Methodology 2

During the language based conducted, I evaluated I evaluated the effectiveness of the lesson in terms of successful and unsuccessful aspects.

I detailed the traits of the lesson that contributed to the favourable outcome, as well as those that lead to unsuccessful traits. . Alternative solutions were presented to improve the lesson. And some necessary steps were taken for further linguistic and professional development.

1.a. Successful Aspects

OBJECTIVES ACHIEVEMENT

Main and subsidiary aims were in the majority achieved. This can be noticed by the students ability to produce and apparently recognize the five verbs introduced.

Success became evident when the time came for students to make a mental map using priorly learned vocabulary words related to the five senses. –Also linked to the new seto of words.- This prove to be very functional, and a bit spontaneous, lead to explain form and not just meaning.

Students learned the words and meanings of the vocabulary presented. The lesson was successful.

TASKS AND ACTIVITIES DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

One of the most proliferative activity was notable in the set up stage in which the students participated actively, they were able to contextualize words that were related to the concept of the five senses; and they even went further by relating more words than the ones anticipated, for example: connecting the word flowers, to the sense of smelling and the word nose. As suggested by Thornbury (2002) `presenting the meaning first creates a need for the form, opening the appropriate “mental files” and making the presentation stage both more efficient and memorable”, and so for the presentation stage I used the sequence meaning first, then form, introducing meaning by visual aids (appendix 3) and mimics of the verbs, and students were able to recall the vocabulary introduced and further more to produce accurately the phonetics of the words.

Likewise, during the production stage students were attentive and proactive. During the lesson planning I conceptualize my role in this stage as an encourager and a counsel. Students proved to be independent, and only engaged in a few expected mistakes, that I consciously ignored so that I wouldn’t interfere with the “Answer as a group” stage of the lesson.

The closure stage was also successful as the objective of this stage was to integrate the new words with the previously learned vocabulary words; students were able to produce a fill in the gap sentence using the recently introduce verbs. They were accurate in meaning, form and were coherent in their use.

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

The flourishing aspects of the classroom management during this lesson, were noticeably in the students affinity, although it might be, as stated by Jim Scrivener `notoriously difficult to define or quantify´ (Scrivener 2005:23).

It became evident to me that students felt secure and attentive. I noticed this in their attitude and participation. During the stage of pre-plan I research about the classroom management, specifically on how to encourage the reticent students to participate. Consequently I applied some of the techniques in the lesson. Some of the useful strategies were suggested by J. Scrivener (1994) `Encourage cooperation rather than competition´ this idea particularly was applied during the activity set up and the presentation stage where students were arrange as a group I set up a “competition” students vs. teacher and encourage them to help each other reminding them that they needed to come up as a team altogether. In addition to that I embraced a philosophy proposed by H. Puchta (1999); `Errors are seen as what they are, signs of learning and not messages about one´s capabilities or one´s identity´ and by doing so I found myself being more confident during the production stage hence my students felt relaxed and assured.

1.B POINTS TO CONSIDER, UNSUCCESSFUL AREAS.

OBJECTIVES ACHIVEMENTS

Up to this point on the lesson, it was fair to acknowledge that my personal goal wasn’t being obtained, so I decided to take the opportunity to focus on encouraging taciturn students and make them target of my newly employed strategies. –As mentioned on “Classroom Management” paragraph-As result, some of the less successful students became involved and felt welcomed to “the spotlight” and some felt on “the hot seat” and a bit exposed for being forced to respond to the group. An example of this would be my student, Hector (Refer to class profile; Appendix 1) as he declined to participate in the activity.

My subsidiary aims were not achieved either. I made plans to practice grammar structures in the practice of “this is.” And “these are”. However while conducting the lesson, I skipped this step this for lack of time.

TASKS AND ACTIVITIES DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

During the presentation stage students found difficult to answer the question I presented. This was planned as a triggering question to elicit more words in the context of the five senses. As a result this activity took longer than expected.

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