Lesson Observation Guidelines at Advanced Level

Luiz Otávio Barros

luizotaviobarros@gmail.com

A yes B to a degree C no N/a not applicable

a b c N/a

Input processing

1 Learners were exposed to linguistically challenging reading    

/ listening / video material.

2 There was a variety of tasks to enable learners to    

comprehend the above (=process it for meaning) as
effectively as possible.

3 Learners were encouraged to process that input not only    

for meaning but also for form. In other words, not only to
understand what was said, but also to notice how certain
ideas were expressed.

4 The teacher attempted to pitch her level of English above    

the learners’ (thereby taking advantage of teacher talk as
a source of “advanced input”).

5 Learners were occasionally encouraged to notice linguistic    

features of the above (i.e. not only what the teacher said,
but also how the teacher said things).

Accuracy work

6 Work on grammar arose out of the students’ linguistic    

needs as detected through meaning-focused work. In
other words, intervention through observation, even if the
above needs were artificially engineered.

7 There was corrective feedback when appropriate (i.e.,    

again, intervention through observation). Luiz Otávio
Barros.

©Luiz Otávio Barros. All rights reserved.

 Lexical development

8 There was an adequate amount of attention to lexis    

(possibly enough for learners to leave the classroom with
the impression that they “learned new vocabulary” in that
lesson). Luiz Otávio Barros.

9 If the lexis taught was taken from the coursebook, it was    

NOT taught for its own sake, but as a form of pedagogical
intervention leading up to some sort of real(istic) outcome.

10 If the lexis taught originated from another source (e.g.    

learners’ lexical gaps -“teacher, how can I say X”-, teacher
talk, other learners etc.), the teacher made some of this
lexis systematic by, say, writing it on the board and having
students add it to their vocabulary notebooks.

11 (in either 10 or 11) Learners were encouraged to learn    

words + common collocates (rather than in isolation)
and/or embedded in memorable phrases or sentences.

©Luiz Otávio Barros. All rights reserved.