Journal Notes - Lesson Observation (1)

In my first week of the teaching practice this semester, I decided to observe the English lesson “How to make an Arabic Coffee” with my MST. We went to the science lab with the materials, ingredients and the things that we need to make the Arabic coffee. The girls were sitting in 5 groups; The teacher starts explaining to them step by step how to make the Arabic coffee. She said that she’s teaching them this lesson because the topic of the week is “My country”. So, the students have to make something about their culture, like traditional food, games or any activity that reflect UAE culture. Another reason is, the national day is near to come, and she want them to make and observe the same thing (activity) in that day. She also said: “They have to learn about their culture and know the most important traditional things, like making the traditional coffee of the UAE”. The teacher starts explaining the first step, and then she applies it in front of the class. Then, she gave each student a graphic organizer to write and draw the steps clearly to do not forget it. The teacher kept repeating the same strategy for each step, until she finished explaining/making the coffee. At the end, she gave each student a cup of coffee to taste it, and know how does it’s seems like, and she kept talking to them a discuss the traditional things that we have in the UAE for the rest of the class time, and try to take some informations that the students have. It was really exciting, I felt that it’s a good thing that the students have to know/learn, because it’s reflect the UAE culture. The most interesting strategy that the teacher used, is give the students a graphic organizer to do. Graphic organizer will save the informations, explain the steps in a clear way. So it will be easy for the students to do it again, and I believe they will never forget it. In this lesson, I identify (Learning by doing) evidence. It’s the best way for the students to learn, because in this learning strategy, the students will have a chance to see how to do it in front of them, apply it and then see the final result that they already know. That will help students to proof in making things and believe it. Like when they did the coffee in the class; First of all they understood how to make it, then they wrote the material, ingredients and the steps of how to make it, after that they drew them to make it easier for them, and at the end they made the Arabic coffee with their teacher step by step, and try to drink it. So, in this lesson, they used different learning styles like: Auditory, Visual and Kinesthetic. And that’s what the students like and enjoy.