When Being Observed 2

Here is a concrete suggestion for Kate as to how to plan this thing out to make sure things go well. It is especially useful in this kind of situation, when you know you are going to be observed but you don’t know when:

Sometime during the week before you know that the observors will be arriving (since you don’t know the day or the class period but you do know the general time frame within a week), get a really good story started. About three days before the general window of the observation, do a ton of PQA (pick good structures!) with the kids so that the structures for the story are deeply embedded in the kids’ minds within that week before the observation.

After that, start the story. Get it going just a bit into location one, with actors and the three job roles ready and chosen, etc. Now you are somewhere in step 1, and then at that point just put it on the shelf. Now you have a fully planned story all set up and sitting there on the shelf ready to go. The kids are chomping at the bit to get the story going, and when the observers come in, and you take the story down from the shelf, as it were, it will be like throwing a big piece of meat in front of a bunch of baby lions.

Be sure to tell the kids what is going on, that some people are going to come in to see the class and you want it be a good story for them to enjoy and so that they can see what a good class they are and how super talented they are. Tell them that when the people come in you are going to instantaneously drop whatever you are doing and move right into the story that you had put aside a few days earlier. Tell them to get ready for that moment. Make it like a game. They will love the anticipation of moving into the story. They will support you as only kids can.

Then, when the observers show up, immediately go into a retell, review of the story, crank up the story and get it going. You may want to review the PQA structures but I wouldn’t. I would just blast it out of the gate.

I would also have a reading ready, if possible (it probably is since you did so much PQA and started the story – you can prepare a reading based on what you have so far). If the reading is all ready to go in the LCD so you can do the story for about 20 minutes and then the reading. Then, wonderfully, you could so some Readers’s Theatre as the icing on the cake.

Don’t forget to give a quick quiz and have that as an exit ticket. In the sad lives of these observers, they have little more to do in their lives than look for these things. Also, don’t forget to set up your three job roles as mentioned above, the artist, quiz writer, and story writer before they come in so that those three key roles in the classroom process are already in place before the observation.

Can you imagine what the artist is going to do when the people walk in? Talk about energy! And then, when, before the quiz and after the story and/or reading, you heap the praise onto the artist and do a retell or however you handle that, your class will all be in Good Vibe City and even the observers’ critical faculties will be partially removed and they, also, will be smiling at the joy of the child who drew the story.

Also, when they come in, be sure to hand them a really detailed lesson plan that has all sorts of connections (get them from this site or from the ACTFL site) as to how your lesson PERFECTLY ALIGNS with ACTFL. Have that done and share it with the obervers when they come in. And also share it with us here so that we can have a similar one if we are ever in your situation, which we all are all the time. You can find some sample lesson plans on this site to work from if you want.

Kate, I truly believe that the observers and most likely your supervisor don’t fully get the 90% Use of TL position statement of ACTFL 2011. If the they really got it, they probably wouldn’t be on an observation team – they would most likely be in a classroom doing something real. They are probably only on the observation team for political reasons and due to cronyism in the first place.

I think that you are going to blow them away. By doing the lesson in terms of the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines and then by physically handing them a doc that shows how your lesson supports those guidlelines, by doing the class in aural and reading input, you make a bold statement for comprehension based instruction.

If you don’t have that all set up in advance, it’s too much pressure and too emotionally difficult. By setting it all up in advance, with the story and reading sitting up there on the shelf, with the kids knowing that it is there and ready and anxious to play, you turn the tables on the professionally insulting game of Gotcha! that these so called random visits really are, a top down power play against teachers that is not collegial in any way.

I knew when Krashen was coming a few weeks ago and I had time to set it up. I had just done an observation for ten DPS teachers the day before and so I just continued the story from the day before. The second day was better than the first because the kids had had more reps on the target structures.

What saved me that day was that I asked Diana Noonan what to do, and she said, “Ben, forget all the shit and just do COMPREHENSIBLE INPUT.” That did it for me and that is what will do it for you. You will be prepared with a game plan.