Course: Practicum 1a

Code: EPC 1403

Observation Task 5: Different

learning styles and differentiation

Prepared by: Fatema Saeed Alshehhi

ID: H00271530
Prepared to: Ms. Hamda Al-awadi
Date of submission: Thursday Jul 1, 2018
 Observation Task 5: Different learning styles and
differentiation
Focus: On a lower-level learner
Objective: For student teachers to gain an initial understanding of how learners are different.
Procedure:
1. For this observation, you will begin by observing the class for 1 hour.
• What do you notice? Does the class have any strengths or weaknesses?
• Are there learners who finish activities quickly? What do they do when
they have finished?
• Are there learners who do not finish a task(s)? How does the teacher
deal with them?
• Are there any learners with special needs? How does the teacher meet
their needs?
• How does the teacher manage learners with different levels/abilities?
2. When you have made your notes, ask the teacher to help you choose a lower-
level learner in the class.
3. Observe the learners for the rest of the day and make notes on a schedule (see
below).
4. After the observation answer:
• How many different activities did the learner do?
• Every session students have to do two different activities of vocabulary.
They have variety type of activities, fill in the blank with word, match
definition with word, multiple choices of parts of speech for word and
puzzles.
• How did s/he interact with the other learners throughout the day?
• The learner maitha was participated in every activity. She was interacting
with her partner during activity or in her individual work.
• What was the longest period of time the learner spent focusing on one
activity?

• Maitha needed more time than others to do some of tasks specially

"multiple choices parts of speech" activity. She taken double of time than
the other students needed to complete it.

• What did the learner do during the break times?

• Most of the students (even Maitha) go down stairs to eat something in
canteen or some of them stay at class to play with their phones or talk
with each other.
 • What did the learner’s attention span / interest during activities seem
like?
• Maitha prefers group work more than individually work. She is more
enthusiastic and active in the group work. She listens to the teacher's
instructions and do her best to solve questions first one before her
friends.
• What did the learner seem to like doing the most / least during the day?
• I noticed that Maitha likes competitions a lot. sometimes, the teacher in
the last lesson, she puts them in groups and each group have to take
question from teacher about the lesson to answer and then move on to
the second question once they finished. Maitha tries to answer the
question as fast as possible to move to the other. The competition makes
her enjoyable more than if she doing individual work.

Here is an example of notes from observation of lower-level child:

Time Activity (what is the Notes (what happens during the activity?)
learner doing?)
9.30 Teacher gives out a Alya is working on the activity but is asking her
reading activity to do in friend for the answers. She is finding it difficult…..
groups.
9.50 Teacher plays a game Alya is joining in with her friends and is playing the
with the whole class. game.
Observation Task 5: Record sheet- A day in the life of a lower level learner
Follow a learner for a day and write down the activities and movements in the table
below.
Name: Maitha Ali Age: 20 years old Level: 4 of foundation

Date of observation: June 4, 2018 to June 11, 2018

Time Activity / Notes / comments

Movement
10 mins Matching words Maitha was trying to found answer and she got the
with its definitions without struggling because of simplicity of
definition words of definition.

10 mins Multiple choice Maitha found difficult with this activity and the teacher
of parts of she explained to her more to get the answer. (The
speech teacher was walking around them during activity to check
and correct their answer).
10 mins Completing Maitha took more time to solve 4 questions, then she
sentence with tried to copying remaining questions from her friend but
word the teacher noticed that and she told her '' no copy''
then, she completed it by herself but the time finished on
10 mins Finding the numberused
Maitha 6. her mobile phone and started to find the
definition in definition of the words in Arabic. She could to do this
Arabic activity without need a help and finished early.
2 mins Write sentence Maitha wrote sentence on white board when the teacher
using new words ordered.

Reflection
The following question may guide your response:
 What have you noticed about learners from this observation?
 What did you notice that relates to the theories we have been discussing?
 What interested or surprised you?

Differentiation (law achievers)

In general, I noticed that the most of level four students of foundation poor in
the English Language. Many of them have lack of vocabulary, poor pronunciation, weak
in reading ,problems in grammar specially with parts of speech .However, some of them
trying to improve their skills in reading and grammar and they memorize the new
vocabulary .The teacher gives them more of opportunities to help them. She does more
practice every day. She do different types of practice such as, matching definition, parts
of speech, completing sentence with word and she have them to repeat new vocabulary
over time to get correct pronunciation.

There are not many differences in students' abilities or learning level .so, the
teacher doesn’t use the strategy of differentiation a lot. Nevertheless, she sometimes gives
students who need more time in their task as needed. Also, when she walks around them
during their activity, she focuses on students who need a help more. She gives them more
explain to find the answer. I think that teacher should be aware about abilities' students to
meet their needs in a good path. Also, giving students the support and help to access their
task they make them more confidence in their ability. It's very necessary to know that if
the teacher ignore needs of students and the students are unable to do their task, they will
be feel disappointed and they think that they can't do it. Moreover, they will effect on
their learning.

Although, my MST does the best with this group, some of students sometimes
don't show that they want to learn. They don't focus with her most of the time and they
don't their work during activity. However the teacher can control the situation quickly.
She tries to engage them and ask them to do their work immeditly.in my opinion;
Teamwork makes students more enthusiastic and competitive, making education effective
and far from boring.