1
Analysis D
Brianne Rusk
Practicum Fall 2014
November 5, 2014
Overview of planned lesson
Date: Monday November 3, 2014
Location: Classroom F6
Level: Spanish II Honors (Novice-High)
Topic: Talk about emotions & feelings
Class Period: 5th
The goal of this lesson is to be able to say how you feel and why. This relates to the unit on
health and allows students to personalize their learning by giving specific examples from their
personal lives. Overall, we are working on using “estar” with emotions, then expanding our
sentences by saying why or when we feel that way. Expanding sentences is something we need
to work on to get these students past the novice level and into intermediate by the end of the
year.
Lesson Outline

The lesson will begin with handing out pertinent papers related to this unit including a
vocabulary list, phrases in context with pictures, and a stamp sheet.

After handing out the unit papers, we will go over some emotions with pictures of people
and a corresponding PowerPoint presentation.

I will ask students how they feel and why, incorporating the vocabulary from their list
and from the presentation.

Finally, students will complete an activity where they walk around the class and ask all of
the other students how they are feeling today, tallying the answers and making a bar
graph that describes how our class feels overall. We will discuss the results.
Plan for Addressing Communication
I plan to watch and listen to how students communicate both with me and with other students to
determine if the communication is authentic or contrived and if communicative language
teaching is occurring in my classroom. In this lesson, there will be a lot of discussion and
chances for communication because we are introducing vocabulary and asking personal
2
questions about feelings and emotions. They will also do a questioning activity with their other
classmates to find out how they are feeling. I think this lesson is set up well do discover what
kind of communicative environment I am creating.
Core Statements about Communicative Language Teaching
Statement
Second language learning is facilitated when
learners are engaged in interaction and
meaningful communication.
Meaningful communication results from
students processing content that is relevant,
purposeful, interesting, and engaging.
Communication is a holistic process that often
calls upon the use of several language skills or
modalities.
Language learning is a gradual process that
involves creative use of language, and trial and
error.
The role of the teaching in the language
classroom is that of a facilitator who creates a
climate conducive to language learning and
provides opportunities or students to use and
practice the language and to reflect on
language use and language learning.
The classroom is a community where learners
learn through collaboration and sharing.
Activities center on communicative functions
and contextualization is a major premise.
Focus on form is contextualized and has a
purpose for communication.
Implementation in my classroom
During this lesson, communication was
meaningful and authentic because we talked
about the students’ real feelings and things that
are actually happening in their lives.
Teenaged students are usually very engaged
when talking about themselves and their lives.
They were especially engaged when
complaining about their parents and how they
feel about school during this lesson.
Students were required to listen to teacher
input, make statements about feelings, tell why
they felt that way, and later on, ask others how
they felt and why. Although this lesson did not
include much reading or writing, those skills
are incorporated on a regular basis.
Mistakes are encouraged in communication.
The most important thing is that they are trying
to communicate in Spanish. Creative use was
witnessed in this lesson when students said
things in the TL that they have never said or
heard before about why they felt the way they
did.
I created a climate conducive to language
learning by using the TL 95% of class time
during this lesson. Students got opportunities
to practice the language when they shared their
feelings and asked about the feelings of others.
Students shared their feelings with the class as
a whole, and then shared one on one with their
classmates, collaborating to determine how our
class felt as a whole that day.
The communicative function in this lesson was
saying how one feels and why, not how to use
the verb estar. This gave the activity context.
The form being utilized here was the verb
estar, which was contextualized through
communicating about feelings and emotions.
3
Comprehensible pronunciation is sought.
Judicious use of native language is employed.
There is a focus on student personalization.
Students are expected to interact with other
people through pair and group work.
We used the form instead of teaching it in a
decontextualized manner.
During choral repetition of the vocabulary, I
stopped the lesson a few times to point out
pronunciation aspects and correct group
pronunciation.
I used 95% Spanish during this lesson and
students also used a majority of Spanish. With
me, they probably used 90%, but with each
other it was certainly lower. The majority of
the class, however, was conducted in the TL.
Students were able to personalize their TL use
by making statements about themselves, their
lives, and their feelings.
Students are seated in groups of four to
encourage interaction. During this lesson, they
interacted with me and with the other students
in the class when they questioned everyone
about how they felt that day.
Reflection
Based on the statements provided in the syllabus for this class, I would characterize
communicative language teaching as an approach to language teaching that emphasizes
interaction and communication. Meaningful and contextual communication is the key, and often
forms are hidden within the contextual input. Students should be able to communicate about
topics that are relevant and interesting to them and that will keep them engaged. Also, errors are
common and a normal part of the communicative process; however, these errors are not
chastised or penalized. They are seen as a natural part of language learning. The role of the
teacher is to facilitate this natural, contextual communication in a positive, collaborative
environment while encouraging attempts to communicate in the target language and motivating
students to achieve communicative proficiency.
Based on evidence from this lesson, I am proud to say that I believe communicative language
teaching is occurring in my classes. This lesson on feelings and emotions was communicative in
that it allowed for students to share personal information in a contextualized way. They were
able to talk about how they feel and why, which they found interesting and engaging based on
4
their level of participation. The forms of the verb estar were hidden within the lesson’s context,
and students got to practice those forms without them being the main focus of the lesson.
Another great thing about this lesson was that the students were able to collaborate and share
with their peers, learning from one another. The lesson was almost entirely in the target
language, by me and the students, and although their Spanish production was not perfect, they
were not penalized for their errors, but encouraged to participate and try out new language.
One of the things I liked most about this lesson was that the communication was authentic. In a
traditional IRE lesson, questions and responses are often inauthentic, or contrived. The questions
are often checking for understanding or requesting a verbalization of learned information. This
lesson was less traditional with more authentic communication due to the nature of the
questioning. Questions were personalized and answers could vary from student to student. The
goal was not necessarily accuracy, but information transfer, with follow-up questions and
discussion of student answers. Students are more engaged when they are able to communicate
useful, interesting information rather than simply repeating from a textbook or giving an answer
that they know is being grammatically dissected.
Overall, I was pleased to find that this lesson met the standards for communicative language
teaching. Its authentic communicative nature and the amount of target language input and output
in the lesson made it not only engaging for the students, but also beneficial to their language
acquisition. Of course, not all lessons are so orally focused; therefore my challenge is to make
each day communicative, regardless of the mode of communication used. Communicative
language teaching does not have to simply refer to oral communication, but instead must involve
authentic and contextual communication within real-world situations that the students find
engaging and useful to their real lives.
Source
Cazden, C.B. (2001). Classroom discourse: The language of teaching and learning (2nd ed.).
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.