Classroom Observation

In this classroom observation I analyzed the presence of teaching and learning behaviors and activities during a lesson, also the quality of teaching and what aspects can be improved to make the teaching and learning process more effective. I got astonished with the results because I really spected a lot more from this teacher and specially because I did my observation at a very prestigious highschool. There are lots of aspects that must be analyzed and also some others that can be improved, the teacher also talked a little bit about her experience teaching english.

First of all we are going to mention the pros and the cons of this specific teacher, she is an experienced teacher because se has been teaching for more than twenty years so what i first thought is that se was an incredibly good teacher, however, I was not thinking alike at the end of the lesson. I personally think that she did a lot of wrong things, first of all she does not explain her instructions, she only writes them on the whiteboard and when a student asks something she just tells them that everything is on the board, in second place she distracts a lot her students, when they are doing their practices she starts asking them a lot of things about several different non-related topics and that have nothing to do with the lesson, for example about their families and what they did the days before, but the most concerning thing that i noticed is that she didnt speak english, not even once in the whole lesson, if this is an english lesson so why the english teacher doesnt speak english? why the students are not requested to speak english? this can not be possible at an english class and MEP doesnt even get to know how are things being done at highschools. MEP should take care and ensure that things are going to be well done and the way it is meant to be at public high schools!

In life not everything is bad, we can always try to extract the positive side of all bad aspects that we already reviewed, well in the particular case of this teacher we can mention some things that are good, even though she doesnt use english orally she uses it in a written way and she really knows how to write and explain correctly what she wants, also she is very polite with her students so this way students feel comfortable at her classes, she motivates students telling them to research at home and if they dont know something she asks them to write it down so at the end of the class they can ask their doubts and what I really thing that is very positive is that she uses an appropiate level for her respective students. she is a good teacher but she needs to correct some things that are being done in a wrong way.

Are there any possible solutions for all those problems that were mentioned before? of course there are and they are obvious, first of all the teacher needs to change her attitude, she must start using english and talking to her students in english, also she must give better explanations and clarify doubts so that way it will be better for students, she needs to assess a little bit more her class but this is not only her job, also MEP should start taking part in these flaws that the Costa Rican educational system has, they should investigate if things are being done the way they are ment to be so that way they can find flaws and do something about them.

Here we have the interview realized to this specific teacher of Colegio San Luis Gonzaga which is one of the most famous highschools in Costa Rica
interview.mp3

After listening to the interview we all noticed that this teacher doesnt have a very good pronunciation, obviously this has a lot to do with what we already mentioned, maybe she has the knowledge but if she doesnt speak she will "rust" as we always say in class.
I like her way of thinking when she says that she likes to be a teacher because she can also teach values to her students and that she can give them some advice, this is a very important part of being teachers!
I think that she is not really clear about the communicative approach however she is not totally lost, she didnt use it when I was doing the observation but, however, she says that she uses it for some levels.

By Gustavo Lizano