6.5 Teacher Lisa’s story
6.5.5 Analysis procedures of Lisa’s lesson 5
In this section I give a human face the classroom general analysis to illustrate how one of the Lisa’s observed lesson was coded. See Tables 6.3 for the coding criteria.
Following is Lisa’s lesson 5 descriptions, constructed from the video transcripts of the data collected during phase 3, on the 28 October 2015.
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Date: 28-10-2015 Topic: Listening and Speaking Duration: 45 minutes Class: 2B Episode 1
The learners were quiet and seem to be ready for the lesson. The teacher, in a very surprising manner, uncovered a self-drawn (picture) mounted on the wooden stand. Holding it, she moved around the class for the children to have a close look at the picture. This seemed to create curiosity among the children about the lesson. After every learner had seen the picture, she then pasted it on the chalkboard for visibility purposes. The well-drawn picture showed a young boy playing with the sand at a beach.
She then engaged the children on a number of questions which stimulated a conversation with the learners. The teacher asked questions and encouraged them to put up their hands for individual responses. This was achieved most of the times and given a round of applause by the class. Part of the conversations went as follows:
T: What is happening in this picture?
L: It is a beach (isiZulu) T: Why do you think is a beach?
L: Water
T: (She described the picture) This is a beach, it has a boy playing with a bucket with sand. Is it clear children?
L: (chorus) Yes teacher
T: When do people go to the beach?
L1: Christmas day
T: Good, it’s nice to go to the beach on Christmas day!
L2: December
T: Yes, during the December holiday. Now tell me why we go to the beach during the December holiday?
L:The weather is hot
T: (write the word hot on board). Yes, we go when it’s hot. The days in December are sunny and we feel hot. So when we want to feel cold we go to the beach. Right, am I clear?
L: (chorus)Yes teacher
The conversation went on, based on what was visible on the picture in a free, interactive manner, and individual responses were highly encouraged. The teacher generated the key words of the day such as hot, blue water, salty, sand, sharks and swim wear as the children answered her questions. These words were clearly explained and written on the chalkboard. This conversation was predominantly conducted in isiZulu and only seven learners responded in one word answers in English. In total, only ten English words were given by the learners in English. The teacher kept switching coding to enable the children to comprehend the lesson. This episode took seven minutes.
Episode 2
The learners in a systematic order moved to the front of the class and sat next the book stand. The girls sat on the blanket mat provided by the teacher, while the boys sat behind the girls on their chairs. The teacher then uncovered a colourful poster with several activities taking place on a typical beach on a sunny day.
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The teacher first gave the learners one minute to study the poster and then she described the different activities on the beach. In a chorus, the learners kept repeating whatever the teacher said or finished off the teacher’s sentences.
T: As you can see the water is blue, what is the colour of the water?
L.(Chorus/loudly) Blue
T: There are many people, women, men boy and…
L :( Chorus/loudly) girls.
T: am I clear?
L: (Chorus/loudly) Yes teacher
The discussion on the poster was very interesting and the teacher guided the learners in construction of simple sentences from the poster through question and answering techniques in a well sequenced manner. Responses were either individual or whole class depending on the question. Part of the conversation was as follows:
T: (pointing) What is this?
L: Cake
T: (smiling). This is not a cake. This is called a sand castle. This is called…
L: (chorus) a sand castle
T: What are the children building? The children are building a sand castle.
L: (chorus). The children are building a sand castle.
T: what is to build?
L :( isiZulu). Like to build a house
T: Good, Who is building the sand castle? The children are building the sand castle.
L: (chorus) The children are building the sand castle.
T: Can you see the other children? What are they doing?
L: (isiZulu). The children buy ice-cream
The discussion, closely guided by the teacher, covered the what, who, why and when aspects. The teacher, in a sequenced manner, using repetition and questioning technique, covered four different activities in the poster.
She then took time to summarise the lesson by reviewing the key concepts from the drawing and the poster.
The teacher took one minute to find out whether they enjoyed the lesson and why? The enthusiastic and the happy looking children responded positively to the teacher. The teacher then divided the learners into two group and standing, and they sang: if you are happy and you know...
Episode 3
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Lastly, the learners had a hands-on opportunity. The teacher distributed worksheets (black and white version of the poster in A4 paper). Each group of the learners was given a box of crayons and instructed to colour the beach and they were not supposed to copy the teachers’ poster. To emphasise the issue of creating their own posters, the teacher covered the beach poster. The teacher moved around as the learners did their colouring.
The majority of the learners were busy, very keen with their individual work, as they took time to decide on the colours to use, but a few did a quick fix to their worksheets. Learners were free to move from their groups to get crayons from other groups. There was no noise or distraction during this activity. The teacher moved around and kept reminding them that crayons are supposed to be shared in the class. To motivate them, she promised to display their work the next morning in the classroom. And for sure when I came in the next day, all the colourful worksheets were displayed systematically according to their groups’ seating.
The lesson ended after 18 minutes of learners working individually on their worksheets. The teacher reminded the learners to write their names, dates and the day, before she collected the papers plus the crayons, assisted by the group leaders.
Figure 6.3: Descriptions of Lisa’s English literacy Lesson 5 Video recorded on 28-10-2015
Table 6.6 demonstrates how this lesson was coded. For instance, the third aspect of the principles (3.0) ‘To what extent did the teacher provide meaningful opportunities to enhance building of vocabulary and oral sentences fluency’, this aspect was given two sub-categories coded as 3A (develop listening and speaking skills), and 3B (building vocabulary and develop oral sentences in FAL). Each of these aspects were deductively connected to a piece of text from the transcript and corroborated by the researchers’ field notes to generate the codes.
Aspect 3A for Lisa’s lesson 5 were both coded at 4, recorded as 3A.4 and 3B.4 respectively (Table 6.6) for the coded aspects. This means that Lisa presented very good opportunities to develop learners’ listening and speaking skills; and also offered admirable occurrences for learners to build their vocabulary during this particular lesson. Table 6.6 below presents a coding of lesson 5.
Table 6.6: Analysis of Lisa’ lesson 5 using principles of teaching English as FAL at the FP Concept Definition Implications for lesson 5 practice
1.0 What is
bilingualism? 1A. Both HL and FAL must be fully developed
The teacher code switched accurately and appropriately in all the episodes, especially when explaining what happens at the beach, using local examples. She encouraged the learners to respond in English every time a learner responded to her question Coded as 1A.3.
1B. Receptiveness to acquiring FAL
The lesson was enjoyable and practical, where both the learners and the teacher used the new knowledge meaningfully and contextually.
For instance, one learner was able to provide reasons why he had never been to a beach after the teacher explained what children should and do not do at the beach. Coded as 1B.4
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2.0. To what extend did the lesson present explicit opportunities of learning and acquiring FAL in an authentic way?
2A.Formal (traditional) approaches to learning FAL
The discussion was closely guided by the teacher and covered the what, who, why and when aspects on the beach poster. The teacher, in a sequenced manner, used repetition and questioning techniques to cover four different activities in the poster. She then took time to summarise the lesson by reviewing the key concepts from her drawing and the poster using isiZulu and English accurately and appropriately. Coded as 2A.4
2B.Krashen’s natural approaches to acquiring FAL based on the 5 hypotheses
The beach drawing and poster were used in a systematic manner:
first the drawing was introduced and the beach contextualised, then the teacher talked about the boy in the drawing and moved to the new knowledge (poster of a typical beach) and engaged the learners using the prior knowledge in an excellent manner. This created the correct level of challenge. Corrections of errors were done to the whole class and repeated for understanding. Coded as 2B.4
3.0. To what extent did the teacher offer meaningful opportunities to enhance building of vocabulary and oral sentences fluency?
3A.Develop listening and speaking skills
The teacher’s talks were clear and accurate in all the episodes. The use of the drawing and poster created an excellent opportunity for the class to be able to closely study the pictures and to answer the teacher’s questions from their own point of view. Coded as 3A.4 3B.Building
vocabulary and develop oral sentences in FAL
The conversation about the drawing was done in a free, interactive manner and individual responses were highly encouraged. The teacher generated the key words - hot, blue water, salty, sand, sharks and swim wear - as the children answered her questions. These words were clearly explained, read repeatedly and written on the chalkboard. Learners coloured in their own beaches to conclude the lesson. Coded as 3B.4
4.0.To what extent did the teacher use balanced approaches to meaningfully support reading and writing?
4A.Strategies and routines that support
meaningful word study and reading
Writing of words and use with a whole language-based approach to explain the words and sentences generated from the story. Coded as 4A.2
4B.Strategies and routines that support meaningful writing.
Learners were provided with an opportunity to colour their own beaches without copying the posters’ colours, as the last task of the lesson. Coded as 4B.3
5.0. To what extent does the classroom portray a print rich environment
5. Print-Rich learning environment
The class had colourful pictures, teachers and learners creative works, shelves at the back of the class with piles of DBE workbooks and reading books which were well arranged. There were a variety of posters and charts displayed on either sides of the walls, such as shapes, a weather chart, colours, list of vowels, list of sounds, public holidays in English/ isiZulu, a clear noticeboard with school/class rules. Drinking water, plates and cups were well kept at the back of the class. Coded as 5.4
The next section provides the summative descriptions of Anne’s observed literacy lessons analysis.
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