Place: Seoul, Daejo Elementary Grade 6^th English Classroom

Time: 9 am – 9:40am (40mins period)

Actual observation time: 9:05am – 9:20am

 Because it is the end of the school year for my 6^th grade students here in South Korea, we are done all our lessons and have been doing random English activities in our classrooms. My co-teacher and I decided to give the students a comic strip making activity to complete during class time. At the end of the given allotted time, we had a gallery walk showing the students’ work and they had the chance to vote three of their favourite works in the classroom for the “people’s choice” award. This observation took place in the first 15mins after instruction.  We instructed them with our criteria where we started the minimum amount of work required, for their work to be considered complete. The criteria included that students have a title, minimum of 5 boxes and have their work completed in English, though some Korean is permitted.

 Observations / My interpretations

• Students chose classmates they were most comfortable with, to work on the project together. Proficiency or capability wasn’t considered in their selection. / To kids, having a chance to work to work their friends on an assignment is more fun than doing it alone or with someone they didn’t like or know. Academic capabilities aren’t important to them.
• Students less proficient chose topics more familiar to them to create a story about. For example: Boys would pick a sport they liked. / Students chose topics they are familiar with, because the chances of them knowing enough to create a story, and know enough English to complete the story is higher than choosing a topic they don’t know.
• Students more proficient chose to create stories that were more complex but more time consuming to complete. / Sometimes students lack creativity and so would decide to chose a topic that they know of, but not about to create a story. And often times, because they are more proficient they tend to over think and make really complex stories.
• Girls were better at staying on task than boys. / All students like to play and not do work, but in most cases, girls tend to stay on task more than boys as they are usually more focused minded academically.
• Boys tend to act out their story during the thinking process where as girls brainstorm on paper or mentally. / Some students think by talking about a topic, some by drawing, some by listening, and in this case, the boys tend to act it out, whereas the girls would talk or draw drafts instead.
• After they’ve created a story, males tend to rush and care less about following the criteria than the girls. / Boys tend to rush in the beginning of the time given to complete the assignment, so they can have “play” time, or at the end after they’ve played and realized they are out of time and need to work. Either case, the boys would rush and forego the given criteria. Girls tend to stay on task more, but also skip parts of the criteria if they ran out of time as well.
• The boys tend to get off task but be able to complete the work given on time, as compared to the girls who would spend more time on small details in the presentation than the boys causing them to use more time.
• When needed, the students would ask the teacher for help in spelling, translation or story creation.

 Reflection:

I noticed that kids like to group together, just like adults would. Boys with boys, girls with girls and the ones less sociable would separate themselves from groups. Though the assignment was given in English and completed during English class, students tend to discuss in their native tongue. However, because it’s a pair-work assignment, I noticed that some students would pull what they both know together to create something instead of making up a story in Korean and then translating it, making it more complicated than expected. From their work, I also observed some of their interests and hobbies as they were reflected in their work. Because students weren’t able to use outside sources to help them complete their work, they could only use themselves and the teachers as resources which meant that the chances of them actually knowing what they’ve created is higher than getting them to follow my generic steps to make a comic strip. When needed, I would also use the computer available to help students find information online.