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.