OBSERVATION STAGE REPORT

Name of student: Francisco Rojas López
Name of School: Liceo Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna
Number of students: 33
Date: September 2nd - 3rd
Class: 3º B

1. The school:

The Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna high school is located in Recreo, Viña del Mar. It is organized like any other public school in our country; it is composed of a group of more than thirty teachers, among these, we can find the principal and his team; the administration stuff, and the administrative assistant stuff. The student population is around 580 students.
This school has a long history training technicians and educating students for their future as workers and professionals in the Chilean society under the values of tolerance, respect and perseverance. The behavioural policies are managed by the school inspectors, and teachers.

2. The classroom

The environment inside the classroom is peaceful, and engaging in some way; the students are not under stress. The classroom is big enough for the class; the students are seating in lines, they have fresh air and the natural light is ok. The room has a whiteboard and a rubbish can; in general the space is quite good for this class; although, it does not have any kind of equipment. There are no posters in English on the wall; in this sense, it is not engaging for learning English because the students are not in contact with any stimulus in the target language.

3. The activities & resources

a) The class is based on the grammar-translation method, and the activities follow this principle. The students are asked to translate short sentences in Spanish into English and vice versa. The students are used to this kind of work; therefore, they do the task immediately. There is a good balance between the teacher’s role and the student’s role; the teacher asks for work and the students do it.

B) The school has appropriate facilities and resources in terms of technology and equipment. The students and teachers have three computer laboratories, and two audiovisual rooms. There are three laptops for the teachers work with inside the classroom, and two data show. These resources were not used in the classroom, at least when I was in the observation stage.

Task 2: Student´s learning

1.The learners

I could not say that all students are not motivated; in fact, there are some students that really like learning English and show some interest, but most of them think that it is difficult and demanding. When the teacher speaks English almost the whole class do not understand any word; for this reason, they do not understand the new content and the directions for doing a task. On the other hand, the activities do not promote the use of the language in a creative fashion. This kind of work does not encourage the students to take control over their learning; they just hope to understand something in the class.

2 Behaviour during classroom activities

I have to say that the guide teacher has an excellent classroom management; they students know what they can do and what they cannot. The rules are known by everyone inside the class, and the behavioural framework is clear.
One of the strategies that the teacher always uses is to give points to the students when they find out the answer of a certain question; these points vary according to the difficulty of the question. This strategy works quite well because the students make an effort in answering. The bad side of this is that only the students with good grade get the points; the teacher does not give the possibility to students who really need those extra points to answer and show what they know.

3. Discuss the learning styles and levels of English in the classroom.

Observations clear & well informed
Not Observed

Demonstrates understanding of social and educational factors
Low

Objective & factual information
Not Observed

Evidence of active search of information
Not Observed

Use of English expression clear
Low