Janet started her lesson with the same introductory test for all grades, consisting of sixty questions. She counted the minutes and stopped when she reached her estimated three minutes. Learners exchanged test papers with their neighbours for marking purposes. Janet read the answers to them. Upon completing the memorandum and the marking, Janet read out their names so that learners could call out their marks. She kept on analysing the learners’ results of the introductory tests. By doing so, Janet motivated and praised individual learners and reminded them to work hard. She then asked them to paste the papers in their books.
The lesson continued with her distributing the grade specific worksheets to the learners. She then asked both grades if they had finished the marking from the previous day. Janet informed her learners about the topic they were going to discuss: Decimal Fractions. She went on by telling the Grade fives that they are doing revision, and explaining to the Grade sixes that they would do multiplication and division of Decimal Numbers, but reminded them on how to start by making open number sentences.
Janet worked with the Grade fives, solving the problems on the worksheet, which was about writing the decimals in expanded notation. The question and answer method was used, but combined with the lecturing method. She also wrote the answers on the whiteboard she used for Grade fives.
Leaving the Grade fives to continue with the exercise, Janet moved to the Grade sixes where she read through the activities and assisted learners to analyse the given word problems through drawing pictures. They did the activity step by step and tried to contextualize the content where possible.
The Grade sixes continued with their calculations while the teacher shifted to Grade five. She checked their answers and corrected the wrong ones by giving hints like “The man is too heavy for the donkey”, to explain improper fractions. She also corrected their pronunciation. The lesson continued with her asking learners to give the place values of decimal numbers, trying to develop expanded notation. She also informed them about another forms of writing decimal fractions - “the tenths, hundredths and thousandths.
Leaving the Grade fives completing the exercise, Janet went to check how the Grade sixes were doing. She reminded them to put commas in the right places. She went back to Grade five to check their individual work and sent a learner outside to wash his hands that were dirty due to a leaking pen. She assisted learners in doing their work and emphasized the way they should write answers, in order to avoid learners picking up mistakes from their peers.
She moved to Grade six to check their progress and then back to Grade five to check their individual work. The assistance was given by standing behind learners, and ask them questions which led to the answers. This was also done for the Grade sixes who indicated the need for assistance, but more time was spent in assisting the Grade five learners. Janet continued lecturing the Grade fives on how to write certain decimals in expanded notation. She also gave them chance to present their solutions on the white board.
While doing this, Janet went to the Grade sixes for few seconds. She came back to Grade five to check their answers and motivated one learner to explain how he solved the problem while writing on the board. She also assisted in correcting the spelling of numbers. Learners were free to ask questions, but in Afrikaans.
Janet came back to Grade six and assisted them in making sense of word problems. She also reminded learners to use units when writing open number sentences. Leaving the Grade sixes doing their exercise, she went back to Grade five to check individual work and ask them questions which led to answers. Those finished with the activity started playing and chatting due to the lack of enrichment activities. The Grade sixes went to ask for assistance. This prompted her to give them papers to draw pictures which would help them to solve the problems at hand.
Leaving the Grade sixes completing the task, Janet went back to Grade five to complete the marking. She wrote the answers on the board. She told these learners to prepare for the test and informed them that they were free from homework. The teacher continued with the Grade sixes, helping them to complete the exercise by drawing
pictures to analyse the questions. The lesson was concluded through emphasising the conversion of units and checking if all learners had done their work.
The lesson took fifty-eight minutes and most of the interaction with different grades took almost six minutes. The checking of learners’ class work took a few seconds and more time was spent with the Grade five learners.
Figure 7: A map Janet's lesson presentation
Grade 6:
Quick checking of work
Grade 5: Checking on
individual who appeared to remain behind
Grade 5: Checking answer on
the board and introduce the writing of decimals from expanded notation
Grade 5: Going through exercise and writing answers and concluding the lesson
Grade 6: Alerting learners
on division of decimal by whole number
Grade 5 and 6: Testing,
marking and recording of marks
Grade 5 and 6: Moving from learner to another without considering the grade
Grade 6: Introducing the
problem solving skills
Grade 5: Revision
Grade 6:
Reminding them on
properties of a square
Grade 6:
Quick check of their progress
Grade 5: Checking answers and
presenting of numbers in expanded notation
Grade 6: Reading and
analysing problems step by step with learners
Grade 6:
Assisting individual learner
Grade 5: Went through revision
with learners and let them write answers on writing board
Grade 5:
Checking answers
Grade 5: Doing the parental
work of telling learners to wash her hands
Grade 5: Whole class teaching
(lecturing) and assisting individual learners
Grade 6: Showing learners how
to find solution of word problem and concluding the lesson
Start
Janet had the same introduction for all the grades when she gave them the test for few minutes. This test focused more on basic calculations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. This activity aimed to develop the learners’ number concept as well as their mental arithmetic strategies. Upon completing the activity, the lesson content was presented differently for each grade although they had the same theme: decimal fractions. She spent almost an equal amount of time for each grade. Janet claimed to assess learners differently, according to the basic competencies of the individual grades.