I observed a video of a lesson in an intermediate high school class in Japan. The class consisted of twenty-three Japanese students taking the class in preparation for university. This was a guest lesson by a native English-speaking professor from a nearby university, and the topic was effective language learning strategies. The class had a writing focus, but this lesson did not engage this skill. In fact, it only somewhat engaged students in listening and reading skills while the focus seemed to be on the content. My overarching take-away is the necessity of lesson planning and preparation as this lesson fell quite short on both. Further, and probably as a result, the lesson was limited by excessive teacher talk, a lack of effective facilitation, and a general absence of assessment. Finally, the teacher didn’t address the limitations of being a guest lecturer by developing an understanding of the students’ English language level or establishing a rapport or even a friendly atmosphere. His dynamics with students was stilted and border-line rude and he was often inactive or distracted during student-centred activity.

The first and most important challenge with this lesson was the poor planning and lack of preparation. It appears the teacher was invited to present and given the general topic of effective English learning strategies and preparation for university entrance exams and university English studies. The teacher seemed to have a further underlying objective of promoting or making connections to his university. This combination of abstract meta-learning and non-learning objectives was probably not appropriate as they do not address any English skills, but rather content or general study skills. Regardless, these objectives were not well achieved because the teacher was also not prepared. For example, the three activities did not meaningfully build understanding of the content and engaged students in poorly related tasks. There was only one material and it was incomplete. The final activity was a lecture that appeared improvised. Finally, the teacher did not know how long the lesson was in advance, and had poor time management as a result. This was a good illustration of why a clear, realistic objective is the foundation of a lesson.

Because the lesson had an unclear objective and was poorly prepared, it is unsurprising that it had poor facilitation and minimal assessment. The teacher provided a reasonable description of the topic and outline of the lesson, but did so in an unengaging way limited to teacher talk and providing a handout from a university English textbook. There was no warm-up activity and students were slow to begin the first activity as a result. The first activity was group discussion of three questions related to language learning from the handout. The teacher organized students into groups of four and instructed them to work together in English. This facilitation technique did not seem to have a purpose connected to the objective. The teacher observed and prompted groups to discuss for a short-time before being distracted by his materials or discussing logistics loudly with the host teacher. The teacher engaged inconsistently with students. The activity ran twice as long as the teacher announced. The teacher then facilitated a group discussion of the questions, but often did so with questions that prompted yes/no or non-verbal responses. Some students offered short answers, and the teacher confirmed and then launched into teacher-talk. Students didn’t substantially practice production skills, and the teacher could not reasonably assess their understanding of the content based on limited interaction. The second activity was reading the handout text selectively to identify language learning recommendations. This was also organized as group work, but nothing was done to facilitate this nor did it have an identifiable purpose. The teacher had to write a missing section of the text on the board due to poor preparation, so no facilitation  or observation took place during this time. Later he interrupted the activity to read the text from the board aloud, but this had no clear purpose as the students were instructed to read the rest of the text themselves. Throughout this student-centred activity, the teacher was again often occupied with shop-talk with the host teacher. The follow-up class discussion followed the same format as the previous with extended teacher-talk and short or non-verbal student participation. The teacher-talk was frequently fast and used idioms (i.e. “in the old days”) and obscure language (i.e. cassettes) as well as poor modelling (i.e. “there was many less opportunities”). The final activity was even worse as it was purely teacher-talk with no supporting materials or student engagement. The teacher lectured superficially about university writing exercises such as process writing and outline development. Complex, abstract concepts were introduced with very little explanation, students were given no task or purpose for listening, and there was no interaction to assess their understanding. This was continued with lecturing about exam preparation and study skills that was equally abstract, superficial, disorganized, and rushed. Students were passive. The content was not reasonably distinguishable from the first two activities on language learning, but did not scaffold at all.

Finally, the classroom dynamics were also poor. The teacher began the lesson okay with a simple greeting and introduction including a joke about his name that started a positive atmosphere. However he continued his introduction with rushed, unrelated details while having no interaction with the students. His sole assessment of the students’ English leading into the lesson was, “Can you understand my English?” with a superficial and unreliable “Yes” from one student. As mentioned, there was no warm-up activity or socialization. The teacher used one opportunity for small social interactions while distributing hand-outs. However, from there the interactions were stiff, and often negative. For example, he singled a student out to provide an answer then, when the student struggled and offered an awkward answer, the teacher’s reaction went from patronizing to derisive. In another instance, he used a discussion to criticize music preferences he overheard in group work. There was a tendency to use humour at another’s expense as a social dynamic. I found this style unhelpful at best and unprofessional at worst.

Overall, observing this lesson provided the greatest learning in knowing what to avoid. I have being working to develop clearer objectives to improve the focus and effectiveness of my lessons, but this lesson showed what can happen when the objective is way off-the-mark. It also shows the effect this has on losing a clarity of purpose in activities. Most of all, however, this lesson demonstrated a level of unpreparedness, blasé attitude, and lack of care that I would guard against ever falling into.