As adolescent English learners, perhaps in their early middle school years, students are sat in pairs amongst two columns. However, as the class progresses with certain activities, they get up and go the front to perform the task. Although, it is difficult to see the total layout of the front of the classroom, it can be assumed that the students can “perform” their task in front of their classmates. Through the warm-up, the instructor explains to the student about his vacation (using what was learned from prior class). From the statements or comments made, he allows some time for students to digest the information and sometimes have repetition from students. Per each activity, He made sure that the slides on the PowerPoint were short and simple. It included similar examples as what they learned previously but with added layer of new content (early slides were review material and adding onto the difficulty as they progressed to the next slide).The sponsor teacher had always asked how were you feeling? What would be the next question without giving the answer away. Asking questions prompted the students to respond as soon as they developed a response in their minds. It was apparent that when she asked the question, the goal was for them to be comfortable answering and not focusing on the grammar immediately. As an example, after watching a video containing some dialogue, she would ask students what one of the characters was asking. Then, the student would respond to his/her ability. She may or may not correct them, unless it is a small mistake that can be fixed rather quickly (subject-verb agreement). In the classroom, the question techniques were short and intended for the student to say what was expected to be said. In other words, the creativity of a new form of sentence structure was almost impossible. For example, “class, please ask the student teacher ‘how was your vacation?’” The students simply repeated what she said. Even in the beginning when the student teacher questions, it never requires more than one-word responses:

Student Teacher: “How are you today?”

Student A: “I am happy.”

In terms of competency, the class needed practice with speaking (main language skill focus), the class involved pair-work/teamwork. They had many instances where they would turn to the neighbor next to them and converse with the question. For the other partner, they would have to answer accordingly. The students responded well to the activities during the lesson. In fact, I would say they were calm and answered or respond based on what was required by the instructor. If the instructor said repeat after him or her, they would do so. After that, there would not be any other action or noise made. Very straightforward schooling technique. The general atmosphere of the class was calm. This meant the students were not forced to listen nor was told to regain focus. They just had it in them to participate and listen in class. The instructor knew the task at hand, and students were to perform the task and not do the “unnecessary”. Based on observation, the students were constantly engaged due to being called on by the instructor(s) almost every other slide. Since, there was either a prompt or a question, the students were chosen and had to answer what they thought was the right answer. Nevertheless, the instructor allowed wrong answer, she simply used positive reinforcement to reward the right answer and not the behaviour.

From the observation, I learned that teaching ES/EFAL or EAP needed to be student orientated. The instructor becomes the facilitator and acts only when there comes an error. If not, this facilitator continues to begin the next prompt or task. I found that the class progressed well due to the students not being introduced much until they spoke a phrase themselves. Whether it was wrong grammar or word choice, the importance of trial-and-error in the lesson was apparent. If I was the instructor, I would not focus on giving physical positive reinforcements. The physical item may cause answering to become a competition, setting the tone of what is “smart”/ “dumb” in class.