Instructions

   In this week entry, I would like to share with you my observations connected with classroom instructions.

  Lessons always begin with taking the register by the teacher. She always asks who is missing. Groups are small, so the teacher knows all children and she never reads all names.

   When it comes to project lessons in class 7, the teacher always speaks in English. At the beginning of the lesson, she explains what they are going to do. When the teacher wants to start activities, she always provides kids with examples and then she makes one with children. After giving instructions, the teacher distributes materials. Next, the teacher asks the children if they know what to do. In that lesson, children usually work in groups or pairs. When the teacher wants to stop the activity, she says that it is enough and asks some pairs to perform their work in front of the class.

   This week I also observed two hours of English lessons in class 4. The teacher always starts the lesson by asking kids to sit on a carpet in a circle. Here she presents them new vocabulary or they play games. The teacher uses a lot of gestures and facial expressions. Thanks to that, it is easier for kids to understand the meaning of new vocabulary. On the second hour of English lesson, children had a test. Before distributing tests to kids, the teacher explained what they need to do. After giving them exams, the teacher demonstrated each exercise separately. When children started writing, some of them had questions. The teacher told them that if someone has a question, he or she needs to come to her and then ask. Throughout the lesson, a lot of children approached her with questions about the exercises from the test. It may mean, that the content of the tasks was not clear for kids.

   The fourth lesson that I saw this week was math lesson in grade four. The lesson started with checking the register and homework. The teacher was choosing kids that needed to answer by saying their names. After this, the teacher explained exercises that children needed to do. They were making them alone in silence. When they finished teacher told them that they need to measure the high of the Christmas tree and its chain. She gave children pictures of that Christmas tree. Unfortunately, they did not finish that activity because the lesson ended and they had a break.
   As you may already know, from my previous posts, in Smart School there are no bells. The teacher always tells kids when is the end of a lesson. Teachers instructions are usually simple but it also depends on the grade. All instructions are in the English language. In this bilingual school children understand almost everything that the teacher says to them thanks to the constant exposure to the language. Our mentor teacher told us that it is even possible to achieve C1 level after 8 grade.

   A different situation may occur in beginners' classes, where children do not understand everything yet. In such situations, with each new instruction, the teacher should use a lot of gestures, facial expressions and pictures so that children can understand what's going on. Unfortunately, I have not seen it yet.

   On my previous studies, I had practice in not bilingual primary school. Between those two schools are big differences. At English lessons, in normal primary school, the teacher often uses a native language, whenever children have problems with understanding teachers' instructions. It is not a good idea because children do not even try to memorize English phrases because they know that the teacher will always translate them. They are not exposed to language like in Smart School. In that bilingual school, when children say something to the teacher in their native language she says that she does not understand. Thanks to this they do not have a choice when it comes to language that they use.

   To sum up, teachers' instructions need to be adjust to the students' level and short, instructions should contain the only necessary information. They should be given before distributing materials and teachers always need to give examples, how to do particular things. Furthermore, before starting activities teachers need to make sure that everyone understands what they need to do.