allAfrica.com: Namibia: English 2nd Language Class Observation (Page 1 of 4)

I once upon a time watched a class of English second language (ESL) in session. This was Ms HolmsÂ‚ level 1 ESL class at the English Language Center with 13 learners in attendance.

I had spoken to her some months ago to grant me permission to attend some of her lessons if she would not mind.

I came in class before her and as usual learners were still coming in one by one until there were about 13. Learners portrayed a blend of diverse L1 backgrounds and different cultural representation.

Ms Holms hurriedly came in with a couple of books on top of one or two files and a tape recorder and put them on the teacher's table. Without saying hello to the class, she proceeded to one of the learners sitting in a second group of four from the class entrance and started conversing.

I did not bother to capture the content of their talk but I could understand that the learner was talking about her previous homework.

The class had a parliamentary seating arrangement with learners sitting singly or in pairs, while the class conduct ranged between formal and semi-formal. Some learners sometimes resorted to their own languages (maybe their L1s) when talking to the teacher. I do not know whether they do this deliberately or not. The lesson started off with a recap on individual homework between the teacher and individual learners.

Classroom process accor-ding to Allwright (1983 in Ellis 1994) views language lesson as socially constructed eventsÂ‚ trying to understand how they take place - illuminative rather than hypothesis testing.

Taking the Ellis style this observation moves from a general nature of L2 classroom discourse towards different aspects of classroom interaction (page 573).

The classroom atmosphere looked unpredictable and interactionally varied.

The teacher first was called by one elderly female learner of Chinese origin seated beside me. Although the conversation was quite difficult for me to follow, I deduced it was about the homework the learner should have done before coming to class.

The learner showed the homework to the teacher and shook her head, looking at the teacher's face. The learner knew a significant number of L2 vocabulary but had some problems constructing sentences or with pronunciation.

The teacher equally had a problem to coherently maintain their conversation.

However in this case both the teacher and learner applied gestures, facial expressions and hands to facilitate communication.

"To home? I...I, to you - to you, I-mmhh ... I.. my thank you to you." This learner was responding to the offer given to her by the teacher that because she did not complete all work, she may do that at home again and submit at a later date.

The learner went on to explain why she did not finish: "I don't, don't - (with pauses), (understand? - The teacher aided her with a question) - receive? The learner went on putting her case (hopefully she could not remember the word).

The teacher again: "Didn't you receive my e-mail?"The same learner then replied: "Yes, in Monday send e-mail to you." Whereupon the teacher responded: "Don't worry I'll send you another e-mail on Monday."

This learner while talking to the teacher, she was using a little machine like a laptop, of the size of or slightly bigger than a PDA.

I could hear when she spoke to her male neighbour that she was looking for some English words in Chinese. In fact later I realized the learner was using a Chinese-English electronic pocket dictionary to check on words meanings first in her mother tongue (a Chinese language) as translated into English. She would use these words correctly or wrongly to communicate.

Many times the teacher intercepted learners before they said what they had to say, aiding them to find or say words (sometimes making them conclude ideas they did not mean).

It is however worth mentioning that there was no communication breakdown due to interactional problems in the class.

The non-verbal strategies

I witnessed unlimited collaboration among learners as they worked in groups or in pairs. They helped each other in answering questions, although some spoke in their vernaculars among themselves and sometimes to the teachers.

I do not know however, if the languages they resorted to sometimes when they spoke to each other or to the teacher individually are known among some of them as L1 or just individually known and used spontaneously when one got stuck with what to say in English.

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