gone over any kind of class rules or expectations, every consequences was reactionary. The students were expected to know how to behave. In between classes I spoke with teachers about seating charts, class rules and other classroom management strategies but they weren’t (still not) concerned about it.

         Throughout my observations, I had questions that I was trying to answer: How do teachers present the topic? How do they manage the classroom? Do they try to make the topic accessible to all learners? How does the teacher relate to students? How do students treat each other? I wasn’t able to answer all these questions and some of the answers I did get were not very positive. Below are some of the things I observed:

Things that are great:

-English spoken

-Walking around classroom

-Good seating arrangement

-Great voice and tone

-Ask students to answer in English

-Write down date on the board in English

-Correct errors

-Ask student to clean up

-Directions in Spanish

-Try to motivate students

Things to improve on:

-  more movement around the room

-  too much time spent on small tasks- white out, black/red pens

-  call on different students

-  don’t error correct all the time

-  write down responses on the board so students can see them

-  less copying from the board

-  rewards/consequences

-  don’t ignore troublesome students

- better time keeping