Practical N° 17: Reflection

Which class did you enjoy most? Why? (Back up with theory)

What was the greatest challenge for you during the Practicum? What did you do to face/overcome it? (Back up with theory)

     The class that I enjoyed most was the one on the 25^th of August, I was working with Food and Healthy Habits and I decided to deliver a class about Nutrients employing CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning). The use of CLIL allowed me to teach English including contents related to the rest of the school curriculum, in this particular case, Natural Science. Beside, children can appreciate the usefulness of the object of learning because English was not taught in isolation. The foreign language was learned in a real context so it was view as authentic. Another advantage of using CLIL was that children could enhance their thinking processes since they were provided with a situation in which the learning of another subject was more successful because of the effort of decoding it and thinking about it in English. Moreover, the fact that children shared similar contents helped them to pick up the foreign language more easily and therefore improved the acquisition process.

     During this class, I made use of PPP (Presentation-Practice-Production). The first part of the class consisted in the presentation of some flashcards about nutrients, parts of the body and food items. I explained why was important to consume certain kind of nutrients and where we could find them. After that, we did some oral practice with the children repeating the name of the nutrients and the parts of the body that were new for them. Finally, we worked with a text about nutrients too and children did some production solving reading comprehension activities.

     It is difficult to think about the greatest challenge for me during the practicum because I was very lucky as regard the group of children I worked with. They were really an excellent group; I believe that only once they misbehaved and only once or twice I had problems with one student (Gabriel) who did not want to work in group and another time when he did not want to do anything. I decided to talk to him individually and fortunately we could solve the problem together.

     However I think that my greatest challenge was to overcome the fear of speaking all the time in English and that my students could not understand me because they were used to speak in Spanish. First of all, I tried to use lots of flashcards because children are mainly visual and I also used lot of body language. Then, I put into practice some strategies about classroom management that consisted on this idea of “creating and English Environment” where I spoke English all the time and together with listening activities they were exposed to the foreign language during the whole class. Besides, when my students were doing a speaking exercise I walked around the class trying to encourage them and helping them to use English. It was also crucial for me as the teacher that my students knew the importance of speaking English in class because the overuse of their own language interfered with the learning process and do not allowed them to practice English in class. I explained to my students that it was not prohibited to use their own language but it was important to know when to use it. For example, they could use some Spanish during a writing activity but not during a speaking activity because they lost the purpose of it.

Practical N° 15: Learning Strategy Training

Learning strategy-training from Natalia Evangelista

Practical N° 14: CLIL

Natalia Evangelista

I)

1) The five dimensions of CLIL are scaffolding, chunking, critical thinking, learning styles and expanded comfort zone. No, they do not act in isolation; they act all together in order to expand learning opportunities for students. These five dimensions working jointly allow teachers and learners to take greater control over the learning process and to improve learning results.

2)

·         Building scaffolds: Scaffolding is used in education to access, improve and add to current knowledge. In education, scaffolding is akin to a temporary supporting structure that students learn to use and to rely on, in order to achieve outcomes. Many of our parents unknowingly used scaffolding as they taught us how to ride a bicycle. Meaning for the individual is created through social process. Scaffolding can be described as a partner-assisted, social rather than strictly individualistic learning process. According to Gibbons, what and how we learn depends very much on the company we keep and scaffolding leads learners to reach beyond what they are able to achieve alone, to participate in new situations and to tackle new tasks. Scaffolding helps students to access previously acquired language, to analyze it, to process new information, to create new relational links and to take their understanding several steps further. Moreover, it helps students to better understand the learning process, to build momentum, to save time and to enjoy short-term wins. It lowers frustration and builds success. In short, scaffolding is a sheltered learning technique that helps students feel emotionally secure, motivates them and provides the building blocks (such as language or background knowledge) needed to do complex work. Scaffolding is not a permanent crutch. As one set of scaffolding is slowly removed, another set is quickly built up to support the next topic at hand. Taking into account that the ultimate goal of scaffolding is to help students take yet another step further in their understanding, scaffolding is constantly in state of being rebuilt. Scaffolding can be built by teachers, other learners (groups, pairs, students who have mastered a topic, older students helping younger students), by materials, by structured tasks, by parents and by other member of the community.

·         Chunking and repackaging knowledge: For most of us, information is better absorbed when is packed into digestible bites. For example, telephone numbers are usually grouped into two, three or four numbers to facilitate reading and retention. Sometimes letters are used. It is commonly believed that the average person can hold no more than seven pieces of information in his or her short-term working memory. So there is little point in presenting large amounts of information quickly. Our minds unconsciously reject excess information. To move information into our long-term memory so it can be recalled at a later time, we need to anchor it to prior knowledge by defining relational links and contrasting new knowledge with old. We need to put the new knowledge to use, organize it, assess it and consider it relevant. When written material or oral information is presented in clear chunks that do not contain more than seven pieces of well organized information, the short-term memory can usually process it. A sense of confidence and emotional security can develop. As each small chunk of information is worked through, the student is likely to experience a feeling of successes. There is an almost immediate sense that the material is “doable”. This positive reinforcement makes it easier to stay on task. If the student’s mind wanders, it is easier to return to the material when chunks are clearly delineated.

·         Fostering creative and critical thinking: Creative thinking involves the creation/generation or further development of ideas, processes, objects, relational links, synergies and quality relationships. On a practical level, in the context of education, critical thinking can be described as mental processes that learners use to plan, describe and evaluate their thinking and learning according to Moseley. It is self-directed thinking and, thus, fundamental to learning. By working to improve the quality of our thinking, we improve learning. Yet creative thinking, as well, is an essential element in effective planning or, at the very least, has the potential to improve planning. As we try to analyze and solve problems in our everyday lives, we often imagine various solutions. Creativity can be used to better explain our ideas to others and even to evaluate our plans and results from unique perspectives. It is difficult to separate creative thinking from critical thinking. Both are inextricably intertwined. Moreover, our values, attitudes and feelings have an impact on our thinking. Thus we need to examine the influence of these elements on our thinking processes. For example, having a negative attitude about a topic will ultimately affect our capacity to learn. Our minds are more likely to reject information about which we have negative feelings. Our emotional state of mind can contribute to or hinder learning. Goleman affirms that positive emotions enhance the ability to think flexibly and with more complexity, thus making it easier to find solution to problems. Conversely, when a concept struggle with an emotion, the emotion almost always win according to Sousa. It is difficult to think rationally when one is emotionally overwhelmed by negative feelings or insecurities. Thus, Jensen says that learners in positive, joyful environment are likely to experience better learning, memory, and feeling of self-esteem. Since meaning is co-constructed through a social process, critical thinking is also tied to social processes. The understandings we reach and the solutions to problems we propose need to match on some level with the understanding of others. At the very last, others have to be prepared to accommodate our views. Most educators operate on the premise that quality of thinking can be improved with the support of others, be they teachers, mentors, peers or parents.

·         Learning styles: Individual preferences clearly exist regarding how we like to communicate and learn. When these learning style preferences are taken into account, they can act as bridges that enhance communication and learning. Numerous frameworks exist for classifying learning styles. Several of these distinguish between visual, auditory and kinesthetic preferences. No matter which framework one uses, awareness of different learning styles enables teachers and students to better identify the ways teachers teach and students learn. Using these frameworks can also facilitate dialogue about the overall learning process. Raised awareness of learning styles can help students take greater control of their own learning, and can serve as a first step in expanding a person’s learning styles repertoire. It can facilitate further matching of teaching styles to learning styles. An expanded repertoire of teaching and learning approaches improves learning. Students who approach the learning process with a wide range of strategies have more options available for meeting curriculum expectations. Moreover, increased student awareness of differing leaning styles builds multiple perspectives. These multiple perspectives not only develop one’s capacity to think critically, but help students to better understand others and to work within their learning community while also building communication and teamwork skills.

·         Stepping just outside the comfort zone: Scaffolding and critical thinking strategies are tools for extending learning, for helping students to step out of and expand their comfort zone. In so many ways, those strategies are about helping students to operate in what Lev Vigotsky has called the zone of proximal development (the zone which lies between current knowledge and that which can be accomplished with the assistance of teachers and peers). These strategies help students move from their current understanding of content and attitudes to a new level of understanding, and then to take another step forwards right back into the zone of proximal development.

3) The advantages for acquisition/learning in young children are many. The first one is that within CLIL, English is not taught in isolation so students can promptly see the usefulness of the object of learning as the foreign language builds on contents related to the rest of the school curriculum, and thus it is view as authentic, because it is learnt in real contexts as opposed to artificial situations. The second one is that CLIL follows basic insights into foreign language acquisition by young children, namely that children can develop the use of two languages simultaneously until the age when lateralization occurs. They have an enormous potential for cognitive and social development and they learn the language by talking about present objects and solving concrete problems. The third one is that with CLIL they learn how to use language by focusing on a topic that interests them; moreover, they will be able to enhance their thinking processes as they will be provided with situations in which the learning of another subject could even be more successful because of the effort of decoding it and thinking about it in a foreign language. Finally, this naturalness provided by similar contents will help YLE pick up the foreign language more easily, and thus will enhance the acquisition process.

4) All these key terms are interrelated in a CLIL lesson. The use of CLIL in a lesson gives the teacher the possibility of working with a broad variety of learning styles and learning strategies. The use of ICT or the presentation of a lesson based on intercultural knowledge and understanding of the world can be integrated in CLIL. The constant exposure to the target language allows students to develop language awareness. The use of CLIL gives teachers the opportunity to foster critical thinking on the students and allows students to inter relate concepts within the learning process and not in an isolated way.

5) One of the most common and effective ways of anchoring into previous learning is through brainstorming. Brainstorming is an exercise in free association. A topic is raised (elephants, safety issues at school, alcoholism, etc) and participants say whatever comes to mind in relation to the given topic. Once the initial brainstorming session is completed, the results are analyzed. Students are usually encouraged to see if they can group or categorize the points raised during the session. Instead of simply listing words on the board during a brainstorming session, a web can be created. Any given circle in the web can used to start brainstorming a new subset. Another option is to structure thinking prior to beginning a brainstorming session by using a framework. It could be a diamond. The students are provided with the topic, in the centre of the diamond, and four subheadings. Students brainstorm one category at a time or all four at once. A different possibility is to use organizers. For example, provide the students with a partially completed fishbowl organizer. The teacher presents the topic and most of the subheadings. Students can also provide some of their subheadings. It will probably help them to recall more information than can be obtain during a simple brainstorming.

6) In education circles, perhaps one of the most widely known model of critical thinking is Bloom’s taxonomy. He states that all learners need to develop both lower and higher order thinking skills. The six levels of difficulty start with practical lower order thinking (labeling a diagram) and move upwards to more abstract and more complex higher order skills (critical evaluation). However, not all teachers have found all levels of Bloom’s model easy to use. Working in concert with Bloom and his colleagues, Anderson and Krathwohl posited a modified version of Bloom’s taxonomy. Remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create. We find this modified taxonomy particularly useful as a checklist. It is our belief that if the majority of lessons are based on tasks associated with applying one’s new knowledge and understanding, analyzing the effectiveness of the application of new knowledge and understanding, evaluating progress in task completion and learning and creating something new, this will lead to greater recall of facts, for we learn best through experience. In fact, the “remember” and “understand” levels are imbedded into activities such as analyzing, evaluating and creating. We can achieve it at Primary school level through different strategies: two of them are predicting (anticipating what is likely to happen) and role-playing. In order to put the predicting strategy into practice, teachers can tell students to put some lentils or beans on humid cotton and then water them. They predict what will have happen by tomorrow. The next day they observed what have happened and compare this with their prediction. The same process of predicting, observing and comparing observations with predictions continues for a week. The students assess whether their predictions are becoming more accurate each day and why. Another idea is that the teacher works with storytelling and then she/he asks to the students what they think will happened at the end. With the purpose of using the role-playing strategy, teachers can tell students to pretend they are leaf that falls from a tree, breaks down and re-enters the tree. A different option is that the teacher asks the students to take the roles of a buyers and sellers in a shop.

Natalia Evangelista

II)

LESSON PLAN

Teachers: Estela Braun and Liliana Monserrat.

Trainee: Natalia Evangelista.

School: School N°246 “Quelulén”.

Course: 6^th grade.

Textbook: The materials will be provided by the teacher.

Topic: Food and healthy habits.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

·         To recognize and incorporate new vocabulary about different nutrients (protein, carbohydrates, sugars, fats, vitamins and minerals).

·         To know what function nutrients have in the body.

·         To learn what kind of food contains each nutrient.

·         To be aware of the frequency in which some nutrients should be consumed.

·         To take into account some tips in order to improve the lifestyle.

·         To reflect about the importance of having a healthy diet.

·         To practice the reading, speaking, listening and writing macro-skills.

WARM UP

-          The teacher will present some flashcards on the board with the name of different nutrients (protein, carbohydrates, sugar, fats, vitamins and minerals).

-          The teacher will show the students flashcards of some food items and she will stick them bellow each nutrient.

-          The teacher will explain the students what food contains each nutrient. For example: meat and fish contain protein.

-          The teacher will explain the students why is important to consume different nutrients. For example: protein gives you strength.

Type of interaction: Teacher students.

Macro-skills: Listening.

Timing: 10 minutes.

Materials: Blackboard and flashcards.

DEVELOPMENT

First activity:

-          The teacher will give the students a copy with a text called “Healthy lifestyle – Healthy diet”. The students will have to read the text and solve an exercise. They will have to complete the “Food Circle” that appears on the right corner at the top using the words in a box.

Type of interaction: Students individually.

Macro-skills: Reading and writing.

Timing: 8 minutes.

Materials: Copies.

Second activity:

-          The teacher will give the students another copy with a diagram that contains information from the text and in pairs; they will have to complete a chart using the information in it.

Type of interaction: Students in pairs.

Macro-skills: Writing.

Timing: 6 minutes.

Materials: Copies.

Third activity:

-          The teacher will give the students a copy with six statements and they will have to answer true or false according to what the text says.

Type of interaction: Students individually.

Macro-skills: Reading and writing.

Timing: 5 minutes.

Materials: Copies.

Fourth activity:

-          The teacher will give the students another copy with four questions: What do you usually have for breakfast / lunch / tea and dinner?. They will have to work in pairs asking these questions to her/his partner and writing down the answers.

Type of interaction: Students in pairs.

Macro-skills: Speaking and writing.

Timing: 6 minutes.

Materials: Copies.

 Fifth activity:

-          The teacher will give the students a copy and they will have to a kind of letter to Dan’s food website saying what they eat in a typical day.

Type of interaction: Students individually.

Macro-skills: Writing.

Timing: 5 minutes.

Materials: Copies.

EXTENSION: The teacher can continue working with this topic presenting sugar (or salt) in food.

EXTENSION’S LESSON PLAN

Teachers: Estela Braun and Liliana Monserrat.

Traine: Natalia Evangelista.

School: School N°246 “Quelulén”.

Course: 6^th grade.

Textbook: The materials will be provided by the teacher.

Topic: Food and healthy habits.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

·         To know how much sugar certain food and drinks contains.

·         To reflect about the importance of consuming the right amounts of sugar daily in order to keep healthy.

·         To learn about the illnesses that could appear due to eat too much sugar. For example: diabetes and obesity.

·         To revise different food items.

·         To practice the listening, reading and writing macro-skills.

WARM UP

-          The teacher will write a title on the board: “Sugar in food and drinks” and she will ask the students some questions: Do you eat too much sweet food and drinks? How much fizzy drink and chocolate do you eat? Do know that eating too much sugar could be bad for our health?

-          The teacher will present some flashcards on the board with different food items and she will stick plastic spoons next to each flashcard representing the amount of sugar that the food item contains.

-          The teacher will put a small table at the front of the class with some plastic glasses; all the glasses will be labelled. For example: 1 spoon of sugar, two spoons of sugar, three spoons of sugar, etc. The teacher will also put some sugar in a bowl next to the glasses.

-          The teacher will ask some students to come to the front and they will have put the right amount of sugar in each glass. For example: in the glass that says 6 spoons of sugar, she/he will have to put six spoons with sugar.

-          After that, the teacher will ask the students to come to front in order and observe all the glasses. The idea is that they can be able to visualize and be conscious about how much sugar represents one, two, three, six or seven spoons.

Type of interaction: Teacher students.

Macro-skills: Listening and speaking.

Timing: 13 minutes.

Materials: Blackboard, flashcards, plastic spoons, small table, plastic glasses and sugar.

DEVELOPMENT

First activity:

-          The teacher will give the students a copy with some food items and the spoons of sugar that they contain. The students will have to match the food items with the correct spoons of sugar.

Type of interaction: Students individually.

Macro-skills: Writing.

Timing: 5 minutes.

Materials: Copies.

Second activity:

-          The teacher will give the students another copy with some food items again and they will have to write the number of spoons of sugar that the food contains.

Type of interaction: Students individually.

Macro-skills: Writing.

Timing: 6 minutes.

Materials: Copies.

Third activity:

-          The teacher will give the students a copy with a chart containing three additions. The students will have to complete the chart with the name of the different food items first and then they will have to write the numbers, add and write the result..

Type of interaction: Students individually.

Macro-skills: Writing.

Timing: 8 minutes.

Materials: Copies.

Fourth activity:

-          The teacher will give the students another copy with an addition again. This time, the students will have to choose two food items that they want, then draw and count in order to get the result.

Type of interaction: Students individually.

Macro-skills: Writing.

Timing: 7 minutes.

Materials: Copies.

Practical N° 13: Classroom management

Chapter III Managing the Classroom 1- The teacher in the classoom Using the Voice A teacher I remember well from highschool. Her overall performance was okay, but she used to be quite rude and always critizing students from our school and other schools from Santa Rosa, for instance, her general presence in the class reduced significantly. My own analysis: (second chart) I shoud improve audivility by asking more student situated at the back. The rest of the items depicted in the copy are improving considerably class by class. What information would you get over if you wanted to explain how to…? A-    Change a tyre? B-    Use a cash mahine? C-    Fry an egg? 2-     Students talk and teacher talk In class of twienty students, (working as a whole group), and one teacher, how much speaking time will each student have in a fifty-minute kanguage practice class. Make an A and D chart (see page 186) for teacher talking time, and student talking time in an English lesson. 3-     Using Language 1 Rewrite the following statement so that it reflects your opinion. “Students and teachers should not be discouraged from using the students Language 1 in the classroom. 4-     Creating lesson stages Number the following ways of regaining the initiative in anoisy class in order of personal preference and give your opinion and effectiveness.

Alexis Brito; Natalia EVangelista-UNLPam

2-             Talking to students

Giving Instructions

What information would you have to get over if you wanted to explain how to?

Based on the theory on page 46, there are two rules to give young learners instructions. They must be as simple as possible, and they must be logical. Furthermore, teachers should ask themselves a series of questions such as: what is the important information that I am trying to convey? What information do they need first? What should come next? And of course, checking whether students understood the proposition or not.

·        Change a tyre?

·        Use a cash machine?

·        Fry an egg?

Instructions for children to use an ATM

1-     Insert your Card.

2-     After a few seconds, insert your private PIN (make sure no one is watching).

3-     Select Withdraw.

4-     Select the account.

5-     Select the amount of money you would like to withdraw.

6-     Select EXIT Print receipt.

7-     Take your card.

8-     Take your money.

9-      Then put everything into your wallet/purse.

3- Student Talk and Teacher Talk

a-     In a class of twenty students (working as a whole group) and one teacher, how much speaking time will each student have in a fifty-minute language practice class?

Supposing that the teacher speaks for about twenty-five minutes in total (including taking the register etc.), the maximum time any one student may talk would be one minute and fifteen seconds.

b-     Make an A & D chart (see page 186) fir teacher talking time (TTT) and student talking time (STT) in an English lesson.

Specific Talking Time	Advantage	Disadvantage
Teacher Talking Time (TTT)	·        It is a good language model ·        Good Ts are good “Rough-Tuners”- so their language is useful for the student’s acquisition ·        SS like listening to the T. ·        T can focus the attention and energy of the whole group.	·        SS need speaking practice, not the teacher! ·        It can be boring if it goes too long. ·        It means students are only listening- which cuts out the learning potential that speaking. Reading and writing offer.
Student Talking Time (STT)	·        SS need practice! ·        STT can provide rehearsal ·        STT gives T and SS good information about how well the students are doing.	·        It can be very chaotic- especially in groups, etc. ·        It may be less efficient than TTT for getting across specific information. ·        It is easy for individual SS to dominate

4- Using the Language 1

Rewrite the following statement so that it reflects your own opinion.

“Students and teachers should be discouraged from using the student’s mother tongue (L1) in the classroom”

Using L1 is not the problem. The problem is when and how to use it. Before answering this question, it should be born in mind that L1 use must be considered “as a means to an end”. The target language must be used where possible and L1 when necessary.  Here are some examples of appropriate use of L1 in EFL classes.

§  Beginners
The mother tongue can be probably more beneficial to beginners. As they progress in their learning the target language will take the lead.

§  L1 can be time-saving.
Instead of going through a long explanations in the target language, it is sometimes easier and more efficient to give a translation of a vocabulary item or an explanation of a grammar point. Imagine a teacher  who wants to teach the word “car” to French students and start by phrasing the explanation as follows “a car is a road vehicle with an engine, four wheels, and seats for a small number of people” while a simple translation of the word ( or perhaps the use of visual aids) would be enough.

§  Comparison
A comparison of English and the mother tongue can be a very enriching experience. In fact, discovering the similarities and differences of both languages can enhance the TL acquisition. This comparison can be done at different levels:

§  Vocabulary
– Exploring the nuances of vocabulary items in both languages
– Building bilingual (or even multilingual) semantic maps

§  Grammar
– A comparison between L1 grammar and TL grammar yields interesting results.
– This comparison will highlight the differences between the two languages. Teachers and learners may build on these differences to avoid negative transfer ( L1 transfer which may be a source of errors.)
– The comparison also shows the similarities which will undoubtedly boost the internalization of the TL grammar.

§  Culture
Language is a vehicle for cultural aspects. If teachers ban the use of the mother tongue, this underlies an ideological conception of L1 culture as being inferior. Alternatively, cultural differences and similarities can be highlighted to help learners accept and tolerate differences while at the same time preserve their cultural uniqueness. This can be done through various activities where L1 plays an important role.

§  Proverbs
Students may be given a set of proverbs in the TL and be asked to find the corresponding ones in their mother tongue if they exist. If not they try to translate the proverbs into their language.

§  Idiomatic Expressions
Again, finding the corresponding idioms or a translation of TL idioms might be very helpful to detect cultural differences or similarities

§  Songs
Translation of lyrics

§  Jokes
Funny EFL activities can be built on jokes. Students may translate and tell or act TL jokes to create a free stress environment and spot TL cultural specificities.

§  Stress
Using L1 gives a sense of security and acknowledges the learners identity, allowing them to minimize the stress they may feel in EFL classrooms. With careful use of L1 learners may become willing to experiment and take risks with English.

§  Needs
Learners needs must be expressed in L1 since the TL is not yet mastered. Learners will never be able to express and communicate their needs with a language they speak poorly.

§  Classroom management
Management of conduct and discipline is sometimes hard to be done in the target language. For instance, if a serious problem emerges in the classroom, will the teacher really insist on an English-only policy when coping with it?

§  Grammar
L1 can be of great help when teaching grammar. Translation exercises for example may be the perfect practice when there is a grammar point that is causing trouble to students.

§  Instructions
According to my experience with EFL classes, I can dare say that so many failures in tests were due to learners’ lack of understanding of instructions. L1 can be used to redress this issue, helping students to understand what is exactly asked from them.

§  Rationale
Students need to understand the rationale behind activities or methods. It is important that they know where they start and what they will able to do. They should understand what lies behind the methods the teacher is using. This can only be done at this level through the students’ native language.

§  Errors
Discussion of some recurring errors. It is true that a lot of errors are caused by L1 transfer. French students, for example, say “I’m agree” instead of “I agree” which is an error due to L1 transfer.  A discussion in L1 of such errors will help students overcome these problems.

Of course, the list may be extended to other areas of foreign language teaching.

Part of the information introduced in this answer was taken from Teaching EFL Classes

http://www.myenglishpages.com/blog/l1-efl-classes/

5- Creating Lesson Stages

From where I stand, I believe that if a teacher shouts at students to be quite, and, if the teacher speaks quietly in the hope students will quieten down to listen are not as effective as the other ones. Furthermore, the former (shouting at students) is a kind of violent strategy (as opposed to louden the voice). The same happens with the one in which the teacher stands in front of the class with arms folded, action should be taken. On the other hand, the others better ranked are wonderful strategies both to avoid distraction and maintain children’s attention properly directed.

6-Different Seating Arragements

What is the best seating arrangement for the following situations?

a-     A team game with a class of forty.

Orderly Rows (clear view) (maintain eye contact)

b-    A class discussion with fifteen students.

Circle (greater feeling of equality) (students see each other)

c-     Pair work in a group of thirty students.

Separate Tables (easier for the teacher to help students out while the rest get on with their own work)

d-    A reading task in a group of ten.

Separate tables (ideal to check whether students are facing difficulties in the task or not)

e-     Students design advertisement in groups.

Separate Tables (collaborative writing)

f-      Students all listen to an audio track.

Orderly Rows (the whole class gets the same messages)

g-     The teacher explains a grammar point.

             Orderly Rows (clear view) (maintain eye contact).

§  7- Different Student Groupings

A-    Make an A&D chart (see page 186) for whole class, group work, pair work and solo work

Class Style	Advantages	Disadvantages
Whole Class	·        Creates a sense of group identity. ·        Suitable for T-as-controller activities. ·        Ideal for showing things.	·        Favours groups over individuals ·        Does not encourage SS to take responsibility for their own learning ·        Is not good for decision making, discussion, etc.
Group Work	·        Increases speaking time for individuals (in contrast to whole-class grouping). ·        Opportunities for lots of different opinions. ·        Encourages learner’s self-reliance through group decision-making.	·        Can be noisy ·        Some students get “lost” in groups ·        Some students end up always fulfilling the same group role. ·        Can be difficult to organize. ·        Some SS prefer whole class grouping.
Pair work	·        Dramatically increases speaking time in contrast to whole-class grouping. ·        Students work/interact independently. ·        Two heads are far better than one! ·        Easy to organize.	·        Can be very noisy ·        SS may veer off the point of activity. ·        SS are not always keen on pair work. ·        It depends who individuals are paired with.
Solo Work	·        Allows SS to work at their own pace. ·        Less stressful than whole group performance. ·        Quiet.	·        Does not necessarily help group solidarity. ·        More work for the teacher.

B-    What is the best grouping for these activities?  Put W= Whole Group Class, P= Pair Work, G= Group Work, or S= Solo Work in the boxes.

                                                                                                                                 Alexis Brito

Natalia Evangelista

Chapter 14: What if?

A  Students are all at different levels (pages 176-177)

1

a)      Mixed abilities classes represent a great challenge for the teachers.

b)      There are some possible solutions in order to deal with a mixed ability class: use different materials /technology, do different tasks with the same material/technology and use the students.

c)      Most classes are heterogeneous.

2

a)      I would use the same material with the whole class but I would give the students different tasks according to their abilities. Students with a low level of English could work with the interview and spot more basic aspects: who the participants are, age, name, profession, etc and students with a high level of English could answer a set of more complex questions.

b)       I would work in groups of three or four and I would try to mix students with a high level of English with those who have a low level of English. I would provide them with a model of how they should write the story: introduction, development and end. I would give them the idea of working with a kind of brainstorming before writing the story itself. In this way, all students would participate in their groups because each of them should contribute with at least one or two ideas. Another option is to give the students a topic (ghosts, haunted houses, monsters, witches, zombies, etc) for each of the groups so it is easier for them to focus in one idea and not in many.

c)      I would work in pairs and again I would try to mix students with a high level of English with those who have a low level of English. First, I would present on the board the new topic (ways of agreeing and disagreeing) and then I would perform a debate showing how they should do it. After that, I would give each pair a card with a topic (related to the vocabulary that we would be working with) and they should talk about it. For example: climate change, deforestation, global warming, in danger species, pollution, etc. It is important to say that one student should be in favour (ways of agreeing) and the other against (ways of disagreeing). Then, they could change their roles.

d)      Again I would work in the same way as I would do with the interview in A. I would use the same material with the whole class but I would give the students different tasks according to their abilities. Students with a low level of English could work with the poem and create a picture dictionary or a glossary with the new words that they do not know. In this way, they would enlarge the amount of vocabulary they can manage and using images or pictures (visual aids) helps them to remember easily. Students with a high level of English could work with a literary orientation analysing comparisons, metaphors, rhyme, repetition, word chain, etc (always adapted to their level).

e)       I would prepare more complex and special activities for them. 

f)       I would work in pairs and I would try to mix students with many mistakes with those who had only some mistakes so they can compare both pieces of writing and I would ask the students to re-write the written work. Of course, I would explain on the board the most repetitive mistakes and I would help the students to correct them.

B  The class is very big (pages 177-178)

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Small classes	Big classes
-          Close contact with students -          Individual attention and feedback -          More personal -          Quiet atmosphere	-          Assigning roles: helpers -          Group work (three or four people) -          Performing a story -          Using games and songs

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a)      the teacher’s voice: teachers should ensure that what they say to the whole group can be heard.

b)      the teacher’s place in the class: teachers should ensure that students can see them when they are at the front. They should also monitor the whole class walking around.

c)      the teacher’s board work/overhead projector use: teachers should ensure that what they show or write can be seen.

d)      using the tape recorder: teachers should ensure that what they play to the whole group can be heard. Besides, since it becomes difficult to use individual repetition and control practice in a big group, it may be more appropriate to use students in chorus. The class can be divided into two halves. Each half can then speak a part in the dialogue, ask or answer a question, repeat sentences or words, etc.

C  Students keep using their own language (pages 178-179)

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·         Talk to them about the issues: teachers should talk with the students about the importance of speaking English in class. Students should understand that the overuse of their own language interferes with the learning process and do not allow them to practice English in class.

·         Encourage them to use English appropriately: teachers should explain the students that it is not prohibited to use their own language bust it is important to know when to use it. There is no problem in using their language during a writing activity but is not the same during a speaking activity because if they talk in their own language they are losing the purpose of the activity.

·         Only respond to English use: teachers can decide to use merely English and ignore what students say in their own language. In this way, the students would understand that they should speak English.

·         Create an English environment: teachers should speak English all the time so together with the listening activities and videos students would be exposed to English during the whole class.

·         Keeping reminding them: teachers should walk around the class when students are doing a speaking exercise trying to encourage them to use English and also helping them.

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I would be happy (or at least not unhappy) for students to use their own language in:

d) Students are checking that they understand the instructions for an activity.

e) Students are doing a group writing task.

D  Students don’t do homework (pages 179-180)

A	B	Homework task
7	5	Students do a fill-in exercise, choosing between going to and will.
2	7	Students interview residents/tourists in the street and bring the results to the next lesson.
9	9	Students learn a list of words by heart to be tested by the teacher in the next lesson.
6	4	Students prepare a presentation which they will give (individually) in the next lesson.
4	8	Students prepare roles for next week’s role-play.
5	3	Students read a text and answer multiple-choice questions.
8	6	Students write six sentences using past continuous.
3	1	Students write a composition about environment.
1	2	Students write a publicity leaflet based on something in the course book.

E  Students are uncooperative (pages 180-182)

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·         Bad behaviour (bullying, insults, violence, etc) against the teacher or the rest of the students.

·         Arriving late to class.

·         Do not do the homework.

·         Do not bring the materials to class (booklet, course book, notebook, etc).

·         Using cell phones.

·         Constant chattering in class.

·         Not listening to the teacher.

·         Disparagement of what’s going on (a kind of passive resistance).

·         Blunt refusal to do certain activities.

·         Students who are too shy.

·         Sleepy or tired students.

·         Students who are hungry.

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THE LANGUAGE LEARNING-CONTRACT
TEACHER	LEARNER
As your teacher I will... not allow bullying, insults and violence against the teacher or the rest of the students, arrive on time, prepare my classes, not use the cell phone, correct students’ homework on time and give feedback to them, offer help all time, take into account students’ preferences (likes and dislikes) in order to plan the classes, make the class enjoyable.	As a learner I will... not misbehave, arrive on time, do my homework, bring the materials to class, not use the cell phone, listen to the teacher and participate in class.
As your teacher I expect... not bad behaviour, not arriving late, do your homework, bring the materials to class, not using the cell phone, listening to the teacher and participating in class.	As a learner I expect... the teacher does not allow bad behaviour, the teacher arrives on time, the teacher prepares the classes, the teacher does not use the cell phone, the teacher corrects the homework on time and she/he gives feedback, the teacher helps students, the teacher considers students’ opinions, the teacher makes the class enjoyable.

F  Students don’t want to talk (pages 182-183)

Action

Consequences

·         Use pair work. ·         Allow them to speak in a controlled way at first. For example: dictating a sentence that they have to complete, then practice and finally read it aloud. ·         Use “acting out” and reading aloud. ·         Use role-play. ·         Use recording.

(+) When they are with one, two or three students they are not under so much pressure as when they are in front of the whole class. (-) That they do no not want to work in pairs or groups or that they do not have a good relationship with some of their partners. (+) Psychologically, they are more likely to be able to respond. (-) For some outgoing students the activity could be boring or too easy. (+) It is one way of encouraging quiet students. (-) Some students who do not like dramatising. (+) Students speak more freely when they are playing a role and when they do not have to be themselves. It can be very liberating. (-) Some students do not like the role that they were assigned. (+) The students can record whatever they want to say. (-) They have to work alone at home without the teacher’s giddiness.

G  Students don’t understand the audio track (pages 183-184)

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Some general problems that students have when listening to audio tracks in class are:

·         the audio track is too fast for the students to follow it

·         the audio track has got too difficult vocabulary for the students to understand

·         the audio track is not very clear or it is not loud enough to hear it

·         students get lost because they cannot listen to the audio track and solve the activity the teacher ask them simultaneously.

There are different methods in order to help students to overcome these difficulties. Teachers can:

·         Preview interview questions: students can be given some questions before listening with the purpose of predicting what will happen then.

·         Use “jigsaw listening”: the teacher divides the class in small groups and each group will have a different part of the audio track. Once the students listen to the audio track, they will have to put all the pieces together.

·         One task only: students will have to solve only one simple task.

·         Play a/the first segment only: instead of playing the whole recording, teachers can just play the first segment and then let’s students predict what is coming next.

·         Play the listening in chunks: break the audio into manageable chunks so that students understand the content of a part of it before moving on to the next one.

·         Use the audio script: there different ways of using the audio script to help students who are having difficulties:

ü  The teacher can cut the script into bits so that the students put them in the right order as they listen.

ü  The can let the students see the first part of the audio script before they listen.

ü  The students can read the audio script before, during and after they listen but it will have some words or phrases blanked out.

·         Use vocabulary prediction: the teacher can give to the students some “key” vocabulary and ask them to predict what the recording will be about. Knowing some of the words, they will probably understand more.

·         Have students listen all the time: encourage students to listen to English all the time when they are outside the classroom. For example: in their car or MP3 players, listen to the news in English on the radio or the Internet. They have to know that the more they listen, the easier it gets.