INSTITUTO SUPERIOR DE FORMACION DOCENTE

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Observation task 6: GIVING INSTRUCTIONS

Observation task: Giving instructions Report: Before the beginning of the lesson, we could have a look at the lesson plan in order to consider where to expect instructions to be given and we took notes that you can see in the chart included in this report. The topic for the lesson was Weather and monsters. In general, the class showed a kind atmosphere and students had a good predisposition to learn, paid attention to the teacher, followed her instructions and worked. The lesson started with a warm up to recycle vocabulary from The body . After this short revision, the teacher started with the presentation of the new topic and showed two figures, one of a small mouth and another of big one, to introduce these new lexical items. She clarified meaning and then gave the instructions to start with the practice. The following chart shows the instructions expected for us to be given and the ones that were given effectively. We also added information about repetition and visual support used by the teacher in the Comments column. We used T to refer to the teacher and Sts to the students.

PREDICTED INSTRUCTIONS Open your books please

SCRIPTED INSTRUCTIONS COMMENTS Open your books, yes? Page T repeated twice, showed the 70 opened book and pointed the number of the page Look at the crocodile in the Look at the activity, look at the T approached the benches book crocodile, is big or small? pointing at the picture and repeating the instruction individually --Los que terminaron copian lo T pointed to the board. del pizarrn, yes? Please look at page 72 Now open your book on page T showed the book opened at 72 and look at the title page 72 Lets listen and read So now listen, listen and read T repeated doing gestures yes? --Now open your folders yes? T pointed to the title written

Put the title Now open your books again Come on open your books Now look at the questions and Look at the questions answer Complete Completamos? ---

on the board T repeated showing the book Sts complaint T pointed to the activity

These instructions were taken from the first module of a two-module lesson. Analyzing the chart, we realize that although the predicted instructions were similar to those that occurred during the lesson, the teacher gave more detailed instructions, occasionally she translated them and also supported the clarification of meaning with a lot of gestures and repetition. Besides, she asked many times yes? in order to check understanding. Looking over the collected information, we notice that the teacher used clear, direct and simple instructions using the imperative form. As both the teacher and the students were non-native speakers, there was no tendency towards foreigner talk to modify language. We think that in general the teacher chose the correct instructions according the level of knowledge of the students and selected the right words too. Perhaps the instructions were a little confusing when she asked the students to open their books and folders in several occasions in a short period of time instead of working on one of them first and then on the other one. In order to make instruction-giving more effective, we consider that it is very important to make the pauses correctly so that the message is clearly understood and it is also important that there should be some minutes left between the instruction and its repetition so as to see if the students have understood the instruction correctly or not. Another feature of great significance while giving instructions is the use of the voice. Instructions should be given in a clear and comprehensive voice; otherwise, the students could understand different things. It is also essential to give instructions from a place where everybody can hear and also as we repeat them, move from the original place to the other point of the classroom so that students from that point can hear better. As we have seen in this observation, it is also very important the use of eye contact as well as the use of visual support in order to clarify any doubt that can occur. According to the paradigm for instruction presented in the observation task guide, we think that it is important to state briefly the overall of the task so that the students know what they are going to do and in consequence they will know in which point(s) they will have to focus on mainly. In what concerns with the order between instructions and the organization of the groups, we think that first the instructions should be given and then the groups and seating should be organized. Otherwise, the children could start talking one another and they wont pay attention to the instructions and in consequence wont know what to do.

We particularly think that instructions should be giving one at a time and once the students have finished with the previous task. On the contrary, they could get confused with the instructions or mix up all the tasks and activities. As we had predicted, the teacher called the students attention first. Once she had caught the students attention, she explained the task and after that, she gave the students time to complete it. Once they had finished with it, she gave the next activity. Every time she gave the activity, she repeated the instruction and helped herself with visual support to clarify any doubt that may occur. In this particular lesson, there was no organization of the groups, as the tasks were carried out individually. Although scripted instructions may sometimes seem dictatorial, it is the easiest way for the students to understand. Because as Gower and Walters say, when we try to give instructions in a more polite way we end up giving instructions using a more complicated language, and so, students do not understand correctly what we mean. So we may say that when we try to be more polite in giving instructions, it could cause a negative effect as the learners dont get the message clearly. Instructions should be given in a clear and simplify language so that the students can understand them. But according to what Krashen says, the learner should be exposed to an input that is just a level beyond their current level of competence in the language. In this sense, there will be no difficulty for the students to understand instructions in a higher level. Nevertheless, we dont know exactly if the students are able to understand a higher level, as the only input that students receive in that one of the English lessons. So we would advise to give instructions in the current level of the students, in order to avoid any misunderstanding. CONCLUSION: To sum up, we could say, that through this observation and its corresponding analysis, we became more aware the importance of the use of visual support while giving instructions to help students to understand better, as well as the repetition of the instruction using the same words and rephrasing them. And in case that this was not effective, we can always ask the students to explain themselves what the task consists in. We also became aware that if we try to be more polite while giving instruction we use a much more complex language and in consequence the instructions wont be as clear to understand as they should be. Nevertheless we can use words like please or using request, such as would you open your book on page 15?, in order to be more polite and so we dont sound too much dictatorial.