Teaching journal in high school

1. HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
  
METHODOLOGY 6A
TEACHING JOURNAL
Instructor: Le Pham Hoai Huong
Student: Ho Van Ket
Group: 1
Hue, 10/2016

2. Journal 1:
The first class I decided to observed that is class 10C of a high school in a mountainous area. I
was really happy when I came back my old high school. Before observing, I called my old
teacher and asked about the schedule to have appropriate time. It was a morning of Monday,
October 3rd
. I went into the class to observe at 9 a.m. This class 10C had 42 students. I sat down
in the last row to follow the whole activities of the class and the teacher easily.
First of all, the teacher had a quiz to elicit the topic. It was a word having 5 letters and she
showed a picture in the slide. Immediately, a student raised her hand to answer: "piano" and the
teacher showed her feedback that was a correct answer, and the teacher led the new lesson. I
think this activity is a good way, but it is short and simple for "warm-up". Instead of showing a
picture, she should show many pictures which relating to "music", and ask students "What is
this?" and call some students go to the board to write it. It will help students can learn
vocabulary through pictures.
After warm- up activity, she moved to pre-reading, the teacher followed the activity in the
textbook. She asked two questions and asked students answer the questions. Next, the teacher
turned to teaching vocabulary. She wrote a list of new words on the board and required some of
the students write the meaning and read it out. After that, she checked it again, read it out and
required class read it 3 times. She did it because she asked the students to prepare new lesson
before going to school. It was a good idea for the students to remember new words when they
looked up the dictionary. However, it was not the same with what I learned in college. She did
not use some of the techniques to elicit some new words and follow step by step.

3. In while-reading stage, the teacher read the text out and all students listened. After that, she
divided the text into three smaller one and asked three students to stand up, read one by one and
translated into Vietnamese. I thought time-consuming for translating and it did not enough time
to practice 3 tasks. She used both task 1 and task 2 to teach at this stage. The teacher asked
students to work in pair and do two tasks at the same time for 5 minutes. In this stage, I like the
way teacher calling the name of each student in the class to answer the question instead of
calling "you". I think the teacher can remember all names of the students in a class. It was a
good way to lead students in the lesson. Besides, I think that she taught quite fast because of
limited time. She accepted the correct answers and forgot that she should ask some evidence for
each answer. In general, the teacher should have appropriate time for each part. The teachers
should use more time for the important part and less time for the unimportant part. Sometimes
she got some words with wrong pronunciation, but she had a clear voice and a cheerful face. It is
easy for students to listen and feel comfortable.
In conclusion, she is very confident, friendly teacher. She always smiled and willed to answer
any question from us as well from her students. She as well as her teaching's style is a good
model for me and for my job in the future.

4. Journal 2:
On Friday, October 7th
, I came back my high school again and the second class I observed is
class 10A of Mr. B. That was the first time I met him and I had to ask for teacher's permission to
attend to observe his class which was started at 3 p.m. My first impression of him was that he is
a young teacher, so I thought that he did not have many experiences. However, when I observed
his class, I changed my mind completely.
First of all, he prepared PowerPoint carefully and used a projector to show the slide of the
content of the lesson. To begin the lesson, he organized a game for the whole class. The teacher
divided the class into 4 groups. He showed 2 questions on the slide and asked students
answered. Three minutes later, a leader of each group would present in front of the class, all of
them had to listen and added more information. The group had the correct answers was a
winner. The game helped students improve the listening skill and make students more confident.
After that, he moved to teach vocabulary. He used a lot of ways to elicit new words such as
mine, explanation, antonym, give an example, etc. He taught step by step very well. It was the
same with what I learned in college.
In while- listening, he asked the students to read through the statements and keep in mind which
information they need to look for. After that, the students listened to the first recording and
decided whether each statement is true or false and called on students to give the answers and
elicit explanations for their choices; he asked the students to listen to the recording again to
check. In my opinion, he should let students guess the statement was true or false first. It helps
the students understand the reason why they guess the statement is true or false and easy to
check it. Furthermore, I hope he can replace task 2 into a new activity which is more interesting

5. and communicative, and it perhaps makes the atmosphere of the class happier and more active.
Next, the teacher divided the class into 2 groups. The group, which could answer the most
questions is the winner and received a gift from him. I like the way he made the students feel
comfortable and he knows that his students like candy. For me, it is also an interesting idea
because of the stressful atmosphere in the class; he talked with the students' something, it is not
in the lesson like some activities or events happening in school.
The last stage of the lesson was post-listening . The teacher let the students work in pairs and
play a game. It was named "Information-gap". A student A was given a text on birthday
celebrations in some places and a student B its gapped version. Within pairs, Students asked
each question to fill in the gaps. In this stage, the way teacher managed class was very good, he
went around the class, listened what his students talk together. He used more time for important
part and help them when they were in trouble. Furthermore, he has the strong interaction with
students, he has better ways to control the class and to encourage student involving in the lesson.
However, he got a problem with some words because of wrong pronunciation.
After observing 2 classes at high school, I have realized that: firstly, I have to prepare a lesson
plan carefully. Secondly, I have to predict some sudden situations may happen in class to deal
with. Next, I have to use English fluently and know how to balance between English and
Vietnamese in the class. Next, I must be smiling, friendly. Finally, to be a good teacher, I need
to try a lot and practice more.

6. HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
  
METHODOLOGY 6A
OBSERVATION SHEET
Instructor: Le Pham Hoai Huong
Student: Ho Van Ket
Group: 1
Hue, 10/2016