Observační archy a klíčová slova

Dear Maruška, 

I like your observation sheet for its comprehensiveness. Since you used colours to add or highlight the most important features of the method (if I understood it correctly), your sheet is clearly arranged. 

I appreciate that you prepared several blank cells, which were probably filled during the observation or our discussion. I like that you added function words, avoidance of translation and freedom to choose, I consider them important as well. 

I really like the picture of the activity with coloured rods, it can be useful in your teaching.

In terms of key words, you mentioned the most important ones. 

You see: the Ss choose what they want to talk about as an advantage. I totally agree with you. 

I would like to ask you this question: I thought that there was no translation because of learning through direct associations. You mentioned sometimes some mother tongue. How did you mean it? 

Maruška, 

first thing I want to say is that I love the quote by Benjamin Franklin you wrote down for this method. I know I’ve read it but I didn’t think off including it in my observation sheet which I now think was a mistake :)

It is interesting to compare this observation sheet with the one you made for the Natural Approach. What made you change their structures? 

Do I understand correctly that the words on the top of the paper are key words? If so, I have a few more which I’d like to share with you: cooperation (rather than competition), sentence as a basic unit and self-correction. I like your key word “independence”, I’m adding it to my list.

I agree with all the principles that you have in your observation sheet. I have one more which I also want to share with you because it played central role in the lesson we’ve participated in. The principle is “new knowledge is broken down into its elements (elements are presented one at a time)”. I believe this is a very important principle since the teacher doesn't speak a lot so the teaching has to be built gradually from the simplest parts to the most complex parts. In our case, we first distinguished the sounds, then used the sounds in the names of countries and after that we built whole sentences. 

Thank you for the opportunity to see your observation sheet!

Kačí :)

Dear Maruška,

I appreciate that your observation sheet begins with a lovely quote. It makes it different from the others. The whole observation sheet is well organized. I must admit that I really like that you used different colour for your comments during the online lesson. Not only is it clearer, but it also looks good. There is one thing I am not sure about. Are the words at the top of the sheet the key words? It seems to me that some of the key words are also included in a chart, for example learner-centred, function words, quality > quantity. I think that you can add next chart or column to make it clearer.

Your principles are almost same as mine. I really like the point that the teacher does not teach but helps the learner learn. I haven't seen this point in any other observation sheet and it makes me to think about this method in different way. 

I agree with all your points in pros and cons, there is nothing what I would add. I am glad that you mentioned that this method will be harder for learners who can't concentrate for a long time - I think that I only found it in your observation sheet even though it is such important when you have to individualize each student.