Saturday, August 4, 2012

A PEER OBSERVATION REPORT

A PEER OBSERVATION REPORT
OF
Mr. Rajendra Shrestha

 





Submitted to
The Department of English Education
In Partial Fulfillment for the Master of
Education in English


 





Submitted by

Ranjit Kumar Singh



T.U. Regd. No: 9-2-229-54-2003
Campus Roll No: 97/065
Second Year Exam Roll No: 290320








Observer: Ranjit Kumar Singh                   Student-teacher: Mr. Rajendra Shrestha
Dates of Observation: 14th & 18 th Mangsir and 1st Poush          Class/Time: 6:55-7:30

The first class I observed on 14th Mangsir 2068 was the Level Higher Secondary Literature class at Manglodaya Campus Thankot. There were 26-32 students in a big classroom. The reason why the number of the students varied was that some students came late and others left early. As the teacher and I entered the classroom, the first thing I noticed was that the students were all quietly waiting for the teacher to come in and start class. My peer introduced me and told the students to focus on t he class. The students were genuinely interested and asked questions such as: Where do you come from? Where do you live and so on?
The class is taught by Mr. Hari Prsad Paudel. The students in the class are fro multicultural group of same age group. The first class I observed was a poem named Concrete Cat by Dorthi Charles …………………..from The Magic of Words grade XI.
The lesson began with the teacher inquiring if all the students had brought their text book or not. He repeatedly stressed the importance of bringing books in class because the poem he was going to teach was based on how words are arranged to form a cat which student could not understand without the textbook. This poem is a unique poem in its form being a visual poetry, also being a visual viewing of a cat. But not only are these words arranged to look like a cat, the words define the cat. There is alot of repetition in this poem, "stripestipestripestripe." The visual image appears to be in picture form, because the cat is not moving, and especially the mouse being behind the cat. The poem basically shows a cat and its survival necessity of day to day life.
 The teacher asked those who have one now to put it in front of them. If they haven't they can see in their friends’ books.
Thereafter he showed the Material he had brought drawing the concrete cat and described the form of the foem. He gave some other example of concrete poem. One of them is given below.




Student could easily understand what that poem was about. Further he described some alphabets which are used in the poem e.g. A, U and Y for different parts of the cat. As he made the students clear that ‘A’ represents the pointed eAr of the cat, ‘U’ represents the moUth and in the similar vein ‘Y’ represents the eYe of the cat. In the "Concrete Cat" by Dorthi Charles is a beautiful image of a cat. In this concrete poetry the writer give the appearance of a happy cat.  With the capital A in the ears, the capital Y in the eyes and the capital U in the mouth and the happy bouncing spaced letters in the tail, the cat appears to be very happy and content.  It has food indicated by the words, dishdish.  A literbox, and a dead mouse, that is why the poet spelled the word mouse upside down.  This concrete poetry can be painted and really form a cat.
I was so fascinated by his sight in this poem. He left no stone unturned to make each and every concept clear to the students.

The second class I observed on 18th Mangsir 2068. It was General Advice from MEANINGs INTO WORDS. The lesson was not based on the previous unit so he did not focus on the previous unit or subject matters. The materials he used were sample letter and other cutout which he used very effectively in classroom.
 The teacher began the class with some small talk, commenting on the weather, and on some news headlines while introducing new vocabulary. I noticed that all students were listening attentively, but that only a few were brave enough to participate actively. Initially, I thought I would just observe and see what emerged, but after 10 minutes I decided it would be more useful to observe the verbal and non-verbal behaviors of just two students.
I picked two people with apparently opposite personalities as the objects of my observation: one of them was boy and the other was girl. I observed how they are interacting with the teacher time and again to get some gist of the unit.
He read out the sample letter he had with him and made student guess what he was going to teach them. That was related to GENERAL ADVICE to relative through letter.
He did his job so effectively and I was sure enough that students achieved the desired goal.

The third class observed was on 1st Poush of the same friend Mr. Hari Bahadur Paudel was a poem named Poplar Field written by William Cowper an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time. This poem was from The Magic of Words, the literature book prescribed for grade XI.
He discussed the burning issues of natural degradation. He pleads for the conservation of environment. He gave illustration from our surrounding to make the concept the poem clear.

Overall I found his lesson so effective and fruitful. Despite a few missteps, he maintains a professional behavior in the classroom and is to be encouraged. I wish his bright future.

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