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Observation

I observed Sharanya Gajanayake who demonstrated giving instructions and feedback as her classroom management techniques.

She taught me how to give instructions

The instructions were given systematically. Firstly, the completion of the last activity was signaled, then stated whether the activity was a group activity or a pair activity, explained the students’ task, and informed what students had to do after finishing the task. Also, she modeled how to do the activity before students started the activity. Moreover, she tried to be brief in giving instructions especially when students are assigned to the groups. It is recommended to include the purpose of the activity and the allocated time for the activity in the instructions.  

Feedback on 'giving feedback'

The feedback provided at the end of the activity was not effective for several reasons. The activity aimed to assess students' ability to use the present continuous tense correctly in sentences. However, it appeared that the teacher did not focus on the grammatical accuracy of the sentences when students spoke. To enhance the effectiveness of feedback, it is suggested that the teacher first listens to the sentence, accepts it with laughter (if it is humorous), and then asks other students to determine if it is grammatically correct or not. These strategies would engage students and keep them focused on the learning objective.

Strengths and tips for improvement

Throughout the whole demonstration, she kept the clarity and the audibility of the speech and used gestures and facial expressions in an impactful manner while managing the given time. However, compared to the competency level of the students, the difficulty level of the activity is low. It would be better to incorporate two tenses in the same lesson or to try another tense, like passive voice or reported speech in the lesson. If you have done so, I believe you could have demonstrated feedback more explicitly, maybe incorporating a feedback sandwich as well.  

“Make me laugh”- the magic used to engage the class

She engaged the classroom through the innovative game “Make Me Laugh” and was mindful to remind the time to avoid students taking extra time to do the activity.  It is recommended to move around the classroom to monitor the progress of the activity as a technique to enhance engagement in future classrooms. 

 

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