Ash Analysis B FL 694

Overview:
This lesson was designed for my level 1 Spanish students. It takes place on the third day

of our second unit. This unit moves away from functional chunks of language towards more

concrete grammatical concepts such as ser vs. estar and present tense verb conjugations. The

theme of this unit is Contemporary Life with a focus on the students life at school. This lesson

occurred on the 16th day of language instruction for these students. This class appears to enjoy

language learning and is successfully completing tasks. Their grades and their participation

demonstrate interest and understanding of unit themes and concepts.

Goals and Objectives:

Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge of classroom vocabulary and the verb
estar in oral conversations.
Students will be able to correctly conjugate the verb Ser.
Students will be able to create a study tool to remember the uses of the verb ser.
Students will be able to begin to use adjectives to describe their classes.
Students will be able to practice their listening skills and make comparisons between
their classes and the classes at a chosen school in Spain.
Activities:
1. Warm up students will practice with the verb estar by conjugating it correctly in a
variety of sentences.
2. Speaking students will use their previous work (a schedule created in class the day
before as we learned school vocabulary) to ask others about their classes
3. Notes students will create a foldable for the verb ser
a. The foldable will use the acronym DOCTOR for the uses of ser
b. Students will listen to teacher given examples of each letter in the acronym and
guess the meaning
4. Writing students will focus on the description use of ser and add to their schedules by
describing the class
5. Listening students will watch/listen to a video about a school in Spain.
a. Answer questions in English about the video
b. Share out and discuss the similarities and differences
c. Share opinions about which school (ours or the one in Spain) they would rather
attend
Focus of Analysis B:
Ash Analysis B FL 694

This lesson was designed to give students an opportunity to work with three of the

language communication styles. This allows me to observe the level of engagement during the

use of each skill. The lesson also involves a note taking portion. I hope to evaluate their

engagement during this portion as well since the notes, a foldable, are given in a less traditional

way. Finally, the lesson has some opportunities for students to direct the topics discussed in class;

for example we may need to readdress adjective rules for placement and agreement. Students

also will direct the conversation after watching the video about the school in Spain. While I can

foreshadow and be prepared for the adjective conversation it is almost impossible to know what

they will gain from watching the video.

Lesson Recount and Evaluation

Evaluation Recount
Minutes 0- 8

Students were seated and had their work out I always get nervous about lessons that
when the class started. I reiterated the involve any sort of direct instruction. I know
warmup directions to them and then began to that students can have very short attention
walk around the classroom checking spans and often dislike note taking days. I
homework. Students were, for the most part decided to film this lesson however to see
quiet, but they did begin to talk about how engaged or unengaged they seemed
unrelated things once they had finished their throughout various activities. I also tried to
warm up. One student, who had struggled to use less traditional note taking strategies so
find his homework in his unorganized book that students were still challenged. In general
bag asked for additional time to attempt the I was satisfied with the lesson.
warm up at minute 3.30. After 30 seconds-ish
I called on students to answer the warmup The warm up went smoothly and I was happy
questions. I chose these students because in to see that most students had completed their
the previous analysis I noted that they were previous days assignment. Part of todays
not participating much in class. I moved to lesson went smoother because of their
other students for the verb conjugations and responsible behavior. I was disappointed
noted that students were still struggling with when I noticed that they were continuing to
identifying when to use the 2nd person plural struggle with identifying which verb
(vosotros or ustedes). I therefore took a few conjugation matched their subjects when the
minutes, impromptu to explain again. I also subject was not in pronoun form. I took a
practiced good wait time after the explanation brief minute to reteach the concept but Im
for students to raise additional questions. not confident that they internalized the
Ash Analysis B FL 694

information. Ill need to think of some new

Minute 8:20 17 ways to help them practice this concept.
This time was spent on a speaking activity.
Students were asked to work with a partner as The speaking section went better than
person A or B to talk about their class expected. I only had to speak with one group
schedule. I gave instructions in Spanish who did not understand the instructions it
except for a few new words and to emphasize was rewarding however to see her catch on
the importance of switching roles for each and complete the activity successfully with
question so that everyone has an opportunity me.
to ask and answer questions. One student
asked for clarification. I flipped our class sign I was also happy with the note taking section
over so that only Spanish was to be spoken. I of the lesson. The students did not do as well
then began to walk around the room to insure with the dictation of the verb tenses. Im
the use of Spanish. At minute 11:25 I hear a interested to watch the video and see if that
group struggling with the conversation so I was due to my instructions or their ability
play the role of person A so that they have a because they did a lot better with guessing the
concrete example. All the way through minute meaning of the acronym DOCTOR.
13:15 I do not hear any off task English
conversations taking place. At minute 13:20 I Finally, the video went well. It was fun to see
call on two student to complete the how the students reacted to the differences
conversation in front of the class. While they between our school and the school in Spain.
are completing the activity a student walked Most of the students did not like the alternate
across the room to throw something away I system of large classes and less teacher
must have noticed he was off task because I involvement. They were interested however
chose him to complete the next example in the concept of interdisciplinary projects
conversation. I called on a total of 4 groups and self-paced learning.
and did not interrupt or offer immediate
corrections for any of them (the classroom
management chapter must have really sunk
in). At minute 16 I lead the students in a quick
repetition drill to draw their attention to the
lack of an h sound in Spanish. We also
discussed the importance of pronouncing the
s on the end of verbs in the second person
singular form.

Minutes 17:05 45
This is the point I transition to introducing the
verb ser. I tell the students there are 2 verbs
meaning to be in Spanish and then guide
them in creating a foldable for their notes. I
give the instructions in Spanish by using an
example paper. One student asks for a ruler,
Ash Analysis B FL 694

in Spanish, to complete the task but I didnt

take the time to pass them out. I then proceed
to have students write the verb SER on the
first flap and raise the flap and draw the
conjugation grid. Instead of asking the group
to simply copy the conjugations I had them
complete a dictation activity. I gave several
example sentences that started with Yo soy
and students wrote down what they heard. We
did this for each of the 6 conjugations. Then
students compared what they wrote to a
neighbor and then finally I showed them the
correct spellings for the conjugations. There
appear to only be about 5 students making
corrections on their papers. Then we repeated
the exercise except I gave examples for each
of the letters in the acronym DOCTOR and
had the students guess what each letter stands
for. Most students got the correct answer for
the D and the T but otherwise it was
consistently one student who first caught on
to the meaning. I asked him at minute 33.07 if
he had previously seen the acronym since his
guessing skills were so impressive (he
claimed not). Once students had completed
all of the flaps I directed them back towards
their previous classwork their school
schedules.

Minutes 45- 60
Students were asked to then put their new
verb skills to work to write sentences that
described their classes. I told them we were
focusing on descriptions and asked a few
questions about adjectives to make sure they
remembered the previously taught
information on noun gender and adjective
agreement. I noticed that many were not using
the adjectives correctly and that even fewer
had taken time to complete their vocabulary
lists (part of which asked them to look up 5
additional adjectives theyd use to describe
their classes). I attempted not to get too
Ash Analysis B FL 694

frustrated but borrowed one of my high fliers

vocabulary sheets to display on the board at
minute 43 to help others complete the task
more easily. I also made note to do a more
detailed, explicit practice with adjectives the
following day. Once they were on a more
correct track I gave students 3 minutes to
complete their sentences and then called on 4
students to share their sentences with the
class.

Minutes 60- 78
For a closing activity I had students watch a
video on a school in Spain. For the first
viewing I asked them just to listen and to jot
down some notes about what they understood.
After the first viewing I allowed them to share
with their groups and then share out to the
whole about what they had understood
(sharing was done in English). For the second
and third viewings I provided the students
with questions (in English) to push them to
pay attention to particular pieces of the video
clip. We then repeated the share with your
group and share out with the class routine. I
allowed students to volunteer answers for this
part instead of calling on particular students.
When there was an error I directed the
question back towards the class and allowed
them to make the correction instead of me. It
was an effective way to encourage
participation from more students. It also made
the transition into sharing about what they
liked / didnt like about the school in Spain a
lot smoother.

Reflection:
Watching the video the students seem compliant. They do as they are told and do not

cause disturbances. For the activities in which they have more freedom to contribute and direct
Ash Analysis B FL 694

their learning they are much more animated. Especially during the note taking section where they

were allowed to guess meaning and during the end of the lesson when they were allowed to share

their opinions in English, the students became more enthusiastic and engaged with the activity.

As level one students I know they are still building their language identities but I hope to soon

see them just as excited to talk in Spanish as in English.

After completing the previous analysis and reading Chapter 5 of Cazden (2001) I believe

I did a better job with turn-taking during this lesson. I made more deliberate decisions about who

I called upon and I made sure there were multiple opportunities for each student to have a voice

(in partner activities, small group sharing, and large group interactions). I also decided to allow

the students to have some freedom in the topic selection for part of the class. I was hoping for

more student initiated interaction when they were allowed to describe their classes but since they

had not completed the necessary preparation work, asking them to use their own authentic,

truthful vocabulary to create descriptions turned out to be more frustrating than engaging. They

were more engaged and able to direct the conversation however towards the end of the lesson

when reflecting on the video clip. The discourse surrounding the differences and similarities of

their own school and that of the video was authentic discourse. However, I am not certain of its

value in the foreign language classroom because it did not occur in the target language. It also

did not evoke or challenge the emotions of the students so sharing out their opinions did not

greatly contribute to the classroom culture as Cazden (2001) and Wright (2005) would claim that

authentic discourse does.

Upon a third viewing of the video I focused specifically on the engagement of two

students in the class. One, Erica, who is doing well in the course and another, Tim, who is

struggling to complete any tasks accurately or on time. Eric was engaged and helping her table
Ash Analysis B FL 694

mates for 64 of the 78 minutes in class. Heroff task time is mainly accounted for by transitions

and moments when she completed her work before others. Even though she stays on ask 82% of

the time she does not initiate or participate much in the sharing portions of the class. Her body

language demonstrates that she is following the conversation and she is quick to react when she

notices someone has misinterpreted part of the video she does not speak unless directly spoken

to. Tim on the other hand is only engaged when called upon directly. The stop watch revealed

that he does very little to try and follow the class and instead is only engaged during 27 minutes

of the course; only 35% of the time! I had noticed his poor performance and his constant

doodling but did not realize his participation was actually so low. I will definitely need to

improve my efforts to keep all students on task as much as possible. I can use this particular

instance as evidence that even hard to reach students seem to do better when given the

opportunity to work kinesthetically (Tim was on task for almost all of the note taking part of the

lesson when he was asked to cut and manipulate his note sheet).

Works Cited:
Cazden, C. (2001). Classroom discourse: The language of teaching and learning. (2nd ed.)
Heinemann,
Portsmouth, NH.
Wright, T. (2005). Managing engagement. In Classroom management in language education.
(pp. 334-
368). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.