For my second observation of a colleague, I chose a teacher that is close to finishing her DELTA and is a teacher I hold in high regard. The class was an ESOL Entry level 1 class which on the common European framework equates to an A1 level. The course usually had 15 students, but only 11 were present on the day I observed. It is a mixed nationality class with learners ranging from 18 to 55 years old.

The first thing I noticed was how relaxed the students were and that the teacher clearly had an excellent rapport with them. I had taught this class previously on several occasions and had a good rapport with them, too, so my presence didn’t seem to affect them in any way.

• After my second assesed observation, one of the areas that I wanted to focus on was how the teacher transitioned between stages. It had been an area for improvement that my observer had pointed out to me, so I was keen to see how another teacher did this.

The lesson was about shopping, and the material was taken from the British council website. The teacher gave me a copy of the lesson plan, which stated that the aims of the lesson were:

1. To understand different words for shops
2. To ask for items sold in different shops
3. To make sentences about different shops

Lesson plan – Shopping lesson plan

Student worksheets

Shopping student worksheet 1 – Different shops

Shopping student worksheet 2- Shopping lists

Shopping student worksheet 3

The lesson itself was great. The learners were engaged throughout, and the teacher was able to bring the lesson to life through personalisation of the topic using her extensive knowledge of the learners. Clearly, the teacher knew the students well, and this allowed her to maximise learning and create a positive and comfortable learning environment.

I paid particular attention to the instructions the teacher gave, especially as they were such a low level.  When I had taught them I sometimes had to rephrase my instructions for some of the learners so they could understand. I was impressed with the teacher’s use of instruction checking questions and concept checking questions and felt like the learners fully understood both what they had just done and what they were about to do before the teacher moved to the next activity. Regarding the transition between stages, it was interesting to see the teacher provide both verbal and physical cues that a transition was approaching and is something I would like to incorporate more into my teaching.

I didn’t really have any criticisms of the lesson. Instead, in my feedback,  I focused on the positive things I had seen and discussed how impressed I was with the flow of the lesson and how well the learners responded to her. She told me that she had used the materials several times before and was comfortable with the content, especially with this group which she described as ‘easy to teach’. I think there was a lot of positive elements that I took away from this observation and consider the following points important to reflect upon with regards to my continuing professional development:

• How having a good relationship and knowing your students can help to facilitate learning.
• The importance of giving clear and understandable instructions especially at lower levels and asking instruction checking questions
• That verbal and physical cues can be given before transitions to improve the flow of the lesson.