Observation #1
Date: September 27, 2011
Process: For this observation, I chose to observe my mentor’s ESL class of 8 7th grade students. I already knew all of the students because they are students that were in my class last year. On this day, Mrs. B. chose to use an activity called “Funglish” to have the students practice using descriptive adjectives. They were chosen by pairs to go up and choose the adjectives while the rest of the class guessed. The students would have to choose the appropriate adjectives from the ones that were present to isolate what the actual person, place or thing was. There are three categories in which they can place the adjectives, Definitely, Sort of, and Not at all. The pair may only answer yes or no to the students’ guesses.
| Notetaking: | Notemaking: |
| The students are slow to start the game. A.N. says, “We are trying to organize the words.” The teacher helps the first pair of students by giving them some hints. | There is no way to organize the adjectives. I wonder what the student meant to say? Perhaps she wanted to review them? |
| “This is hard,” One student says. The audience seems a little impatient. | Do they fully understand the way to play the game? |
| A male student places the word “old” in the “definitely” section. The boy says, “This is not as easy as I thought it would be.” | The word they are trying to guess is “doctor.” It’s funny that they chose old first. |
| His partner doesn’t talk much. She motions for the boy to come over and points to a word without really saying anything, and the boy puts the word “American” under the “sort of” section. | The Mexican students associate doctors with Americans. This could be stereotyping. |
| Several students guess, “Michael Jackson” or “Obama?” The boy puts up the adjectives “sick” under “not at all,” and puts rich under “definitely” | The students are unfamiliar with very many influential people in society. |
| The teacher asks where they are going with this and asks if they remember their word. The boy acts like he forgot for a while. | The teacher was smart to take away the words “American, male, and old,” to help the students narrow it down. |
| The girl adds “alive” and the boy adds “male” to the “definitely” section. Then “dead” and “young got added to the “not at all” section. | Funny that the students associate “male” with “doctor.” It’s another stereotype. |
| The students asked, “a football player,” “a soccer player?” | Everyone knows that athletes get paid a lot of money. |
| The Japanese boy doesn’t speak at all. He often laughs shyly at the animated other students in the class. He appears to be enjoying the show. | The Japanese boy doesn’t understand most of the adjectives on the board. He is just trying to grasp BICS and is comfortable with his peers. |
| The students become frustrated and give up after not getting it. The teacher says to the pair, “place these two in the “definitely” section | The students seem rejuvenated at the sudden re-guidance from the teacher. |
| A student guesses” teacher” and one guesses, “doctor.” One girl says, “This is fun!” | The kids enjoyed interacting with each other for the most part. |
Reflection: I feel like the kids might have gotten into the game a little more if the teacher had spent a little time beforehand, introducing the words and maybe even spent a few days of revisiting them before playing the game. Some words like “charming” and “intriguing” needed extra introducing. I was surprised that the audience students didn’t ask more questions but the students were wholly subdued in this environment in a way completely different than the way they acted in my room last year. The most uncanny part of the observation is how the partners decided to describe the “doctor” with stereotypes that were almost culturally biased. As teachers busy teaching a class, sometimes it is harder to pick up on cultural nuances or stereotypes being placed on another. This observation opened my “ethnographic eyes” to that aspect, to begin with.
