This observation was of a sixth grade English Program in Korea (EPIK) class. There were approximately 30 students in class, all Korean. The class was taught by a male teacher from the United States and a female teacher from Korea. The English taught in the class was beginner level.
I do not think a lot of learning occurred in this class. The teachers did not introduce any new material, they just had the students practice what they had learned in previous classes or for homework. The teachers guided the students through dialogue activities, reciting dialogue from videos the students had already watched. The teachers mainly facilitated learning by prompting students to practice speaking and by modelling the target language themselves. However, as I said, the target language was all review, so the teachers were mainly facilitating the students to consolidate the use of the target language rather than learn new language. The teachers also got the students to play a game to practice speaking, but they only used simple words they already knew. I do think the transition from the structured dialogue practice to the game was an effective way to move from controlled to more free speaking practice. Additionally, wile it was a strange activity, I thought the students would have learned the most from the singing activity. When the teachers had the students sing a dialogue, it seemed like a useful exercise to practice the flow of speaking.
I think the teachers were using this class as a time to assess the progress of the class. They had pairs of students recite dialogue to hear each student speak individually. The teachers were likely assessing accuracy and pronunciation, but they provided very little feedback so I can only assume. In the game, the teachers could assess the students’ ability to think of English words quickly and form simple sentences with them. I thought it was a poor assessment, however, as it was an assessment with no feedback. Neither of the teachers corrected the grammatical errors of the students.
This class was not an optimal learning environment in my opinion. The students were not interested enough to engage fully in the class. During the dialogue practice, the students were focussed because it was controlled practice. In the game, however, the students did not focus at all. I thought the teachers lacked control over the class during the game. When students were asked to brainstorm answers before each round began, they would quickly write down the words they knew, then they spent the rest of the time chatting in their native language. The class became very noisy and the teachers struggled to get the students to re-focus when it was time for the game to begin. The game took up more than half of the class and it seemed like a lot of wasted time to me. I think the problem was that the students were not challenged. The female teacher even invited the students to choose the easiest words they could think of to use as their answers. As I mentioned, the teachers did not correct the students’ grammatical errors. Almost all of the students were omitting the articles in their sentences, saying things like “I bought car.” The lack of feedback allowed the students to be complacent, and I do not think they learned anything at all from playing the game.
Something I did like about the way this class was taught was the efficiency. I do not necessarily agree that the dialogue activities should have moved so quickly, but I had to admire how quickly the teachers were able to transition from one thing to the next and how quickly and efficiently they delivered instructions. They clearly knew their material and had a thought-out lesson plan.
As I mentioned, I did not think the class challenged the students enough to engage them fully, and I think the teachers should have given much more feedback. A few times, the female teacher corrected a student’s speaking but did not give the student a chance to try again, which I thought was a mistake. I also thought the teachers, particularly the male teacher, lacked connection with the students. The male teacher sounded very rehearsed when he spoke to the class and I did not get the feeling that the students were connecting with him. I think he would have had better control over the class if he had been more engaging and presented himself as more personable.