For this observation I watched a video of a high intermediate communication class of approximately fifteen students from mixed cultural backgrounds. The video was a four hour lesson condensed into twenty minutes. The lesson focused on job-related vocabulary and comprehension, leisure time vocabulary and comprehension, and forming theses and communicating opinions.

Near the beginning of the video the teacher worked on vocabulary. She asked the students to define the word “retired.” Rather than explicitly providing the students with a definition, she first allowed them to try to figure it out for themselves. The teacher let the students guess and gave them hints to help them along. I thought this was an effective strategy for teaching vocabulary in a higher level class. I think it is a beneficial exercise for students to use what they already know about English and apply that knowledge to deduce the meanings of new words.

Later in the lesson when the class was working on discussion skills, the teacher let the students learn by practicing. It was a fluency exercise as the students were discussing in groups with the teacher only hearing bits of the discussion as she moved around the room. It was apparent that the exercise was an opportunity for the students to become more confident speakers, which does not necessarily require accuracy. I think the teacher took the correct approach to this exercise, as if she was constantly checking the students for accuracy and making corrections, it may negatively affect their confidence and fluency.

Assessment in the class seemed to be informal. The teacher’s method of teaching vocabulary by having students try to define the words on their own allowed her to assess the class’s level of vocabulary. Later, the teacher tested their comprehension of new vocabulary. She handed out a worksheet with three words with which the students had to make simple sentences. She asked some students to say their sentences, and in doing so, she was able to assess their understanding of the vocabulary words based on the accuracy of the sentence. After the work on vocabulary, the teacher assessed the students’ comprehension and note-taking skills. She played a video and told the students to take notes, then she asked them questions about the video to see how well they understood and how extensively they took notes. I liked this exercise as it assessed a general academic skill as well as a language skill.

There seemed to be some barriers to learning in this class. The students often lost focus and started chatting with each other. Some students were texting during class. At one point I saw a student using her laptop to hide her phone as she texted while the teacher was talking. I think the way the space was arranged encouraged the chatting. The students were sitting across from each other in close proximity, so they were arranged in a way that allowed them to close off from the teacher. The teacher also did not position herself in a way that allowed her to see everyone. She sat on one of the tables that the students were working at and she could not see every student due to the way the rest of the desks were arranged.

What I liked about this teacher’s teaching style was how well she connected with the students. I got the impression that the students liked her a lot, as she made them laugh a lot, and they were honest when at one point when they were caught chatting. In this situation I thought the teacher demonstrated some strong teaching skills. The students were laughing so she called them out and got in on their joke to bring the class’s attention back to her. As a teacher I want to be able to find the balance between having a good relationship with my students and being their friend to the point that I lose the influence to manage the class. I think this teacher had accomplished this. I think it was the way the space was arranged that made the class somewhat disorderly, rather than her relationship with the students.