I spent a morning observing Mrs Snyman’s class. I did not take any video recordings; however, I made detailed field notes. I was aware of there being two learners experiencing barriers to learning in her classroom.
5.4.1 Lesson 1: Writing exercises – the letter “e” in cursive writing Duration: 45 minutes
I joined Mrs Snyman’s class at 09h00 in the morning. I sat quietly on the one side of the classroom, remaining as unobtrusive as possible. The learners were just completing their Mathematics lesson and were preparing to begin their cursive writing lesson. Mrs Snyman began the lesson giving short, clear instructions to the learners and demonstrated the writing process on the board. She had to stand on a chair to reach the board, as the board was above a row of cupboards.
Mrs Snyman: Write the date, neat and tidy handwriting, capital letter between 3 lines. I count 1, 2, and 3 and start on the third line.
Mrs Snyman first demonstrated doing the pattern “e” on the board, stating that “we leave no spaces”. She walked around the class, between each step of writing on the board, checking the learners work. She then went on to demonstrate writing a capital and lower case “e” in cursive and repeated this a few times on the board. The learners quietly and carefully wrote the letter
“e’ across the page. They then copied Mrs Snyman by writing a sentence in cursive with the letter “e” in it, namely “Elam eats eight sweets”. Mrs Snyman took her learners through the
process step-by-step allowing the learners to follow her easily and the slower learners to complete each step.
At this point the learners were asked to line up to go and get their hot meal which interrupted the flow of Mrs Snyman’s lesson. They resumed their cursive writing thereafter. The learner, Agatha, with physical and intellectual difficulties, was very slow and did not complete her cursive writing by first break. She was allowed to continue with her writing after break. Mrs Snyman accommodated her slower learners by allowing them extra time.
5.4.2 Lesson 2: Class reading
Duration: 20 minutes
After break, Mrs Snyman set up her reading stand with a large A3 “sunshine” book entitled
“The Terrible Tiger”. She had all her learners sit on the carpet in front of the stand. One learner was disruptive and over-excited, so Mrs Snyman had him sit next to her, close to the stand, keeping a close eye on him. She explained to me later that he was one of her ADHD learners.
Mrs Snyman pointed to the front of the book and then paged through the book with the learners looking at the illustrations giving the learners an overview of the story and the technique of using the illustrations to help read of the text. She encouraged the learners to predict what they thought might happen in the story.
Mrs Snyman: Look at the cover. What do you think the story is about?
Learners: A snake, a rope, a tiger. (On the front cover only the tail of the tiger was visible).
Mrs Snyman: The title of this book is “The Terrible Tiger”. (She pointed to the words as she read them).
The author of the book is “Joy Cowley”. (She pointed to the author’s name).
The illustration was done by “John Francis”. He drew the pictures.
What can you tell me about the picture?
Learners: I see a girl and a boy and a butterfly. They are holding sticks. They are going to make a fire.
Mrs Snyman: What do you think will happen next? Okay, let’s see.
They are going in the jungle. They are going down the hill.
What do you think will happen now?
Learners: They are following the footprints of the animal.
Mrs Snyman: What can you tell me about this picture now?
Learners: Blue bird. Yellow grass. Burnt from the sun. It is autumn.
Mrs Snyman: What do you think will happen on the next page? What is this?
Learners: A snake. A tiger.
Mrs Snyman: Why are they running away?
Learners: Because they saw a tiger.
Mrs Snyman: Where are they running?
Learners: Home.
Mrs Snyman: How will the story end?
Learners: They are going to tell the parents.
Mrs Snyman: What does scamper mean?
Learners: Run.
Mrs Snyman: Let’s read the story.
Mrs Snyman proceeded to read the story along with the learners. Not all the learners read along with her. This could have been due to the level of reading being too difficult for some of them, or that they were distracted, or that they preferred to just listen.
At the end of the morning, for the final 15 minutes, Mrs Snyman handed out reading books entitled “Proudly South African”. She asked the learners to sit in pairs, with one book between them, and to practise reading to one another. This ensured that all the learners had a chance to practise their reading. She walked around the class listening to the learners, stating that they should give the reader a chance to read the word first and if he or she struggled with the word, then he or she could help him or her. Mrs Snyman explained the technique of paired reading to the learners and how they should help each other when reading.
5.4.3 Lesson 3: English
Duration: 40 minutes
Concept: Verbs – present and past tense
Mrs Snyman began the lesson on verbs by asking a question.
Mrs Snyman: Can you still remember what a verb is?
Learners: An action word.
Mrs Snyman: Yes, an action word like run, jump, swim, read, hop, cook, drive, write, dance.
Those are all verbs. We can write verbs in present and past tense.
Mrs Snyman gave examples of action words and then proceeded to stick a sheet of paper on the board with examples of verbs in the present and past tense, such as buy – bought, fall – fell, eat – ate, catch – caught, and fly – flew. She went through the verbs on the sheet and then instructed the learners to take out their exercise books. The activity they had to complete was to draw what they had done over the weekend and to write a sentence for each picture in the past tense, using verbs in the past tense. Mrs Snyman reminded the learners that not all verbs in the past tense ended with an “ed”, but that the “whole word changed”.
The learners began to do their drawings and write their sentences. As I was on the one side of the classroom, I was unable to see the work of the learners. The learners were, however, engaged in their work, and remained seated at their desks, while a low hum was heard in the classroom. Mrs Snyman once again walked around the class reminding the learners about various factors, such as stating that they should write in full sentences. At the end of the lesson the learners were asked to hand in their exercise books. I could not determine whether or not learners had completed their work.