Practice Paper Nº13- Clasroom Management

Practice II Practice Paper N° 14

Student: Amorella Ludmila FantinoCHAPTER 14: What if?

1-Mixed- ability classes present the teacher with insuperable problems.

Even though it is easier for teachers to work in a class where students are at a similar level and share the same abilities, mixed-ability classes challenge their capacity to establish a learning goal for the whole class and achieve it. Different realities will make traditional teachers more flexible and will engage them to look for new possibilities to integrate all their students in a successful learning process.

The only thing you can do with a mixed-ability class is ignore the problem.

In mixed- ability classes, teachers have to be more committed with their work and whole class than in an average ability class. Different students will have different needs and the teacher will have to evaluate how to cope with all the necessities in a harmonious way. There is a wide variety of resources that can help us to reduce the learning difficulties and find the way in which each student learns and feels motivated class by class. For example, teachers can suggest different materials and tasks using the students themselves as ways of dealing with it.

All- classes are mixed-ability classes

It is impossible to have a classroom where all the students know the same and have the same interests. If we believe this, we are completely wrong. Each student has their own identity and their own strong and weak points. Teachers should observe their students and find the best way to work with them letting all of them progress.

2-a-

b- Teachers can divide their students in different groups mixing creative children (to illustrate what they write and produce a fascinating story) with those that know more vocabulary and structures and with those that do not like writing but have inspiring ideas.

c- Teachers will make their students get in pairs and write together one way of agreeing and one way of disagreeing and then they will share on the board all the outcomes to put them later into practice.

d- Teachers will form different groups. Some of them will work with technology (gathering information about the poem, the author) and another group will work with comprehension activities, debates or grammar analysis (find verbs, adjectives, nouns, etc)

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c- Teachers have to provide the same activities for all the children. But for those that can solve them quickly and find the classes too easy they have to prepare extra activities for them in order to let them know that they can continue learning and teachers are interested in all of them. The extra activities can be crosswords and alphabet soups so as to fix vocabulary or more complex ones to solve at home such as investigate about the topic that are learning in class.

d- Teachers will group students in pairs and let them exchange their papers and make suggestions to improve them.

B- Small classes - Role playing- Board game - Class exursions

- Big classes - use worksheets- use pairwork and groupwork- use chorus reaction - use group leaders

1- Teacher’s voice: be audible so that even students at the back can hear clearly- vary our voice in a lesson so as to avoid students getting bored- look after our voice

Teacher’s place in the class: walk around- explain at the front so everyone is able to seeThe teacher’s board work/ overhead projector use: use clear and big handwriting- use the board to explain the tasks, write new vocabulary, check the activities- be organized in how you use the board (date-title)Using the tape recorder: the volume should be as loud as necessary- the quality of the sound should be good (clear pronunciation- not too much background noise)

C- Students keep using their own language.

1- Actions to take if the students use their language all the time:

Talk to them about the issues: discuss with them how they all should feel using English or their own language in class. Make them conscious about the use of their own language and the restricted possibilities that they would have to put into practice the new language if they continue speaking in their mother tongue.

Encourage them to use English appropriately: student’s mother tongue will be allowed in some circumstances (reading comprehension exercise- checking that they understood the task).


Only respond to English use: ignore what students say in other language.

Create an English environment: teachers should speak English for the majority of the time.

Keep reminding them: teachers should go round the class encouraging their students to use English.

2- Being happy for students to use their own language:

c- Students are working in pairs to solve a reading puzzle d- Students are checking that they understand the instructions for an activity.

f- Students are doing a group writing task.

D- Students do not do homework :

A B Homework task

65 Students do a fill in

exercise, choosing between ‘going to ‘ and ‘will’

5 1 Students interview residents/tourists in the street and bring the results to the next lesson.

2 4 Students prepare a presentation which they will give (individually) in the next lesson.

4 2 Students prepare roles for next week’s role play.

3 7 Students read a text and answer multiple-choice questions.

7 6 Students write six sentences using the past continuous.

1

9 Students write a composition about the environment.

8 3 Students write a publicity leaflet based on something in the coursebook.

9 8 Students learn a list of words by heart tested by the teacher in the next lesson.

E- 1- Students are uncooperative.

Ways of being uncooperative in class:


blunt refusal to do certain activities. constant lateness and even refusal. disengagement from what is going on. constant chattering in class. not listening to the teacher.

2-

F-Student’s do not want to talk.

Action Consequences-Join in yourself in order to try to stimulate discussion.

- Use pairwork or groupwork.

- Provide a short task in which students have to make a small contribution. For example, the teacher dictates one sentence and the students have to complete it for themselves.

-Use ‘acting out and reading aloud’.

-Use recordings.

-It might relax students: on the other hand students may end up listening more than talking.

- It will help to provoke quiet students into talking and playing their own role in the group.

-It might make students feel comfortable with the task just because the teacher starts the activity breaking the ice and they do not have the main role.

- It will represent a challenge for the students to perform an act in front of the class. But they will be involved in the activity just because they will take on a new identity, one in which they can behave in uncharacteristic ways.

- In general, students are intimidated by the presence of strange factors in the classroom (cameras-tape recorders) and they tend to misbehave.

F- Students don’t understand the audio track.

1- In general, students have problems to understand and solve listening activities in class. It is so difficult for them to follow native speakers pronunciation and speed of delivery. But teachers can help them to overcome those difficulties by giving students interview questions before they listen (again) or different bits of the listening text in a ‘jigsaw’ activity. Moreover, teachers can concentrate on


one simple listening task only ( only playing the (first) bit of the recording, use the audio script in a variety of ways and, finally, get students to predict listening content by giving them key vocabulary.

CHAPTER 3: Managing the classroomA- Appearance 1

Audibility 1Clarity 1General Presence in class 1Movement 3Vocal Quality 1

Scoring myself

In my opinion, the most relevant features of a teacher in the classroom are clarity, audibility and general presence in class. Without them, students will not be engaged in the activities and will tend to misbehaved in the class. In my practices at school N° 246, clarity is difficult to achieve for me. Sometimes, I have problems explaining the instructions and I have to look for various ways to express them. Regarding appearance, movement and vocal quality, it is also important that teachers have them into account to reach a successful management of the class. Students, especially girls, love when teachers use make up or handkerchiefs. Moreover, movement is essential to keep all our students concentrated, assure that they have understood the task and show commitment with all of them.

B- Talking to students- Giving instructions

A D

2- A- Change a tyre: park position- you need heavy objects- you need the spare tyre and a jack- remove the nuts

C- Use a cash machine: register- plug it- batteries- receipt paper-program it-D- Fry an egg:

1- Place a pan on the stove, heating it on medium heat.2- Add some oil to the pan as it gets warm.3- Once the oil is warm, break and egg in the pan.4- Put some paper in a bowl to drain the egg.5- Serve it!!!

C- Student and teacher talk: In relation to student and teacher talk, I think that in a fifty-minute language practice class of twenty students, each of them can have a two minutes speaking time. It is essential that teachers foster participation in oral activities such as role playing, oral


presentations (project works- investigation) and game in which they have to put into practice their language.

D-Using the L1.

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

In many of today’s classrooms around the world, eradicating the use of the mother tongue is not easy. Students feel more comfortable with their L1, they know how to express themselves and their vocabulary is extensive. The exposure they have to the foreign language is very limited (just games and films)and in most cases they are not aware of how important is to take advantage of language lessons. In my opinion, teachers should incorporate the use of the new language gradually allowing their students to use their L1 in some instances such as checking that they understood a task or translating some new vocabulary. The classroom should have the most stimulating English environment as possible giving students the possibility to heard and use the new language in different situations. Last but not least, teachers have to use English as often as possible just because they are the best providers of comprehensible input that the students have (pronunciation- information, structures, etc.).

E- Creating lesson stages.

C-1G-2B-3A-4F-5E-6D-7

F- Different seating arrangements:

a- A team game with a class of forty - ORDERLY ROWSb- A class discussion with fifteen students-CIRCLEc- Pair work in a group of thirty students-ORDERLY ROWSd- A reading task in a group of ten-CIRCLEe- Students design an advertisement in groups- CIRCLE/ SEPARATE TABLESf- Students all listen on an audio track- ORDERLY ROWSg- The teacher explains a grammar point- ORDERLY ROWS

G- Different student groupings:A- SB- P/GC- WD- PE- S/GF- WG- S


H- P/SI- SJ- W

Education

Practice Paper Nº13- Clasroom Management