By: Reem Mohammed Moshabab Asiri
I. Introduction
I have visited the Sixth Intermediate School at Khamis Mushayt on Thursday 29/12/1435.H to find a class which uses technology. I met
the principal of the school, Nora Gharawi to ask her permission to observe any
English class which uses technology. She welcomed me and give me the permission,
but after giving her a speech from our doctor, Abdulaziz Fageeh.
The main purpose of the class observation is to examine the use of
technology in the English class. Also, I want to make sure that the use of
technology by the teacher is sufficient for students.
This is a report about a classroom observation in the Sixth Intermediate
School at Khamis Mushayt. It includes some main information about the school and
the English teachers in general. After that, the results of the classroom
observation are divided in two sections, teachers and students. Throughout this
report, a variety of teachers' and students' behaviors towards the use of
technology are analyzed. Finally, this report ends with a discussion about classera.
II. The School
The Sixth Intermediate School has established in 1408.H, consisted of 45
teachers and 330 students. It is considered one of the schools which uses the electronic
learning. The principal of the educational office/ Mrs. Mona Mastor Al-Ghamdi
has attended the school on Wednesday 7/ 6/ 1434.H to inaugurate the e-learning.
She graciously handed over certificates
of thanks and appreciation to all the trainees on
the e-learning for their
acceptance and their support of the
program of e-learning and distance learning. However, all teachers have trained to use this electronic
learning program. Actually, it is the first school in Asser which has examined
its students via classera.
The school has a resource room. It is provided with a white board,
circle tables for students and chairs, LCD, a projector, a scanner, a smart
board, and seven computers. The windows of this room are covered by dark
curtains. It is neat and well-organized. The teachers of all subjects can make
their classes there if they need to use technology while they are explaining
their lessons.
III. English Teachers
There are 5 English
teachers in the school. Mrs. Hayat has got a leave, she has 12 years experience.
Mrs. Huda Alqahtani is free to e-learning, she has 13 years experience. Mrs.
Manal Saeed teaches first intermediate grade, she has 9 years experience. Mrs.
Dana Alshahrani teaches second intermediate grade, she has 11 years experience.
Mrs. Aysha teaches third intermediate grade, she has 12 years experience. All
of them are active and cooperative.
Mrs. Manal and Mrs. Dana are the most two English teachers who use
technology in their classes. So, they asked their principal to take a room and
make it an English lab. Their principal gave them a room and they have just
organized it. It is provided with a white board, a projector, a big headphone,
4 large square tables for students, and chairs. The windows are covered with
dark curtains. The lab looks attractive and pretty. The English teachers can
receive their students and teach them in the English lab.
VI. Technology in English Classes
A) Mrs. Manal Saeed
Mrs. Manal uses only the Power Point Presentations (PPP). She designes
them always by herself. She says that she becomes experienced in making PPP.
She is very cooperative with me. She welcomed me soon.
I have visited Mrs. Manal on Monday 17/1/1436.H in the first period. The
class was in the English lap where the projector, the headphone, and the laptop
were all available. The lesson was about listening and discussion. She used a
PPP, which consists of 5 slides, to teach her students. The PPP was very
planned. Unfortunately, the PPP was not so clear because of the sunlight, although
the PPP was on the large size on the board. The teacher looked used to use the
PPP with a projector in front of her students. She used the arrow signs in her
PPP for clarification. Her PPP consisted of many pictures and words related to
the lesson, food and drinks. The teachers indicated the important
pictures and words by moving the mouse while she was teaching.
On Thursday 20/1/1436.H, I have visited Mrs. Manal in the first period.
The class was in the English lab. The subject of the lesson was Sarah's
Kitchen Menu. This time the teacher used a PPP also, which consisted of
five slides. The slides were rich with pictures and information. The pictures
of the PPP were very clear to all students. The PPP was better and clearer from
the previous lesson because the teacher has covered the windows with dark
curtains. So, the PPP was perfect. It consisted of the same pictures in the
students' book, but they were arranged regularly. It represented and explained
the activities of one page in the students' book. The pictures and words were
controlled by the teacher choice. She put them inside squares or underlines
them. She showed her students the correct answer in the PPP after they answered
it. The handwritings in the PPP were colored related to its importance to be
clear for students. She is very excellent in her use of technology: the
projector, the laptop, and the headphone.
The teacher opened an audio file of a listening task. The voice of the
headphone was very clear to all the class's students. She stopped it when there
was a question. Finally, she repeated it to revise the students' answers.
An instruction of a vocabulary task was shown in the PPP. Then, the
teacher showed the students the correct answers in the PPP. Some words in the
PPP were coming and jumping inside circles with different colors. The teacher
used different colors for writing words, questions, and answers.
B) Mrs. Dana
Al-Shahrani
I have met Mrs. Dana and took her number to arrange a visit to her
class. She welcomed me and she is very cooperative with me.
I have visited Mrs. Dana
on Thursday 27/11/1436.H in the second period. The class was in the resource
room. The teacher brought to the class her special projector, a
large headphone, and her personal laptop. They all were available. The lesson
topic was Is There a View?. It was a listening and discussion lesson.
The teacher used video. The video was uploaded in the laptop, and she operated
it with the projector. It was about the same lesson and it had the same
pictures of the book. The colors of the video were clear and bright. The video
was very clear and attractive.
The teacher in her lesson used the headphone for the listening task. Its
voice was very clear to all students. She stopped it if there was a question
from her students.
The teacher is excellent in using technology. She looks used to use
video while teaching. She looks experienced. She takes those videos from
YouTube or from the website "www.saudienglish.net/". Technology does
not remove her away from using the ordinary tools of teaching, like the book,
markers, and the white board.
V. Students with Technology
A) 1st Intermediate Grade
The teacher of grade one is
Mrs. Dana. The students are 44 students. The resource room was enough for them. They were divided into four large groups.
The video was very clear for them. They looked used to watch like this
video. They were encouraged by their teacher. They were listening carefully to
the listening task by the headphone. At the same time, they could watch the
same paragraph of the listening task on the board which was provided with
pictures. They could answer the questions related to the listening task. So,
they used to learn English in this way.
B) 2nd
Intermediate Grade
The teacher of grade two is Mrs. Manal. They are 35 students. The
English lab was enough for them. They were divided into four large groups. The
walls had been just painted, so some of the students were annoyed from the
paint smell.
Some of them said that they
could not see the PPP clearly because of the sunlight. Some pictures in the PPP
were not so clear for students, they complained that they could not see clearly.
But in the second lesson, the PPP became clearer because the windows were covered
with dark curtains by the English teacher, Mrs. Manal.
In fact, the students were
encouraged by their teacher. They looked used to watch the PPP. They were attracted
by the PPP. They were active and excited. They asked their teacher about their
home work, which they would do it via classera.
The students were
listening carefully to the listening task which the teacher operated. At the
same time, they looked at their books. They could answer the questions of the
listening task rapidly. This approved the clearness of the headphone voice.
VI. Classera
The school has started using classera from the last year. Classera
is a new e-learning program. The school uses classera as a means of
communication between teachers and students. The teachers can send for their
students home works, lessons, marks, videos, worksheets, photos, pdf files, etc.
The students can communicate with their teachers through it. Actually, it
offers a cooperative environment for both teachers and students.
Classera is very easy to use. From the main screen, students can
see the new materials that have been posted by their teachers for any of their
classes. This tool enables students to use the true potential of smart phones
in education. Undoubtedly, it is easy to use this system.
Concerning the English teachers'
use of classera, Mrs. Manal says that she sends for her students home
works, the PPPs, and the audio files. Mrs. Dana says that she posts for her
students home works, videos, and some beneficial websites for learning English like
"www.wallstreetenglish.com/". But Mrs. Ayshay says that she has some
problems with the net, so she rarely uses the technology in her classes.
VII. Conclusion
The Sixth Intermediate School has visited to find a class which uses
technology. Then, two classes are visited three times to make a class
observation. Their use of technology is good. The teachers are excellent and
experienced. The students also look used to use technology in their learning
process and most of the students seem attracted by the use of technology in
their classes with their teachers.
It is an appreciated effort from the English teachers for the
establishment of the English lab. I hope that the rest of English teachers
develop themselves and try to use technology in their classes because technology
is essential for all nowadays. Indeed, I hope that they benefit from using the
smart boards which are available from the Ministry of Education to their
school.
Finally, I want to thank the principal, the English teachers, and the
students for their great cooperation with me. Many thanks to Dr. Abdulaziz
Fageeh who give us this chance to develop ourselves. I ask Allah blessing for
all. I wish for this school and its employees further progress and success.
VIII. References
http://6thintermedite.blogspot.com/
