It is very important to create an English environment in the classroom so that the children feel motivated to speak in English. Therefore, it is even more important for the teacher to speak in English. First of all, because they are role models for the children and secondly because students learn a lot of vocabulary, grammar structures, pronunciation and so on when the teacher speaks. Garnham (2016) explains it in the following words: “Students need to interact with English to learn it. Constant exposure will help students to hone their listening skills and opportunities to speak will aid with fluency and pronunciation. The other clear benefit is that of setting an example.”  This is the reason why I truly believe that my classmate in the co-teaching did an excellent job because she never spoke in Spanish/Catalan. She rephrased when children made mistakes and she made them reflect as to why they were wrong. She also corrected pronunciation and when children talked to her in Spanish, she always asked them to say it in English, in an encouraging way. Thus, children were making an effort. Later, when the students had finished, she gave a positive feedback whether they were right or wrong, which also motivated them to try again when the opportunity arose.

 

If I had to make a suggestion, I would say that if you ask a student to repeatedly speak in English without giving other incentives like trying to explain with gestures, mixing Catalan/Spanish with English the child might become frustrated and give up trying.

 

Moreover, when she explained something, she always asked them to repeat in order to see whether they have understood everything. This is a very good technique as the website ESL base(2018)  says. In addition, when we read, she paid special attention to the most difficult vocabulary and left the children to guess the meaning of the word. This way she proved to them that they were able to understand the text without help.  Another of her very good points was that she controlled who was participating in the conversations and then knew exactly who had not participated so she was able to ask them.

 

Later on, when groups were working together, she was very proactive. She went from group to group asking them how everything was going, making sure that they understood what they had to do and dealing with the problems that arose. To make it more attractive and enjoyable for students, maybe they could be the ones to choose the next person to speak, thereby getting their attention and allowing them all to participate.

Talking now as a colleague, she is always very open and flexible when decisions have to be made. She has a lot of ideas when creating materials. She is very original and good at designing visual scaffoldings. Finally, her English is excellent but it is a double-edged sword because as she has a very high level, she should try to use less complicated language expressions and vocabulary.

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WEBGRAPHY

ESLbase. (2018). Teaching techniques – checking understanding. Retrieved from

https://www.oxfordseminars.com/blog/teach-esl-english-only-classroom/

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Garnham, Robin. (2016). How do I teach ESL without speaking the students’ language? Retrieved from https://www.eslbase.com/tefl-a-z/checking-understanding