Very hard work preparing the lessons

This morning, during a short break between two lessons, some of us have been talking about the feedback sessions and the lessons with real children we have recently finished.

I've had a chance to know that the group who proposed a lesson on prehistory actually went to another school to rehearse the lesson with students of the same age as those who finally visited us at university. They were telling us that because those children couldn't follow some of the activities very easily, they had decided to make them a bit simpler in the lesson at university, only to find that the group that came that day understood much better and, as a result, some of the activities were a bit too easy for them.

This is just an example that shows how hard we have been working during the Minor; it is great to see that we are so engaged and really try our best. Good teachers are bound to come out of that, no doubt.

Last two lessons (in the academic year, and the degree)

On Monday, we had the feedback session on the two lessons of the previous week. I agreed with many of the things that were said, but I must say that I didn't agree with a basic aspect: it seemed to me that from the quantitative point of view, the feedback given to the first group was way too negative, whereas the feedback give to the second group was much more balanced, especially thinking of the five-to-one rule that I mentioned in my previous post.

I am not that sure if students go into the depths and subtleties of qualitative aspects of feedback when it comes to interpreting it. At the end of the day, most of the negative feedback that the first group received could be summarised as "you could have taken more risks, be more ambitious", and that doesn't seem a terrible problem to me. I think their lesson was a very good model of what we should aim at when we first start working as English teachers: small steps, but steady. In my opinion, after having made that point clear, all we needed to tell our classmates was: "since you are brilliant teachers, there will come a time when simplicity will not be enough for you, and you will want to introduce more challenging objectives such as...", and then we could have mentioned most of the things that were mentioned in the feedback.

I think that we all lack basic skills when it comes to giving feedback, mainly due to our education system and our culture in general. It reminds me of a sitcom I have been following at times, called Modern Family, where one of the couples, Jay and Gloria, have very different styles when it comes to education; he likes a marine-style with plenty of crude negative feedback, while she believes in being "the wind behind your back, and not the spit on your face" and praises her son all the time. In general, our culture is much more marine-like; we believe that only negative feedback will take you far, when most of the time a gentle wind on our back is so much more effective. I think that we haven't been given enough opportunities to learn how to give effective feedback, and how to take it, just like we don't know how to deal with praise (giving it and receiving it). I say this for myself mainly. I hate coming up with these smart-ass ideas now, when I reflect, and not then, when they would've been useful. Somehow, I have the feeling that reflecting on things doesn't take me half as far as I would expect and like to.

Well, let's continue. A very useful remark that was made during the feedback session, which is something that we have been told several times during the Minor, but is nevertheless worth repeating is the fact that the shorter the message (input), the harder it will be for the student to understand. So, when it comes to language learning, simple is not necessarily short. It might be a good idea to have short activities, but not short messages (unless they are well known from before, such as short imperatives like "stand up").

And now, it is time for the reflection on the last two lessons. I have to say that what I have been writing down on the lessons was meant to be a collection of notes for myself; I would never give that to my classmates as feedback. As a matter of fact, I have hardly mentioned any of the negative feedback I have been writing down in our feedback sessions. Usually, what I did was think of the one thing I thought could have really made a difference in that particular lesson, and choose that one as the thing to say in class, if nobody else pointed it out. On the other hand, some of the things I have written down are opinions based on a very personal point of view, which don't need to be in agreement with what others might think, and needn't be mentioned. I would say that others will be shared by most, and those would be the ones worth bringing up.

The first group of classmates changed the topic, but only partly, as in the lesson of the first term they chose Halloween, and now Easter. So, in general, we could say that they have been working on the topic of celebrations. During the academic year we have had some debate over this topic about celebrations coming from other cultures (Halloween, Easter). I have to admit that I don't like them (for now; I am open to changing my mind), and I wouldn't encourage them in my class. The reason is very simple: they are merely a commercial celebration. From the point of view of a resource for education, in the way they have been imported so far, they don't offer much, they are just an excuse to spend money and promote consumerism.

I have to say that our classmates have really made an effort in this sense during the academic year, when they taught us the origins of Thanksgiving, for example. That could be a way to tackle the topic in an educational way, but I am still not sure. So, I have to admit that what I had in mind when I saw the Easter eggs that our classmates brought to us in this lesson was my young niece last Saturday stopping at the windowshop of a bakery in the city centre, admiring the chocolate eggs and saying how much she would love to buy them all. "A dozen "buñuelo", that's what you are going to get from your aunt, miss!", I thought to myself. All my ideals on good education down the drain, while the dragon of traditional education came out of my chest like the alien in the film, only with blazing fire coming out of its nostrils... ha-ha-ha.

Bearing in mind that my opinions on the topic of the lesson should not interfere with the assessment of the lesson itself (how one can actually manage to do that, I don't know), these are the things I liked about it the most:

• They started the lesson posing a problem that students needed to solve. Problem-based learning is good, as we have seen many times along the degree, but too often we use problems with only one right solution, and that is where I think we fail to get the most out of this resource. We should work more and more with problems with multiple solutions, or even with no clear solution.
• They used a video with a real person speaking, who was non-native and didn't speak too quickly. This was an improvement compared to what some of us had done in the previous lessons.
• They carefully picked the story in order to avoid introducing religious matters in the lesson. I learned about this after the lesson, when we commented on the lesson with the group, and I think it is a very good thing to consciously try not to influence on your students' beliefs and values in that way. Taking into account gender, culture, ethnicity, religion and other aspects when planning a lesson is very important, and our classmates showed great consideration towards their students in this respect.
• They used visual support to tell the story, applying what they had learned during the school placement (similar puppets to the material in Artigal). I liked the poster and the puppets.
• They gathered students sitting in a circle to tell the story. This helps so much more to achieve close interaction and ensure attention. Even in 5th grade of primary, it is a great idea to sit in a circle to listen to a story. That way, also, you avoid the problems of images or text being too small to be clearly seen from the desks in the far end of the classroom.
• They made groups randomly, based on the colours of the stickers they had given students. It is a good thing to alternate between letting students make their own groups and pushing them out of their comfort zone. Still, in general, I think it is better to let them organise groups themselves, because it is an activity which yields a lot of learning. The only time when the teacher should take over is when they observe that some students are being left out, or when the grouping criteria followed by students leads to very homogeneous groups where not much learning will take place. Again, discussing and reasoning about these matters with students before making groups can be a great way to avoid such problems.
• They used a song proposed by students as a formal ending for the lesson, which was really nice. Not only was it nice, but it also left a final feeling of competence in the students' minds, which is always a good thing, as we have been told that the last memory is what we most vividly remember.

Among the things I liked less, or I would take into account if I were to use this lesson in the future, I would mention the following:

• The origin of the problem was a message that our classmates said they had received from someone who was visiting for Easter holidays, and it happened to be a king Charles III. It didn't sound too real. I would rather use more realistic proposals.
• Our classmates didn't manage to handle the video not working as well as some other classmates. The three of them were silent while they tried to get the video to start, and they could have used that time to review the problem and the context. It is easy to say, and difficult to do, but others have managed, so it can be done!
• As it has happened with some other lessons, there were things to improve in the quality of input (writing "Charles's castle" and pronouncing it /iz/ instead of /isiz/ and more basic errors). Some of them could be prevented just learning what we have been taught during the year, such as the example I mentioned. The video of the king talking didn't offer much input quality either.
• There wasn't much excitement in the storyteller, as if she didn't like the story much. If you don't like the story, it will be impossible for your students to like it.
• It was a bit strange to use inferring questions while telling the story. It would have been just fine to ask what the students thought would happen next if the teacher had been reading a story, because the audience could think that she didn't know the answer herself, but being as it was so clear that she did, it seemed a bit awkward to me. I would use those questions only when reading aloud, and not when telling. In the latter, I would use more "why" questions.
• Some of the activities were not very well linked; they seemed to have no purpose, like when one of the teachers came in with an Easter egg drawing and read the clues on the back. At that time, it made no sense and lead to nothing, and only later did we realise she had given us a model of an activity that would come later on. I think models work better if you actually make it explicit that they are an example of what students are meant to do.
• Most of the activities worked on receptive skills, and in 5th grade of primary students are already quite articulate, so it might be more challenging to propose activities to work on their productive skills.
• Just like most of the lessons have not managed to finish on the given time (30-35 minutes), this group finished too early (just a bit over 25 minutes). They didn't go particularly fast over the activities, which means that they could have added maybe one more. Children could have written a letter to king Charles III, telling him what they had found and where, for instance.

The second group of classmates had the same group of students, with whom one of our classmates had done the school placement, as we all had an opportunity to find out when they sang a farewell song to her in the end. This group of classmates also changed the topic of their lesson (they had parts of the body in the first term), because they found no way to adapt it to the age of students. I have to say that I loved the topic they chose - children's worries - because it should lead you to a student-focused lesson almost without noticing, and it offers plenty of opportunities for communicative activities. These are the things I liked the most in their lesson:

• They used a real problem. That caused other problems (the video being too hard to understand), but I think that using real material and real tasks is very important to increase student engagement.
• They underlined the topic of the lesson with the written material that was on the wall. Visual support is very helpful, especially for those students who get lost easily.
• They explained the three steps of the task very clearly, and explicitly marked the transitions from one to the next, so students knew at all times where they were. I like that, because it gives students control over the lesson. 
• They alternated activities in pairs and in the large group. Mixing different types of grouping during the lesson helps greatly changing rhythm and provides opportunities for all students to participate.
• Again, like in the previous lesson, students were sitting on the floor. This informal setting helped them loosen up, I think, and created an adequate atmosphere to discuss personal matters, such as worries. Spatial aspects have such a great influence on the outcome; much greater than we often realise.
• They provided an structure to organise and classify worries in several types, and also to arrange them according to their importance. It was visual, clear and simple, and made with unsophisticated materials. I liked it a lot.
• They showed a map to locate the country for the comparison on children's worries, and also another video. This last video had no words, only music, and it was nice to include an element of little language difficulty into the lesson, to diversify rhythm again. In this case, the text was easy (non-existent, as a matter of fact), but provided that the task is challenging enough (putting the story in the video into words, for instance), it can be great for a language lesson. It reminded of the time when I bought a picture book called Journey, without knowing it had no words. When I received it on the post, I thought it had been a complete waste of money, but then I realised its language potential: I could use it to ask children to put words to the story, a perfect excuse to produce output. Depending on the age, children will need some help (maybe taking turns in "reading" the story), but stories with no words are a great resource to learn language.
• One of the teachers insisted on students talking in English, instead of giving the Spanish translation of new vocabulary. She said it firmly, but in a very friendly way at the same time. I thought that she got the right tone, and children answered wonderfully to her demand. She only needed to ask for it twice, and students automatically did a small click in their minds and spoke English after that. It can be as easy as that, really, so we shouldn't give up before trying. Never.
• They gave a proper ending to the lesson, with the picture they took for the researcher that had brought the problem. They closed the circle, and it all ended well, with a sense of accomplishment and a group activity. After that, children sang to the classmate who had been with them during the school placement, which was very nice too (personally, I wouldn't have liked that to be done in front of all my classmates). It was a good chance to think of activities which a teacher can propose to thank a trainee teacher, and promote language learning at the same time.

The things that I liked less, or I would bear in mind if I put this lesson into practice are the following:

• At the beginning of the lesson, the teacher let students get away with translating into Spanish all new concepts. She should have changed her strategy. Instead of asking "what does "worries" mean?" or "what is a sociologist?", she should have asked them to explain it in other words, or to give examples, and insist on students speaking in English. As another of her groupmates proved, she would've succeeded.
• The video was difficult to understand, mainly because the researcher was reading, instead of talking freely. I wonder if adding English captions would have been enough for students to understand, because they weren't that far off. I think I would've given captions a try, and see what happened.
• The teachers gave no explanation on what worries are. I think it would've been good to give examples or a short role play to show the central concept of the lesson explicitly.
• Students read the card with their worries to the teacher, not to their classmates. The teacher asked them to read louder once or twice, but I think she should have insisted more on it. I like the idea of students embracing a very basic concept: they are doing the activity for themselves and their classmates, not for the teacher to mark. Driving them once and again towards the real purpose of activities is vital, in my view.
• After watching the second video, the one that had no voice, the teacher made some questions, and students raised their hand to ask for turns to answer, but the teacher ignored that and let students speak freely. Nothing happened, because they were very well behaved and waited for others to talk, but the teacher missed a golden opportunity to arrange turns. If students have acquired a good habit we shouldn't encourage them to lose it!
• Towards the end of the lesson, after the second video, our classmates drifted and changed the topic altogether, from children's worries to moralizing on how we should help the poor. I found it awful, I have to say. Contrary to the previous group, who made an effort not to impose their values and beliefs, this group failed in that sense, in my opinion. The last part of the lesson was a collection of clichés, in my view, and they weren't brought forward by the students, but forced by the teachers themselves. This is something I strongly think should be avoided.

One final remark on the worries children had: what on earth are we doing soooo wrong in education, when 10-11-year-olds are only worried about exams? One of them mentioned his grandfather being ill, a couple talked about having a job (normal in the recession we are currently facing), and another one mentioned having no friends and being alone. The majority only mentioned exams. On the one hand, it is good to know that children have their most basic needs fulfilled, but this obsession about exams doesn't sound healthy at such a young age.

Reflections on feedback and motivation

Last week, when I wrote about the lessons that we had watched during the week and about the feedback that we give to each group, I tried to look for information on a very basic question: what is the right ratio of positive to negative feedback? what is the most effective?

Unfortunately, I didn't have enough to time to research on the issue, and I had to finish writing my diary without dealing with it. This week, I stumbled upon an answer, in the form of a post in a blog I follow (not that it means I can read every post...) titled Strategies for helping students motivate themselves. The author claims that you need a ratio of positive to negative feedback between 5 to 1 and 3 to 1 in order to promote healthy learning. The problem is that when you pull the thread of the "extensive research" that he mentions as a source for that statement, you find evidence coming from business management and academic research subject to recent controversy, which doesn't seem that "extensive". Still, even if the main reference were Gottman's five to one - as being the ratio of positive to negative interactions that a couple needs to accumulate over time in order to remain married - I'll say I buy it. It makes sense to me, and no harm can come from it, even if the author doesn't provide solid proof of the exact extent of its benefits.

So, if you want to help your students becoming successful learners, when it comes to giving feedback, you should have the 5-to-one ratio in mind. And the same goes for your partner, friends, employees, workmates etc.

There are more things that I liked in that post, though. Autonomy, competence, relatedness and relevance are concepts I had already come across in the little reading on motivation I have been doing for my dissertation, and I totally agree with the idea that teachers should focus on feeding the intrinsic motivation of students, rather than using extrinsic motivators. I liked the idea of providing cognitive autonomy support through open-ended problem solving, and I especially liked the proposals around making thinking processes visible. I found this last idea absolutely inspiring for teachers in general. From the language learning point of view, it can be very helpful to promote communicative activities in the classroom.

Another thing I really liked from the post, which is closely related to feedback, was the recommendation to praise effort, instead of intelligence (aptitude, outcomes). The statement by Carol Dweck on the fact that praising intelligence takes people to play conservative because they don't want to risk their "genius" status is very revealing. On the other hand, a student who tries hard is bound to succeed sooner or later, and will be much more resilient when it comes to facing obstacles.

Whereas I see the other three concepts absolutely related to intrinsic motivation, I have my doubts about relevance. Too often we use relevance as an external motivator ("now, let's see, who can tell me why we should learn English? what will it be useful for in our lives?"). It must be handled with care in order to use it right and improve intrinsic motivation.

Slowly, but ahead with my dissertation

I haven't mentioned anything on my dissertation in a long time now. I would like to write more on my blog but I just don't seem to be able to find time to do so. Cheap excuse; I know.

Well, about my dissertation, I have to say that I was quite pleased with the result achieved up to the end of my school placement. I didn't manage to finish all that I had hoped (produce the final draft of the whole document), but I knew my objective was far too optimistic. By the time we went back to our university lessons, I had written the theoretical part, collected my data and written down the chapter on methodology. At the same time, after having reached that point, I realised I would need to re-write part of my theoretical chapter, as the readings on the topic of the dissertation had lead me to aspects I couldn't anticipate when I started my writing.

After having gone back to our lessons, I have hardly touched the dissertation, I must admit, because I use all the time I have for other assignments. Still, I have to admit that I am not worried; as a matter of fact, I think that finishing the dissertation too early could be a bad idea. The presentation will take place in June, and I think it is better to have the contents as fresh as I possibly can in my head, so if I were to finish my final draft in March or early April, it would be way too early.

I plan on using my Easter holidays to write the results, and start with the conclusions. After that, when we finish our lessons, I should have more time to polish it and send it to my supervisor for the last feedback.

Reflections on lesson planning

These last weeks we have been dealing with lesson planning in all of our units. We have been planning and putting in practice lessons ourselves, and at the same time we learned Penny Ur's guidelines for ordering the components of a lesson plan from her book A course in language teaching: practice and theory:

• Put the harder tasks earlier
• Have quieter activities before lively ones
• Think about transitions
• Pull the class together at the beginning and at the end
• End on a positive note

By all means, Penny Ur's guidelines are essential, and I would say that the easiest ones to tackle as a novice teacher are the ones about ordering the activities (putting harder tasks earlier, having quieter activities before lively ones, so the teacher will not have to make a great effort to calm the group down). On the contrary, I find that managing transitions in such a way that the overall outcome will feel balanced and harmonious, and the lesson will flow naturally, is much harder at the beginning.

Especially in pre-primary, I see a lesson as a unit in time and space, when and where the teacher must create an atmosphere which will resemble a big balloon that holds the whole group inside. It is the teacher's task to blow this balloon up at the beginning of the lesson, with the class together, as Penny Ur suggests. This first blowing up is not that difficult, as children are curious by nature and will be interested at first. It is maintaining the balloon with the right amount of air throughout the lesson what is really hard.

Frequent problems are the balloon going flat because the lesson lost momentum, or bursting it. In my experience, based on what I have seen and done myself during my school placements, losing momentum is mainly due to "losing air" during transitions, but also because the teacher decides to maintain an activity after its peak of interest and excitement for students, thus letting it die slowly. On the contrary, "bursting the balloon" is often due to excess of lively activities, excess of stimuli, or lack of ability to return the class to a calmer situation after lively activities. Teachers must acquire the right skills to manage these situations gracefully, monitoring the class to know when the balloon is deflating, in order to pump in some air, or when it is so tight that calming down is essential for it not to burst.

Certainly, knowing what the teacher should do is one thing, and managing to do so is quite another. Only experience, together with determination, will train the teacher in this sense.

Wonderful modelling and great lessons

This past week we received the visit of an English teacher at Orioko Ikastola, where one of our classmates did her school placement. This teacher actually brought her class to our school last week, for one of the lessons conducted by us students, but since they went with the other group of classmates, I didn't have the opportunity to watch them.

Lucky enough, our teacher invited her, so we all got to learn from her. She teaches English in pre-primary and in the first grade of primary, following the same method used in the school where I did my placement (Artigal in pre-primary and Eleanitz in primary). Still, the videos she brought showed children who were more fluent and accurate than the ones in my school. I especially liked the fact that they used very actively the language; they really made the most of what they knew, and since they spent most of their time touching their limits, that encouraged them to learn more. Having your students walking on the edge of their knowledge without feeling frustrated isn't easy, and she did it just great.

I particularly liked the story children created collectively, in a purely Rodari fashion. It was absolutely great, and you could sense how engaged they were and how good they felt about themselves. It was great to give them back a very accurate measure of what they knew by having the story written down and drawn on a booklet; physical evidence of the achievements made is truly important to boost motivation.

We also learned that believing in yourself and in your students is vital. This teacher didn't stop to think if children in the second year of taking English lessons would be able to tell in English what they had done over the weekend; she simply believed they could, made them believe it could be done, and it happened. Creating the kind of atmosphere where students will feel confident and at the same time not pressured to be perfectly accurate is a key to success.

She also taught us to focus on what is really important; she spent a whole lesson introducing the visit to our university, creating the conditions for a successful lesson, anticipating with students what they would experience and who they would meet. Finishing all the unit's activities or even all the units for the academic year didn't seem to rank on top of her agenda. Instead, she recorded her class often and showed colleagues and parents what those children were able to do with the language. And that was enough.

She seemed to be telling her students and us "don't be afraid to try, nothing too bad can happen, really". And she is right; leaving aside sick ideas directly intended to make students feel miserable, nothing too bad can happen if you try something in education, provided that you are honest and assess the process and the outcomes regularly. This is not brain surgery or sending rockets to the moon; we are talking about small steps in a process which doesn't have only one right way, as happens with most things in life. So, if you believe children can communicate in English from day one, learn as much as you can about how that can be done, and go for it! I really loved this talk.

Now, I must return to the lessons lead by our classmates. Unfortunately, I could not attend the day when feedback was given on the lessons of the previous week, but my classmates told me afterwards that what was said was pretty much in the line of what I wrote last week, so there isn't much to say on that. This week, we had two more lessons, both with the same group of fourth graders.

The first lesson was on prehistory, the same topic our classmates worked on in the first term, but adapted to a different age. In my opinion, the lesson was absolutely fantastic. These are the things I liked the most:

• Our classmates introduced the topic using a mind map that they had drawn on the board, which had several gaps where the students placed the flashcards that were on a side of the board, guided by the questions posed by our classmates. It was simple and worked just great, ordering concepts and new vocabulary. You don't need the fanciest technology, sometimes good old chalk is enough.
• They used an old French TV series (Once upon a time... man), and played it stopping when the concepts they had previously introduced were mentioned, to make sure they were noticed by students.
• Students took part very actively during the whole lesson. They were paying attention, following with interest and engaged.
• Our classmates proposed two activities in the large group, a quiz and a mimic game, but they were short, so students didn't get bored and it allowed them to finish the lesson on time. If you are going to have several activities, they must be short; otherwise you will be in serious trouble to finish within the 30-35 minutes the lesson should last.
• The whole lesson was very consistent; it dealt with the same vocabulary and concepts along all activities, from beginning to end, giving students confidence. It was a solid and sound lesson, with limited and clear ideas.
• Finally, our classmates gave students a time warning while they were doing the activities, allowing them to gain control over what they were doing. This is a small, but very important thing that can really make a difference in a lesson.

Among the few things that could be improved, or I would bear in mind if I were to do a lesson like this I would mention the following:

• The flashcards could have had words printed in a larger size, in order to be easily read by students. Using a generous size and a font which is easy to read is very important. I remember that one day in my school placement the English teacher used a font where some letters were easily confused, which made children feel very frustrated.
• Children didn't understand the initial bit on going back on time and a time-machine, but it didn't matter, because what they understood was much more than what they didn't understand. Besides, teachers didn't go over and over those things; they just jumped to the next, not making a big deal out of it. As long as what is understood during the lesson is more and more important than what is not understood, it is alright.
• The quiz consisted on multiple-choice questions. Only questions were read aloud, leaving some of the answers not understood. It would have been better to go over the questions and all possible answers.
• The last activity was the only one done individually and in writing. It was perfectly fine, but it made me think if it could send the wrong message to students, something like "important things (written exercises) are done individually, while trivial things (games) can be done in group". If we always design our lessons in this way we might be reinforcing this idea about games being stupid things and writing being something where real learning takes place. It reminded me of a book I am reading, where a literacy teacher tells an anecdote: a headteacher went to watch a lesson in order to assess a teacher, and when he saw that the teacher was telling a story, he left saying that he would return later, when the teacher was "actually teaching"...

The second lesson followed after a break, and this time our classmates actually changed the topic of the lesson, compared to what they did on the first term. This lesson was about senses, and since it was with the very same group of students, it gave us the chance to see that the proposal for a lesson really makes a difference in the outcome, since this time students weren't half as confident and active. The things I liked the most about this lesson are these:

• The topic, senses, is very interesting and can lead a very diverse and attractive activities.
• The five senses and the organs related to them were introduced clearly by our classmates.
• Students had a real purpose to do the activities, as they were detectives facing challenges to solve a problem. This is a great way to engage students.
• Our classmates spent time with the five groups of students while they were doing the activities, although they couldn't stay with one group all the time, because there were three teachers for five groups of students.
• They used a virtual friend to introduce the problem on the screen, which can be an attractive way to start the lesson. We have seen things like this before done, for instance in the project Reconstruyendo a Miró, and it can be really great.
• They used a song, which always helps to create a joyful atmosphere and provides a fun way to memorise vocabulary.

The things I think could be improved, or I would take into account to design a lesson like this are the following:

• The video with the virtual friend explaining the problem was very difficult to understand. As a matter of fact, only one student managed to understand it. It would have been better to record their own voices in order to control the flow of speech. Tellagami allows to do this, and would have produced a similar video.
• When our classmates explained that they would be solving challenges in order to get clues about where Nina's glasses were, they handed out the sheets before they finished with the explanations. As a result, students started reading and discussing, instead of listening. One must make sure to give all instructions before handing out attractive material!
• The instructions for the game weren't understood. Some children went to ask their teacher for help. Something didn't work there. As a matter of fact, the two teachers that cam with the group of students took part in the lesson, when they hadn't done so in the previous lesson, which proves that they felt they had to.
• The scents for the first challenge were cinnamon, coffee, vinegar, strawberry, perfume and vanilla. I reckon students were likely to know the names of two in English, and one of them they wouldn't even know what it was exactly in Basque. They were way too difficult, although finding scents to give to students was very difficult itself. Maybe it could have been done with more familiar material, like common food items or things used at school.
• The second challenge, a puzzle made up of pieces of a sentence which had to be placed in order, was also a bit difficult if the objective was to get it done quickly. It took so long that they actually didn't give the feedback about the answer, and the clue it lead to.
• The song in the third challenge was way too difficult again, with plenty of vocabulary that they hadn't worked on before. They sang very fast and the text was too long. Students decided to forget about listening to the song and concentrated on trying to fill in the gaps using information from the context, but they needed a lot of help from their teachers and our classmates to finish the task. They should've either chosen an easier song, or used only the most familiar vocabulary (senses and organs) for the exercise. Besides, not even all of our classmates knew the song, which didn't help much.
• Our classmates didn't use the flashcards they had put on the board, nor the cards with drawings that they had given students at the beginning of the lesson. Showing material and not using it causes confusion to students, I think, because one expects that they will be used and is waiting for that moment.
• There was a feeling of rush during the whole lesson; teachers and students weren't relaxed. This was very obvious after the previous lesson, where the atmosphere was much more relaxed. Running behind is a bad thing in an English lesson, and it must be avoided at all cost. It is better to forget about doing several activities once you realise that there will not be time to do them all. In this case, it would have been a good idea to give each of the five groups one or two challenges on one sense, and then have them share the results with the rest. That way, you would create an information gap and make the production of output more meaningful.

Not-so-graceful knockout and more lessons

This was a long week, and there are lots of things to comment on. On the one hand, we received the feedback on our last week's lesson and, on the other, we had four more lessons conducted by our classmates.

I will start with our knockout. This is one of those times when you wish you never wrote a diary, because you feel like you would like to swallow up all your words. So bad, that it is even funny. Our teachers' and classmates' opinion on the lesson had little in common with my impressions. These are the things they liked:

• Our general attitude or style as teachers.
• The way we started the lesson, especially with the skirt full of pockets (there we agreed).
• The way we ended the lesson, with a farewell song.
• We only used English.

The list of things they didn't like was much longer:

• The quality of the audio in our story, the fact that we spoke too fast, and the difficulty of the language. Also, we got the impression that overall the video was perceived as being a bit tatty.
• The topic itself, whatever each is good at, was seen as not adequate by some. Also, introducing the structure "to be good at" was considered a bad choice.
• The story itself was difficult to understand.
• It would have been better to tell the story ourselves, without using audiovisuals.
• Asking children to fix their attention on what each animal in the story was good at was a bit too forced.
• Our explanations about what is to be good at something, the examples we gave, weren't understood by children.
• Children didn't understand our instructions about how to play the game either, although the picked it up when we started playing.
• They thought we helped children too much or too soon when they were doing the game.
• When each pair had their turn to solve a challenge, the rest got bored.
• Watching the video with the story didn't help children when it came to play the game. They used the cards we gave them with the animals to check what each was good at.
• Asking them to teach us a goodbye song in the end was a bit risky, because what if they had said they didn't?

I didn't have much time to think while they gave us the feedback, but two flashes came to my mind: first, "oh,my god, I have lost my judgement completely, being so happy and excited about the idea of finishing the degree has blurred my mind and I haven't seen any of this", then I felt guilty, because I had actually been the one who proposed to use this story, which had been created previously with another group of classmates. The worst thing is that when the four of us in the group met to discuss the feedback after class, we realised that we had similar opinions about the lesson, which differed a lot from the feedback. The only concern that we had when we prepared the lesson was the speed of our speech in the recording, which we couldn't change because we didn't manage to find another suitable song that lasted over 3 minutes in time to record the voices again. We were also aware that children wouldn't fully understand the story after watching it only once, and that is why the main purpose of the game was to actually be a means to understand the story, with the help of the cards we had given them at the beginning.

The feedback received from the English teacher of the class who came to visit also points out that the story wasn't clear, and adds that we worked on receptive skills but did little about production. It agrees with the feedback we had received in class on several positive aspects (good beginning and ending), as adds a few more positive things: we gave good input, the topics were adapted to the age of students, and the materials and resources were adequate.

The group that did their lesson after us, with the same group of children, received much more positive feedback, even though they didn't have a good impression themselves (funny world, the opposite that happened to us!). The emphasis was placed on how good their story was and how well they told it taking turns the three of them, which I totally agreed with.

Of course, it was a pity to end our group presentations in the degree with a failure, because the four of us agreed that this was the most negative feedback we had received so far, but I won't complain one bit about it, because I believe that failure is essential for learning. I was an undergraduate student at this university 25 years ago, and comparing to those times (I know it is almost prehistory for my current classmates), one of the few things that I feel has changed for worse is the fact that students are given very little opportunities to face failure nowadays. The other bad thing, and this has remained the same since back then, is that the university is an institution that has no will to learn; as a matter of fact, it refuses to learn and puts all sorts of obstacles to learning as an institution. But that is another topic altogether.

Thankfully, I have failed in all possible areas of life - personal, professional and academic - so I know it is not nice, but it can be good, if you learn how to deal with it. Also, I know that thoughtful teachers give negative feedback in the quantity that they believe the student can handle, which turns the whole picture into something actually positive.

Next, we will have to design a set of five activities or so before the end of the term, and describe the procedure to put them into practice in class. We were given the choice to link those activities to the lesson we had prepared, but considering the negative feedback we had serious doubts about whether we should continue with the activities we had already started to outline, or drop the idea altogether. On the other hand, this story was really inspiring for us, and it made us think of all sort of exciting activities which we thought were worth sharing. It is hard to draw the line between not giving up, and being plainly stubborn.

So, after discussing in the group during the week, we have decided to try to improve the story as much as we can, to finish designing the activities we had originally thought of, bearing in mind the aspects that were pointed out in the feedback, and we will also develop some ideas for activities linked with the lesson we prepared during the first term, which received far more positive feedback. A compromise between not giving up on our ideas, and acknowledging that when all the rest agree on something, and it is only the four of us who don't, no doubt they are right.

But, as I said, we have had four lessons during the week, so there is still a lot to comment on. We had two lessons on Wednesday, and another two on Friday, all of them with different groups of children. The first group on Wednesday had a real challenge: one of the groupmates fell ill at the last moment, which must have altered greatly their plans; the two teachers that accompanied the group of students kept on taking part in the lesson, which seemed extremely rude to me; the group was really loud, which was a big challenge; and in the first activity, their key wasn't attracted by the magnet, contrary to what would've been expected. I think they did very well overcoming those initial difficulties, to be honest. These are other things I liked:

• They gave English names to students, and children loved it. It didn't help much addressing students by their name, because they didn't have enough time to sink into their new identity in only one lesson, but it proved how good the idea is.
• Using science activities in the English class is a great idea. They were very attractive activities. Activities that involve manipulation are very interesting.
• The students were really engaged in all activities.
• Using the surprise factor, with one of the teachers entering the classroom with an urgent problem is also a good idea to use once in a while and break the expected routine.
• The materials that children could use were very clearly presented with large flashcards.
• They asked students to first explain how they would get the key out of the bucket, and then to actually do it; thus pushing them to produce output.
• The activities had a purpose for students, and not just for the teachers; students had to experiment and solve problems, and then explain their outcomes, and that was a wonderful idea.
• The lesson had a closing activity, where students received a diploma after having done so well, Again, if used in every lesson it would lose its strength, but it is a very nice thing to do, and will be especially helpful when the class is learning very challenging content, or is struggling with things that seemed easier. It's a resource to keep in mind when students' motivation and self esteem need a boost.

Among the things that could be improved or things that need careful attention, I would mention the following, and most of them are related to mistakes that I recognise in myself. Actually, more than feedback for our classmates, they would be notes for myself in case I decided to put their lesson into practice in the future:

• It was obvious that saying that touching the water was very dangerous in order to justify that the key couldn't be taken out of the bucket using their hands acted as a powerful magnet. I can't think of a better way to present the activity as a problem that students need to help solving, but maybe it would be more simple to just present it as a challenge with a condition: try to think of ways to get the key out of the water without touching the water.
• It is difficult to speak clearly while acting as being agitated, so children didn't understand what the teacher who came in with the bucket said. As a general rule, I think that if one can avoid acting agitated, it is better, unless the only thing that students need to understand is that one is agitated.
• If students had had access to manipulating the materials while thinking and writing down alternatives to get the key out of the bucket, they might have come up with more imaginative results. Also, it might be difficult for some students to postpone the manipulation until all the thinking and explaining is finished. That is something that the teacher will need to adjust to each group of students; it worked fine with this group, but it might not go that well with other groups.
• It would have been a good idea to give a time warning before finishing each activity ("you have 2 minutes left"). We tend to forget that even though we have a very clear idea of how the lesson is going to develop, students don't, and too often we forget to anticipate the change of activities to them. Just like we wouldn't like our teachers at university to give us an assignment and them telling us without notice that the time to finish it is over, we must try to get in our students' shoes and act the same.
• In general, the teachers' style seemed a bit bossy to me, but maybe it is because I come from the pre-primary education degree, and I guess that our classmates who are taking the primary teaching degree probably think that we act childish and a bit like clowns.
• One of the groups didn't get to come to the front and show the rest what they had thought of, because they were told theirs was very similar to the previous group. Children might have thought that it was unfair, because in reality all solutions were very much alike.
• After the students showed their solutions, the teachers explained another option to get the key out of the bucket, using only the magnets. I feel that this went against the task feedback circle that we have learned, in the sense that students were given a task (coming up with a way to get the key out of the bucket without touching the water), and they succeeded, so why did the teacher have to come up with another solution? Students might interpret that their solutions were not good enough, so it is something to use with care. The teacher could have proposed a new challenge instead: "seeing that you did so well, how about an even more difficult challenge: try to get the key out of the bucket using only one type of material".
• The problem of the key not being attracted to the magnet could have been avoided with rehearsal. Another graceful - but very difficult - way to deal with the situation would have been to say something like "I also would expect the key to be attracted to the magnet, should we try with another key?". I myself wouldn't have been able to come up with that solution then and there, but it's an idea to keep in mind for the future.
• As it was pointed out when our classmates prepared a lesson on magnets in the first term, it would have been a good idea to give different materials to each group, in order to create an information gap that would have made students more interested in listening to the other groups' solutions, in both of the first two activities.
• The third activity, going fishing, was very good too, but since our classmates were pressed with time, and it was more complex than the other two, students failed to understand the instructions at the beginning. I am sure that our classmates introduced this new activity so that it would be clear that they had worked on the proposal they did for the first term, but it wasn't necessary. Having three activities made then go over their time, and the lesson would have been just as good with only the first two activities.
• Finally, the quality of input could also be improved, partly with things that can be easily done, such as knowing all the vocabulary involved in the lesson (bucket, for instance).

The second group that morning changed their lesson compared to the proposal for the first term. It was also a lesson around science activities, so all the positive aspects pointed out for the previous group on the topic are also valid for this one. This time, it was a lesson around density, floating and sinking. One of our classmates had done her school placement with the group of students, so we expected them to feel very comfortable and spontaneous. The things I most liked from this lesson are the following:

• They used an autobiographical story, which sparked students' interest (well, maybe not that much this particular group of students' interest, as they seemed quite a challenge in that sense, to be honest).
• Our classmates stayed each with one group of children, monitoring, giving input and helping them.
• They involved students in the activities, although maybe they could have given them more leading and protagonist roles.
• There was group discussion and teamwork involved in some of the activities.
• All activities were very well linked with each other, in the sense that each lead straight into the next; as a matter of fact, so directly that it seemed too much of a coincidence, but I will come back to that in the end.
• Students got to manipulate objects after having expressed their hypothesis, in order to test if they fulfilled or not. Again, chances to manipulate are a great source of interaction in the classroom.
• Even though the video about the experiment of throwing a bowling ball into different waters was difficult to understand by the students, the task that was proposed to them (identifying the types of water bodies where the ball was thrown into) was achievable. As a matter of fact, even if students didn't understand a word that had been said, they could still answer.

I would point out the following as aspects to improve or to bear in mind when putting into practice a lesson like this:

• The autobiographical story was only partly believeable, as some of the objects are not usually carried in a handbag (a stone, clothespins). Making the autobiographical story as truthful as it can be is an important aspect in my opinion, because otherwise students can think that the teacher is pulling their leg or taking them as very gullible persons.
• No time warning to finish the activities was given, and it would have been very helpful.
• Some of our classmates sounded a bit bossy, but my impression could be linked to what I explained above.
• Even if students did the testing on the first activity in groups, they were given an individual sheet to complete a table. That could have been done in groups too, leading to more interaction and negotiation among them.
• Students hardly participated, produced very little output, and showed no enthusiasm at all. This surprised me, as from what I have seen in my school placement the last cycle of primary is when students start producing much more, after having worked on their receptive skills for some years. But maybe that only happened in the school where I was, and is not a general thing.
• Students had no purpose of their own to do the activities, except for maybe the first. It was more a collection of demonstrations conducted by the teachers than activities where the focus was on students. Students were like the magician's helper in the circus.
• It would have been nice to have a more formal ending activity. Maybe there could have been something that made them return to the opening story, as a way to close the circle, or something like that.
• This group also went over the time limit set for the lesson. The lesson could have been just as good with one less experiment, really.

Finally, it was a bit awkward to see that even though students participated and produced little, when they did, it was with exact terms in response to very open questions. Students answered "sink", "shape", "density" and "Dead Sea" to the open ended questions almost immediately and, at the same time, they didn't seem to be fluent at all in English. It seemed like they had either worked on this topic before, maybe in their regular Basque lessons, or they knew beforehand about the lesson they would be doing. Some of us in the audience had the same feeling but. of course, we could be wrong, and maybe they felt especially shy for some reason, and didn't show how fluent and accurate they really were. Even if the lesson was a repetition of something they had already worked on, or if they had received prior information, that wouldn't change the fact that the activities were very good and could easily be put into practice making students the protagonists. I find more intriguing what would bring a group of very good classmates, capable of designing an excellent lesson, to try to have a perfect lesson. Would something like that happen if you got too carried away by the experiments you came up with, and tried to do them all in the same lesson, thus needing perfect transitions and having to do them all yourself not to waste any time? would it be excessive pressure to produce a lesson where everything comes out well? excessive competitiveness towards your classmates?

The first lesson on Friday morning was prepared by a group of three classmates. They maintained the topic chosen for the first term (things we are good at, and things we are not good at), but only partly, because they also introduced the circus topic. These are the things I most liked about the lesson:

• They had three corners in the classroom, and each corner had a different activity lead by each of them. Therefore, children were doing different things at the same time. This is a very interesting idea.
• Our classmates introduced a drawing activity to synthesise and express what had been learned during the lesson. This is a very good idea too: having a final activity that will round up what has been learned, and using means other than writing to summarise. For the younger students, drawings offer a great support to later on explain ideas with words, because the rest of students have a visual source of information which complements what is often hard for the student to express orally.
• Students were encouraged to interact with the audience, thus multiplying the opportunities to receive input during the lesson, and to produce. That was a very good idea.
• Those students who had finished drawing started to rehearse for the show, while the rest were given time to finish drawing. Having an activity for those who finish early is also a very good idea.
• They had a formal ending for the lesson, with the show they put up for the audience.
• The topic, a circus show, is very attractive and rich. It offers opportunities to design an awful lot of activities around it.

These are the things that could be improved or I would bear in mind for the future:

• Having no name stickers for children was a pity, because it didn't allow to personalise the lesson and diminished the interaction among teachers and students.
• Acting agitated at the beginning of the lesson caused the message not to be understood, especially because it had to be inferred by the part of the telephone conversation we could hear. As a result, students didn't understand the purpose of the activities they were about to do during the lesson. I would chose another way to explain the problem in a simpler manner.
• Students changed activities with no time warning, and too quickly. The result would have been just as good if they had remained in one activity all the time, because they would have spent more time on it and in the final show they would have been more eager to see what the other groups had been doing.
• It would have been a good idea to have a song for the rope jumping activity. That would have also helped get the right rhythm, as it was a bit too fast for children.
• Asking students to repeat parts of a sentence they don't understand, like they did in the final show, doesn't help them much. The teachers could have acted as master of ceremonies, and it would have been just fine.
• The lesson had too many focal points; it would have been better to concentrate only on the topic of what we are good at and what we are not that good at, or on the circus, but trying to go for both was to much.
• The amount of activities seemed excessive; students had too many stimuli, and they had difficulty choosing where to focus their attention. Some of the activities could have been saved for further lessons, and it would have been fine too.
• One of the students was left standing for some moments, waiting to perform her hula-hooping, which created a bit of an awkward moment. This proves that it is difficult to distribute duties when several teachers are conducting the lesson, but it usually seems like a bigger deal to adults than it does to children.

The last lesson of the week was prepared by four other classmates. They didn't repeat the topic of the first term exactly, but it was linked to food and based on manipulation all the same, so the essential idea remained. This is was I most liked about their lesson:

• They had a solid structure for the lesson: a warmer to review parts of the body, another warmer to review names of fruit, and an main activity where the vocabulary reviewed would be used. All that in a very creative framework.
• They had both calm and lively activities, with a lot of changes in the rhythm during the lesson.
• The main activity was very creative and manipulative: making a face with pieces of fruit.
• Students were distributed in four tables, standing, with the help of one teacher per table, and doing the main activity in groups of 2-3. It seemed like a very good grouping to me, because making only one face in a group of 4-6 would have been too crowded.
• They had planned to show the result of the activity to each other, so each small group would explain how they did their face, following the model given by the teacher ("a kiwi for the eyes"). They also asked questions letting students fill in the gap ("what did you use for the ...?", pointing to the nose).
• Part of the content was probably known by the students, such as the names of parts of the body and some fruits. That helped students feel confident, as the lesson built up on what they already knew. Introducing some things they already know, and some which are new is very important.
• They had a song with parts of the body to end the lesson, which was very appropriate.
• Getting to eat what they had built was great.
• Students were encouraged to interact with the audience, offering fruit.

The things I think could be improved, or I would take into account in the future are these:

• It was difficult to calm students down after the two initial games, which were increasingly exciting. It is ok, but it just needs to be taken into account.
• It would have been good to review the names of fruits before beginning the second game, because students only used the names of the fruits they already knew. Also, it would be better to play that game on the floor, instead of sitting on chairs, as students get very excited and can hurt themselves.
• It could have been nice to show a model of the face made up with fruit. As a model made with the exact fruits they were given would most probably caused all of them to copy it, another kind of model could have been offered, in order to promote challenging solutions, such as any work by Arcimboldo:

• It was difficult to show the face done to the rest of the class, because if the plates were tilted, the fruits slid. If there were several lessons on the topic, the teacher could take pictures of the faces, put them all up, and then have students presenting them.
• Students didn't pay attention to the presentations of other students. Maybe each group could have created a different part of the body, to introduce an information gap. Alternatively, all students could have been asked to leave their plates on a table, sit down on the floor in a circle, and then have each group present their work.
• Not all groups had the chance to present their work. Maybe the lesson could have had only one warmer, and use the main activity to introduce and review the rest of vocabulary, so there would have been more time for presentations.
• Towards the end of the lesson, teachers introduced a new topic (the number of pieces of fruit we are meant to eat everyday). Students didn't understand the question, as it wasn't related to what they had been doing during the lesson. It would have been better to leave it for another lesson, as the lesson itself was already great.
• Some of the teachers didn't know the final song, which could have easily been prevented with rehearsing.

Communicative language teaching: gain and loss along the way

One of our teachers is ill and we have had no lessons today. As a result, I finished work earlier than when I go to university, and could take time to watch the whole video on communicative language teaching that I bring here. Our teacher used a section for our exam last term, and she provided us with the link, so we could watch the whole talk by Jeremy Harmer and Scott Thornbury.

I have enjoyed it a lot, starting with the format, where each of them interviewed the other for half an hour. Both have similar backgrounds regarding their early training in ELT, based on the audiolingual method, with lots of drilling and repetition, which they loved at the beginning, because of the sense of control it gave them. Then, they both shifted towards the communicative approach, as it developed. As a matter of fact, they took part in its development. After some time of being into the strong version of communicative language, Jeremy Harmer explains that he now doesn't see himself so much into it, whereas Scott Thornbury has maintained his view close to it.

I will just point out the bits I have underlined in the notes I have taken while I watched them talk, as being the things that have struck me most, or the ones that especially clarified aspects we have learned about during this academic year:

• The idea that if you manage to give students a good task, language learning will take care of itself, linked with the deep end strategy (throw your students into the pool to teach them how to swim). Doing things with the language, using it, solving problems in it; that's what will make you a successful language learner. Those are basic ingredients of the communicative approach, and they sound great. The hard bit is coming up with the right task, and that's what we have been practising this year.
• One of the main problems or risks nowadays is that every teacher believes they are doing communicative language teaching, because the communicative approach became such a wide concept that it seemed to accomodate almost anything. Many don't really know what the communicative approach is.
• A communicative activity has six main features, as Harmer argued in the early eighties: communicative purpose, desire to communicate, focus on content (not form), use of a variety of language (no focus on a particular grammatical structure), little or no teacher intervention and little materials control.
• The weak version of communicative learning is about learning a language in order to use it (there is some learning involved), and the strong version is about using a language in order to learn it. The strong version links with Krashen's view that you don't learn a language; you acquire it.
• According to Thornbury, the most motivating elements for students are actually the people in the classroom, and the best source of information gap is among them. Therefore, you should concentrate your efforts on creating opportunities to communicate in the classroom.
• Instead of providing your students with language structures and vocabulary prior to communicative tasks such as role playing and discussion, you can start the other way around, and provide instruction as students actually ask for it. This would be reactive teaching (instruction), as opposed to the preemptive teaching of the traditional approach.
• Thornbury's teaching unplugged would be a reaction against too much technology and materials; somehow going back to basics, to conversations among people.
• One of the good things that the communicative approach brought was the view on mistakes as something good in the learning process.
• TTT is important too, as it provides exposure to good input.

Finally, it is interesting to note that Scott Thornbury has a very interesting blog. For example, this is his view on the definition of a communicative activity, which goes beyond what Harmer proposed some decades ago.

In summary, I have spent a great afternoon-evening. Regarding my view on what they discussed, I guess that at the end of the day whatever works is ok, if I may use Woody Allen's film title. And whatever works will be different for each of us, and even for oneself in different contexts or moments in life.

We begin with our real lessons

The most outstanding news this past week was the beginning of our lessons with real children coming to university. We have been working in small groups all year long, and during the last term we have the opportunity to put together a lesson for a group of children.

Our group was first. We enjoyed a 35 minute lesson with a group of 12 children in the first grade of Primary. In our first term, we had designed a lesson and performed it in front of our classmates and teachers, with some of us university students acting as children (at least, trying to). We were given the chance to either adapt and improve that proposal for this lesson with rela children, or think of a new lesson from scratch. Our group went for the second choice, because our first lesson was based on an idea of an exchange project with a foreign school, and we couldn't adapt it.

We also devoted some time to collectively create a kind of a rubric to prepare and assess our lessons. That was a very interesting idea. Other years, when we have performed lessons in front of our teachers and classmates, we have used assessment rubrics given to us by our teachers, so we could assess the work of our classmates. Even part of our mark came from the assessment of our classmates. Developing the rubric ourselves is an even better way to get involved in assessment, and I think that it would have been nice to round up the work we did this week producing a proper rubric. We almost finished it, but maybe some of us will see it just as a set of criteria or guidelines to take into account at the time of designing the lesson, and not as a tool for assessment.

Furthermore, thinking of part of the reading I have done for my undergraduate dissertation, it would have been a good idea to combine our ideas with observation tools that have been developed and are widely used, like the COLT. I know we have a very tight schedule, and our teachers must leave out many things they feel are important, but it would have been good to reflect a bit on tools to observe our lessons, because that could have a great impact on our future career.

Coming back to our lesson, we were very pleased with the way things developed. We were a bit tight when it came to preparing it, and we had to start with part of the work when we were still in our school placement, but we were lucky to receive help from other classmates when it came to creating the English version of the story, so we had time to rehearse and plan well. We also checked beforehand that we had followed the criteria we had outlined during the week collectively. In my opinion, these are the main strengths of our proposal for the lesson:

• It was a good example of the importance of grading the task, and not the text. We had a difficult-ish story, in the sense that we knew children wouldn't understand all that was said on the first time they would watch it, but the task itself was achievable. Besides, we had prepared questions of a varying degree of difficulty, so we could adapt the challenges to the group. Still, during the lesson we didn't need to use our "easiest" questions.
• It had a balanced combination of quieter and more dynamic activities; enough to give it a structure and a securing sense of "order", but not static enough to be boring and uncomfortable, especially for those students who need movement.
• The activities we planned were coherent with the contents we wanted to work on. The story was about multiple intelligences and cooperative learning, and we proposed some challenges to solve cooperatively in order to achieve a common goal for the whole class. Besides, in the end, we asked them to teach us a song, as an example of what the story means when it says that "we all have something to learn from our friends, and something to teach them".
• Students had an encouraging beginning, in the sense that they felt competent. We started naming animals, and they knew most of them, so we provided a welcoming start.
• We thought of students' goals, and not just the teacher's goals. The activities had a purpose for them, and not only for us. As a matter of fact, we didn't pay much attention to specific teaching objectives while we were designing the activities. We mostly thought from the students' point of view, and the main concern from the teaching point of view was not to try to be too ambitious in the amount of new structures, or vocabulary; trying to keep it simple.
• We modelled clearly the key structure that was introduced in the lesson (to be good at something), so children would understand its meaning, but we didn't try to make them understand everything that would be said, leaving plenty of space for inference.
• We also tried to activate prior knowledge and introduce the story in a short discussion with the whole group before watching the cartoon with the story, in order to improve its understanding.
• We designed the lesson in a way that would promote participation by all of them, because we had some activities in the large group, but the game was done in pairs, and all children had their opportunity to be in the focus of attention. At the same time, doing the game in pairs provided some shelter and support to the shyest students, in order to promote their participation. We also tried to encourage participation by splitting between the two of us who conducted the lesson the dual role of the teacher as helper and supporter, on the one hand, and as the one who always pushes you a but further in your learning, in the other hand.
• We provided for opportunities to produce output during the lesson, in the large group, in pairs and in small groups.
• We used rhymes and songs, as well as the mystery factor of the pockets in the skirt, to attract and maintain attention and increase interest.
• Finally, we used animals in a different and richer context than what they are usually used in school.

Then came the lesson of another three of our classmates with the same group of children, after a break. Our classmates prepared a lesson about emotions, namely happiness, anger and sadness. The beginning of the lesson was very good; they introduced the three emotions very clearly, and asked children to choose the one they related to at that moment. 

They performed a very nice story with the whole group, in a very dynamic way, with teachers saying sentences and children repeating. I don't know why, but I am always a bit wary of activities that sound too audiolingual, but the truth is children really loved it and repeated all that was said with no hesitation. 

Then, they did a game in three groups. I liked very much the idea of taking advantage of the three teachers and having group work going on simultaneously; that way all children were engaged in an activity at the same time. It was good to see an alternative proposal to the one we chose in that sense. The group work ended with each performing a situation, so the rest would guess the emotion. Maybe it was a bit too ambitious to improvise a dramatisation in such a short time, but children enjoyed it.

Finally, the lesson ended with a dancing activity, where there were parts of songs which evoked one of the emotions.

When it comes to suggestions for improvement, I would point out these:

• Considering a different choice of colours for the emotion stickers. We tend to associate green with good and red with danger, and I don't think it is a good idea to use colours which suggest that we should be happy at all times. In English, linking sadness with blue could be an idea, so one could introduce the idea of feeling blue, for example.
• The flashcard used as visual support on the shop being closed could have been more clear, showing a shop door with the sign on it, instead of just the word.
• It could have been a god idea to have a formal ending for the lesson. Finishing with the dance gave a feeling of strange ending, but maybe it is just a matter of getting used to it.