The trainee teacher with whom I did the co-teaching with developed the activity wonderfully. To start with, when introducing the session she talked quietly and slowly. This strategy was really effective, especially in one of the schools in which children were really distracted, moving around the classroom and talking to their classmates. Hence, when she started talking, pupils stopped and listened to her because they wanted to hear what she was saying. Therefore, a calmer classroom environment was created. Contrarily, I realised that when I was talking they got a bit distracted again and that is why my voice tone was quiet loud. Moreover, she also talked slowly so that the students were able to comprehend better what she was explaining. When you speak pleasantly and calmly while giving directions, the information goes down a lot smoother. That is, because it sounds polite and because it sounds like you believe in your students and their ability to listen, and consequently you can ask so much more of them (Linsin, 2011).
Furthermore, when giving instructions for the activities, I realized that my classmate communicated outstandingly, as she verbalized concise and short sentences that clearly stated the purpose of the activity and the role of pupils in the development of the task. Therefore, through her speech it was displayed the fact that she had explicit ideas of what had to be done. Moreover, she was able to improvise at some specific moments of the lesson when unpredictable situations occurred. For instance she had a brilliant idea when we were telling a story to children. Pupils were a bit restless at some points of the story that we were telling, especially at the end, as they were tired of listening that much time. As a matter of fact, even though we prepared some visual support in order to scaffold their comprehension, and we made learners intervene asking them questions about the story, students of one school especially showed signs of tiredness at some parts of the storytelling. Thereby, in order to engage them into the plot, my classmate gave some images of diamonds to the students, pretending that they were the Snow white’s dwarfs. Indeed, in this part of the story we were supposed to represent a scene where the “Generous” dwarf gives some diamonds to the other dwarfs. In this manner, she instinctively changed the approach to the story, making it more student-centered. Then, even though it was just for a scene, learners felt active participants of the story and this fact motivated to follow the storytelling. On the other hand, with one of the schools we had some time left as we finished sooner than planned, and my classmate intuitively decided to review the pronunciation of the words learnt with students. Moreover, she made them reflect on the pronunciation of some vowels such as the “a”. In order to do it, she told them to think about the alphabet in English. Hence, she made them pronounce the words correctly, reminding them to think about how do they sound in alphabet so as to ease their pronunciation of the words. Hence, Sawyer (2011) reports that: Teachers must improvise to handle challenges in the twenty-first century, with a focus on creativity, critical thinking, innovation and problem-solving, underlining students as active participants and co-constructors of knowledge. Thus, there must be a good balance between plans and free improvisation practice. Furthermore, her body language was significant in order to facilitate pupils’ comprehension and learning of the words. She made a lot of gestures and they were really clear. Therefore, this clarity was key during the development of all the activities. For instance, in the assessment activity, in which we had to describe a dwarf, my classmate made gestures precisely and with grace and clearness. Hence, the pupils could easily picture the dwarf that she was describing. In addition, while we were telling the story, she also gesticulated a lot to simulate the actions that the characters were doing and how they were feeling. Besides, she also changed her voice in accordance to the character that was speaking in each scene, so this factor increased students’ engagement into the story. Thus, this theatricalization was chief for involving the students into the plot and to awake their motivation towards the follow-up of the story. Yang (2017) states that: In classroom teaching, nonverbal communication is more important than verbal one. When teaching, teachers will try their best to arouse the student’s interest of learning English. Body language as a secondary means of teaching English is vivid, it can warm up the class atmosphere, help students to understand the point, shorten the distance between teacher and students, stir interest of learning English, improving the quality of education.
Likewise, she encouraged me to participate in moments of the co-teaching lesson in which she had to guide a specific task or develop a concrete action. For example, we carried out a bingo game and she was supposed to tell the names of the dwarfs that students had to tick in their bingo cards. Nonetheless, even though I had to go around the classroom to check if students were developing the task correctly, she offered me the chance to effectuate the same role as her. Therefore, she told me to come and pick one of the dwarf cards and we both carried out this action. Hence, I believe that demonstrating this shared responsibility for instruction and management in front of students is essential as pupils are able to observe the effectiveness of cooperative work. Thus, learners could be able to display that we developed this task together, sharing the same role and that we were content to do it. Wherefore, since teachers are regarded as role models by students, this fact was profitable to let them see the benefits of working cooperatively. Also, they could discern that they do not have to overtake their classmates to feel satisfied about their actions.
At last, I would say that she provided a large number of opportunities for students to participate and intervene using English. Ergo, while telling the story, she asked for the meaning of the unknown vocabulary that appeared in the story. Moreover, she also asked them about the personality trait that suited each dwarf as they were appearing into the story. When asking them these questions, she offered them several options to ease their answer (e.g: How is this dwarf like? Do you think he is funny? Is he grumpy? Is he shy?). This was really helpful, especially for the students of one of the schools, who are less familiar with this vocabulary and have more difficulties utilizing English to communicate.
All in all, I believe that she developed the session properly, focusing on the details that have to be taken into consideration when implementing a task, not just doing the activities planned. Therefore, she executed the tasks enthusiastically and this passion was transmitted to students, who certainly seemed to be enjoying the activities drafted.
Conclusively, as recommendations for future teaching experiences, I would recommend keeping always in mind a series of classroom management strategies because they are always needed. Therefore, even though maintaining the voice tone low it is a good and effective management strategy, it may not work in some classrooms or situations. Thus, it is relevant to bear in mind different strategies to capture the students’ attention immediately. Moreover, there are digital resources who can also serve as classroom management tools so that these strategies do not have to be necessarily carried out by teachers. Furthermore, I consider that as future English teachers we should always try to avoid using Catalan, especially when giving instructions. I contemplate that English learning is mainly achieved through the constant reception of inputs in English, so that pupils must be always in contact with this language. Hence, teachers must provide situations in which learners can hear and use this language constantly. In addition, as teachers we are role models, so that if we insist our students to use English and we do not use it all the time, they will not do the effort and they will not be motivate to use it. Therefore, we must show coherence between our statements and actions.
References
Linsin, M. (2011, October 1). Why Speaking Softly Is An Effective Classroom Management Strategy - Smart Classroom Management. Retrieved from:
Sawyer, R. K. (2011). What makes good teachers great? The artful balance of structure and improvisation. Structure and improvisation in creative teaching, 1-24.
Yang, X. (2017). The Use of Body Language in English Teaching. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 7(12), 1333-1336.