Sam is about to begin a one-year teaching contract at an English academy in Shenzhen, China. As part of his training, he will be shadowing the teacher he will be replacing. Michael has taught at the school for the past two years, so he will share his experience and advice with Sam. Over the next three days, Sam is expected to observe Michael as he goes about teaching his classes. Due to work visa regulations and the limited time available for overlapping contracts, Sam will be going through an accelerated transition from observer to teacher. After the first day of observation, Sam will teach a few lessons on the second day under the guidance of his co-teacher. By the third day, Sam will be expected to teach the majority of each class while the co-teacher will be available for support and post-lesson debriefings. The students at Sam's school all range between 8 and 12 years old, and they all have some prior exposure to English. The absolute beginner students first go through the school's introductory program called "PreE".
Michael's first class of the day is an intermediate grammar class. After introducing Sam to the class, Michael handed out a one page worksheet and proceeded to explain the task. As Michael was going over his explanation, Sam noticed that several of the students had already begun working on it. After Michael was finished giving the detailed instructions, some of the students raised their hands to ask what they were supposed to do with the worksheet. This went on for several minutes as various students had questions or were confused about how to proceed. Sam thought that these interruptions could have been avoided or at least kept to a minimum had Michael used a different approach to introduce the task.
When Sam begins teaching the class himself, which of the following would be the leastappropriate way for him to reduce the number of questions that follow giving instructions for a handout?
a. Sam should summarize the instructions for the activity in point form on the board. This way if students are unsure of how to proceed, they can simply refer to the notes on the board.
b. Sam should have one of the stronger students in the class read the instructions and then translate them into Mandarin for the class. This will help avoid any confusion and misunderstanding stemming from the English instructions.
c. After giving the instructions, Sam should call on one or two students at random and ask them to reiterate the instructions for the activity. If either of these students does not respond correctly, then chances are other students in the class also do not understand what is to be done, and Sam can then repeat the instructions more clearly.
d. Sam should explain what is to be done before handing out the worksheet. This ensures that the students are focused on him and not on trying to get started on the assignment.