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Lesson 7. The classroom organization.
The student’s learning needs.
The pair and group work.
The error analysis and its prevention:
feedback strategies, correction and elicitation.
I. Introduction
II. The Classroom: a place for communication
• Classroom language
• Non-verbal communication in the classroom
III. Sequencing language work in the classroom.
IV. Giving instructions and feedback.
V. Groupings.
VI. The teacher’s role.
VII. Misbehaviour and Physical setting of the classroom.
I. INTRODUCTION
The teaching and learning of English as a Foreign Language is carried out in a specific context characterised by the regular meeting under certain conditions of a teacher and a number of children. These are occasions for interaction, since all classroom procedures have to be verbalised. It is sadly common that English is not generally the language of interaction in our Primary classrooms; this fact is due to a feeling of insecurity in some teachers, or perhaps to the perceived pressure for efficient covering of syllabus content –since using the L1 makes things easier and faster for everybody- the fact is that lack of L2 interaction in the classroom is a crucial factor in the high failure rate of Foreign Language learners. A suitable remedy would involve the explicit training of teachers for the linguistic demands of the classroom situation so that a much larger part of that interactions is regularly carried out in the L2.
II. THE CLASSROOM: A PLACE FOR COMMUNICATION
A. Classroom Language:
The foreign language classroom is a good context for real communication to take place, and English may be used in it for a variety of purposes. No matter how intense the use of the Foreign Language may be in the classroom, there will always be a role for the L1, ideally a complementary one. For an acceptable input to be provided in the Foreign Language, it is necessary that this is contextualized, repeated and varied.
children familiar with frequently used language, like ready-made phrases in L that children can use in the appropriate situation, such as asking for permission for frequent actions: “Can I ask for a pencil?”; “Can I use the dictionary?”; “Can I go to the toilet?”; “Can I use a different colour?”; etc.
B. Non-verbal communication in the classroom:
Gestures and facial expressions are an essential part of face-to-face interaction which contribute to convey what we want to say. The expressive use of mime, gesture and facial expression is an unambiguous and somewhat exaggerated way is one of the abilities that effective primary school teachers tend to draw upon most frequently in their classes.
In the FL classroom, gesture, facial expression and mime can be used:
- to help to clarify the linguistic input (this is particularly important when teaching beginners or near-beginners);
- to reinforce the meaning of instructions and provide information on activities through a different channel to the auditory;
- to reduce verbal explanations;
- to attract the students’ attention.
Moreover, modulating voice quality in appropriate ways and eye-contact can be extremely important to help the Foreign Language teacher with classroom management.
III. SEQUENCING LANGUAGE WORK IN THE CLASSROOM:
PRESENTATION, PRACTICE AND PRODUCTION.
A traditional way of organising language work in the Foreign Language classroom has long been the PPP approach (presentation, practice, production). Each stage in this linear sequence entails differences in the teacher’s and learners’ roles, in the activity focus and in the instructional aim.
1. Presentation: At the presentation stage, primary language teachers introduce new language items (words, structures and sounds) by identifying, repeating and manipulating such items. Besides, the teacher needs to make the input comprehensible, motivate the students to take in the new language and create a context in which students perceive the need for the language before it is presented. As soon as possible at this stage, the teacher should adopt a cyclical approach and integrate previously taught material.
Through a variety of teaching techniques, teachers lead the learners to direct their attention to the form in focus. At the beginning and the end of this stage, however, students should be exposed to a natural, standard model of the new language.
Presentation Practice Production
Who controls the lesson?
Teacher Students and teacher Student
Instructional focus
Exposure, noticing and understanding
Accuracy Fluency
Activity focus Meaning and form Form Meaning Learner’s role Perceive, process and understand
Manipulate Communicate
Teacher’s role Transmit and check comprehension
Monitor and correct Facilitate and guide
Teachers may wish to consider at the practice stage of a teaching sequence:
a. asking to repeat, drill or practice to the whole class first, then to groups (“Now girls”, “Now children on my left”, “Now children wearing trousers”) and finally to individuals; b. varying repetition, drilling or practice by asking children to say things loudly, quietly, quickly, slowly, imitating the teacher, etc. so as to maintain their concentration on the task; c. using graded questions: yes/no questions (Is this a horse?; Can you swim?; Is this an verb?), alternative questions (Is this a horse or a cow?; Is the cat on the table or under the table?), and open questions (What’s this?; How do you come to school?; How many apples are there on the table?).
3. Free practice and production: At the production stage of the PPP model, the learners’ attention is diverted away from form by means of a freer, less controlled practice where the focus is primarily on communication and meaning. Activities where attention to form is ‘distracted’ by the need to produce and process language in real time are required at this stage which is primarily concerned with the development of fluency. Pair and group activities (such as class surveys on classmates’ likes, abilities, habits, etc.) in which students mingle with other pupils and repeatedly ask the same formulaic question demand the fluent use of the language that facilitates automatisation. The teacher’s role during this type of activities is to monitor the learner’s performance and check that communication is actually taking place.
As the teacher monitors the activity, it may be useful for the teacher to write down errors that seem common to most of the class for revising or recycling later (correcting the learners while the activity is in progress can be very demotivating for them).
IV. GIVING INSTRUCTIONS AND FEEDBACK
The quality of the information teachers provide students with in order to carry out learning tasks in the Foreign Language classroom greatly influences the success or failure of a lesson. As some studies have shown, the result of unplanned, badly organised, and exclusively verbally-based instructions is students’ confusion, lack of understanding and poor performance. Therefore, there are several steps and strategies in better instruction-giving which should be followed:
- Become aware of your instruction-giving strategies.
- Prepare instructions.
- Attract the students’ attention.
- Use simple, easy-to-understand language.
- Involve the senses: illustrations, realia, gestures, mimes, sounds, etc.
- Be brief.
- Demonstrate and give examples
- Get feedback for the students
As more and more emphasis is placed on learner-centred approaches to Foreign Language learning, feedback to the learner is considered an increasingly central factor in that learning process, since it contributes to the learner’s capacity to make the right decision about their own learning. The teacher’s feedback to the students should not be restricted to comments on progress and levels of attainment, but there is a full range of other purposes:
- Giving praise and encouragement;
- Correcting production;
- Supporting assessment;
- Having discussions about group progression;
- Giving individual tutorials.
But these disadvantages cannot make us forget that lockstep has its place in the foreign language classroom. As we can get the whole class’ attention, we must use it when feedback is taking place or before doing some pair or group work so that all our pupils can listen to the instructions.
Pair work Pupils can be put in pairs for a great variety of work. It has obvious advantages:
- It increases the amount of pupil’s practice.
- Pair work allows our pupils to use language and it also encourages pupils’ co-operation.
During pair work, teachers normally act as assessors, prompters and resources, leaving our pupils to work on their own. We thus foster autonomous learning. However, certain problems may occur.
On the one hand, we are worried about the use of Spanish in the activities. This won’t be a problem if they are motivated to use English and we explain our pupils the purpose of the activity. Our main concern is not accuracy; communicative efficiency and fluency are also vitally important and pair work encourages such communicative abilities.
Noise problems may also arise when pair work is used with our pupils. It is important to familiarize them with pair work at the beginning of the year by giving them very short, simple tasks to perform. This can be done by means of pair work drills or asking and answering questions, and using language that has just been presented.
We also have to decide how to group our pupils in pairs. We must decide whether to put strong pupils with weak pupils or whether to vary the combination of the pairs from class to class. There is no conclusive evidence about the ideal combination for pairs, so we can make our decision based on every particular class.
To sum up, we can say that pair work is a way of increasing pupils’ participation and language use. Therefore, it is used in the practice and production stage.
Group/team work Group work seems to be an extremely attractive idea for a number of reasons. First, we can mention the increase in the amount of pupils’ talking time. It also gives pupils opportunities to use language to communicate with each other and to co-operate.
On the other hand, group work is more DYNAMIC than pair work: our pupils are faced with more people to react with or against in a group. There is also a greater chance that at least one member of the group will be able to solve a problem, when it arises. Because of this fact, working in groups is usually more relaxing than pair work. Moreover, tasks can be more complex and, therefore, more exciting and motivating than pair work tasks.
In group work, the teachers find the same worries that apply to pair work, that is, the use of Spanish and noise. Motivation, clearly defined goals and previous adjustments to this type of grouping are the solutions to these problems.
One of the biggest problems is the selection of group members. One possibility is to group weak and strong pupils mixed together. However, sometimes it may be interesting to make groups of strong pupils and groups of weak pupils and give them different tasks to perform.
As far as the size is concerned, the biggest size we can have is half class. This type of grouping is called team. Teams are not very frequently used because the amount of pupil participation obviously falls. However, we can use them in competitive activities in which it is convenient to split the class in two units.
VI. THE TEACHER’S ROLE
As we have already seen, our methodology is going to be communicative and we will find ourselves playing many roles. Jeremy Harmer distinguishes six main roles for the teacher in the classroom:
- CONTROLLER: we play the role of controller when we are totally in charge of the class. We control what our pupils do, when they speak and what language they use. This role is clearly visible at the presentation stage, being wholly inappropriate during the production stage.
- ASSESSOR: one of the main roles we must play is that of assessing the pupils’ work. We can distinguish between correcting (during the presentation and practice stage we normally correct our pupils’ errors and mistakes) and organizing feedback, which is a major part of assessing our pupils’ performance so that they can see the extent of their success or failure.
- ORGANISER: the success of many activities depends on good organization and on the pupils knowing exactly what they are going to do. Once the activity has begun, we will not intervene unless it is to use gentle correction or, as we will see now, to prompt.
- PROMPTER: we sometimes need to encourage our pupils to participate or we may need to make suggestions about how our pupils may proceed in an activity where there is a silence or our pupils are confused.
- PARTICIPANT: Especially in simulations, it may be interesting for us to participate with our pupils in the activity. If we don’t tend to dominate, we are giving our pupils an opportunity to practice English with someone who speaks it better than they do.
- RESOURCE: in communicative activities we should be a kind of resource centre. We should be ready when our pupils need help. This help should only be given when a previous effort has been made by our pupils.
VII. MISBEHAVIOUR
AND PHYSICAL SETTING OF THE CLASSROOM
A. MISBEHAVIOUR:
An area of classroom management which has an important effect on the classroom atmosphere and the amount of learning which takes place concerns discipline and classroom control. The most effective environment for learning is found in a classroom where the teacher is firm, but kind and encouraging at the same time.
In fact, the teacher’s behavior is perhaps the single most important factor in a classroom. There are some things that teachers should probably not do if they want to avoid problems:
- Do not go to class unprepared
- Do not be inconsistent
- Teachers should not make idle threats which we cannot or would not carry out
- Do not rise our voice
- Do not give boring classes
- Do not be unfair, a sense of failure engenders negative feelings and low self esteem.
B. PHYSICAL SETTING OF THE CLASSROOM:
Careful planning of our classroom is very important as it helps to create an ORGANISED AND SECURE ATMOSPHERE. In an ideal situation, we would be able to organize the classroom in the way we think is most effective for children’s learning. Here are some points to consider:
