Class 4

Class 4: Complete the following chart considering teacher’s and students’ roles at different stages of the lesson: Examples of different roles: facilitator, producer, communicator, controller, monitor, planner, assessor, among others.

	Teacher	Students	Comments
Warm-up activity	Controller	Communicator	The teacher made some questions to re-activate knowledge of what was done in the previous class with sentences containing do/does. Students answered what they were asked.
Activity 1	Facilitator, controller	Communicator	The T assigned the exercise for Ss to do and copied it in the bb for those who did not have the book. It was an interview in which Ss had to match the question with the answer. 20 mins. later she asked the class what were their answers and the reasons for their choice. Ss answered in Spanish.
Activity 2	Facilitator, controller	Producer, communicator	The T asked the Ss when was do/does used. Ss answered the questions in Spanish. The teacher guided them to notice a pattern between do/does and the subject of the sentence. With their answers, they filled the next exercise on the book
Activity 3	Facilitator, controller	Producer Communicator	The T assigned the following exercise on the book and copied it on the bb for those who did not have the book. Ss had to form questions with the assigned subject and verb, only adding do/does at the very beginning. 10 min. later the T asked the class what were their answers and the reasons for their choice. Ss answered in Spanish
Homework	------------	--------------

Class 3

Class 3: We will observe the teacher’s stance in front of the class (if she moves around the classroom, stands behind the desk, if she addresses one side of the class more than the other). How are patterns of interaction among students arranged? (Pair-work, group-work or individually).

At the beginning of the class, the teacher stands in front of the classroom in order to greet the students and then explains the activity they will have to perform the rest of the class. Once the activity has been assigned, the teacher walks around the classroom answering to students’ doubts or asking the ones who are distracted how are they doing with the activity. She also monitors behavior and scolds the students who are throwing paper balls or quarreling with each other. I noted that misbehavior seems to increase greatly in the last ten minutes of the pos-hora class on Thursdays. Either when checking or monitoring, the teacher addresses all sides of the class equally, asking questions to the three rows of seats.

In this particular class students were not assigned to work in any particular pattern. I observed that most of them work on their own, asking questions to their seating partner or the one in front when they have doubts, and if the other student does not know the answer they ask the teacher from their seat. Individual work tends to be semi pair-work since the activities usually ask for their own opinion or likes.

 In a previous class, they were assigned a group-work in which they had to write an Argentinean teenager’s routine and present it to the class. Groups were of 2-3 persons and some worked individually since the teacher permitted it. Students did not have any major problem working in groups since there were no arguments or quarrels and they worked harmoniously in class.  Most of the students that worked on their own did the assigned work out of class.

Class 2

Class 2 (40 min): How does the teacher check or monitor learning and what vocabulary is being used for learning.

The teacher monitors the students’ learning in two ways: she goes around the classroom checking the students’ answers and answering any doubts they have, and after the time she stipulated for the activity finishes (that she may extend if she thinks it is necessary) she checks the answers with the whole class orally. She asks any student to read to the class what he/she wrote and she comments on whether the answer was right (expressing it with a nod and a smile) or not, in which case she asks the whole class what was the mistake. If nobody knows what the mistake is, she provides them with the answer. After being corrected, the student notes down on his/her notebook the correct version or erases the part that was wrong and rewrites it in the right way.

The vocabulary used is simple and always related to the activity the students have to realize. The teacher explains the activity in English and writes the most important or key words in the blackboard. She also uses physical language or gesture, for example when asked what “walking” means she moved her two fingers as if it were the movement legs make when walking. There are several instances in which she explains some part of the activity in Spanish but only after having explained it in English and the students repeating to her that they do not understand the activity. Words that the students do not know and that cannot be explained through gestures are also explained by the teacher through the equivalent word in Spanish.

Class 1

Class 1: I observed affective factors, external factors (seating arrangement, the acoustics, etc) and how both contribute to the general ambience of the classroom and the students’ concentration and learning.

The classroom is not very large and there is little space between one desk and the one behind it. Space is a little bit greater between rows so it allows the teacher to walk between rows comfortably. Since the classroom is not large, the teacher does not have to raise her voice volume much to be heard by the students at the back.

Desks are double and arranged in three rows and five lines, except in the middle row in which there are only two lines of desks at the very front and big space at the back. There are always empty desks, mainly at the very front of the classroom. Both the space and the type of double desks do not allow for much re-arranging of the seating arrangement.

There are two tall windows that cover most of the wall with a view of the street and the school’s parking lot. This at times becomes a distraction for students since there are always cars coming and going, and students passing by the sidewalk. In the pos-hora, another distraction is the preceptor coming into the classroom and walking behind the teacher to take the assistance sheet and the blackboard eraser even if the class has not finished yet.

There are several posters in Spanish about different topics belonging to the afternoon class, hanging on the wall at the back of the classroom. There is no much space for hanging any more posters since there is a large wood closet occupying one entire wall and the large windows in the opposite one.

The teacher is constantly walking around the classroom and answering questions and checking students’ answers. She stands at the front of the class at the very beginning so as to greet the students and explain the activity, and at the very end in order to remind the class what they have to bring or do for the next class.