Our monitor Karenn Cardoso writes about her experiences in class (peer teaching)

Peer teaching


Junior A – teacher Mary

Karenn da Silva Cardoso

On May 2th, I participated in an activity called “peer teaching” that consisted on collaboration in another teacher’s class. I was responsible for only one activity which was a game called “adding chain”. This was a memory game, and the students were supposed to add their favourite colour to my previous sentence: “My fovourite colour is green”, than one student would repeat and complete: “My favourite colour is green and yellow”, because the intention was their understanding of the addition concept, and the production of the conjunction “and”. The class was composed of 10 students, aged 9-11 years old. And the activity lasted about 10 minutes.

During the presentation of the activity, I could give the instructions clearly; at least most of the students could understand and help their friends. The game was conducted well; the students could produce as expected (in general) and have fun at the same time. But I needed some help while constructing my instructions. Most of the corrections could also be conducted well and when necessary. Regarding class management such as class control, I didn’t have many problems. In a whole, the activity was well developed and nothing got out of my control.

It is important to notice that it was a game activity, a really important tool used in EFL classroom. Games can provide effective learning if well conducted, especially with children with this age. They really felt challenged and easily accepted it. In accordance with the Learning Factory material: “Anyone who has had the opportunity to play games with a group of 9/10 year-olds can testify that fairness is a major concern to children and any signal that rules are being broken causes deep distress”

One of my biggest challenges was dealing with children, because it was my first experience, and I was a little bit nervous. However, I didn’t have so many problems as I expected. Something that really caught my attention was how teacher Mary managed the class. Students were constantly motivated by a game (“sticker game”) the teacher started in the beginning of the class, and continued until the end of the same. They already knew all the rules by heart (Don’t speak Portuguese, Sit down, and Help your friend), and all of them tried to follow these rules. And it could be also what motivated them to respect my presence and accept to participate in the activity. Another thing I could observe was the use of classical music during the moment they were doing an exercise, I thought it was very interesting. Therefore, it was a very good experience, and very valuable to add to my role as a monitor.