EL LUGAR DEL HALLAZGO

ET1: Excellent. Yeah. So Simple Past is a suggestion, Past Perfect is a suggestion…

As it is noticed in (1), the teacher draws students’ attention to the fact that the content but also the grammatical structure as well are significant in the talk they are going to prepare. She explains what she means by setting a situation and seeks for an answer from the students about the tense they would use in such a situation (2). A student answers correctly and the teacher finds the opportunity to revise the time structures which she writes on the board. She asks the students’ participation again trying to elicit types of past tenses (3). When a student suggests a tense, she asks for an example and then she helps him complete his thought by setting again a situation in which the tense may be used. In that way she gives the opportunity to the student to put the tense in a context and the other students to understand better. Finally, she gives

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feedback and repeats the time structures they have mentioned writing them at the same time on the board.

Observations on video 3_1Wi

English Teacher 1 has planned an activity for the students and in order to make sure they will use the appropriate time structure she involves them in an interaction about what kind of time structure they should use for reference to past events. Her strategy includes modeling, contextualizing through writing on the board to give visual aid to the students and putting the use of past tenses into context to assist their understanding and acquisition, facilitating their participation, giving and asking for examples, summarizing in a list form and. Apart from preparing the students to avoid possible mistakes in the tenses they are going to use in their writing, her goal is to enhance them also from a language point of view. Therefore, the scaffolding that she offers will make students feel confident when they start developing their task.

 Video 5_4Wi

In Extract 20 below English Teacher 1 instructs her students on a task they have been given, to make a presentation:

Extract 20

ET1: And if you have finished that, which should not take too long because you needn’t write down everything, you are going to get this small white card on which you write down your slots, they say, that means that the one item you’re discussing is going to be written down in telegramme style. (4) Because you are going to present it, you are not going to read it aloud. You are going to present your item. Yeah? And there is one help, of course are more helps because the other people at the back, (5) the trainees, are going to help you as well, and Mr. … is going to help you and I am going to help you. So, (6) if you need any assistance there are dictionaries here, and you know these cards we’ve been working with them last year. They give you suggestions of sites and language that you use when you go to a particular place, that is worth seeing or visiting. Right? So that is a help as well.

The students are going to prepare a presentation and the teacher guides them on what material to use and what kind of speech to choose, i.e. of telegraphic style and she explains the reason for this choice (4). She also explains that the students will receive help from more qualified people like the professors and the trainees (5), while at the same time she informs them that they will also get extra help from dictionaries and cards with information on the subject they are going to present whose use they are familiar with, as it seen in (6).

Observations on video 5_4Wi

In video 5_4Wi English Teacher 1 explains the steps the students will have to take and the assistance they will receive in order to complete the activity they have been given. She knows that the students will come up with difficulties either linguistic or cognitive and she has prepared a plan of development for the students’ presentations. The teacher’s scaffolding contains material in a combination of contextual support that each one serves a purpose. Firstly, the students will use the white cards to write down what they are going to say in their presentation, like in a real life situation. Thus, they will produce written language of a certain style, i.e. writing in a note form. Afterwards the students will use cards whose function they already know and which contain information and appropriate to the situation language. This means they will have more practice on the foreign language and they will acquire content knowledge as well. The dictionaries, an important tool in foreign language learning, will be helpful for unknown words, so the students will learn new vocabulary and will practise on how to search words in a dictionary. Finally, they will be helped by more qualified people who will monitor their work and this will give them confidence and will involve them in interaction with the trainees or the professors. This will consist part of their socialization in the classroom environment. The techniques applied here from English Teacher 1 are modelling, in particular guiding students with strategies and offering content and language information to help students work independently, contextualizing (white cards, dictionary, cards with information), and monitoring from more qualified people for support.