Cases

Rosa wants to help her students improve their speaking skills through a round table discussion. She tells her students to use the following expressions:

What are your views on … ?

Do you (dis)approve of … ?

Can you give me your thoughts on … ?

Which of the following language functions corresponds to the expressions Paulina wants her

students to use?

• Drawing conclusions.

• Settling an argument.

• Asking for an opinion.

Cesar wants his students to make a timeline of a story they just read. Before the students make the timeline, he asks them to form groups and discuss the following questions:

• What is a timeline?

• What kind of information is usually included in a timeline?

• Have you ever made a timeline? What for?

What is Cesar’s main purpose when asking the questions above?

• Promote autonomous learning among the students.

• Motivate students’ participation in the activity.

• Activate the students’ prior knowledge.

Isabel’s students are writing an essay. Now, they are making sure that the sentences and

paragraphs they wrote are well written considering grammar, spelling, punctuation mistakes.

Taking into account the actions the students are carrying out, in which stage of the writing

process are they?

• Editing

• Revising

• Proofreading

Gerardo’s students are going to give an oral presentation on “The importance of eating

healthy food.” He has made a checklist to assess his students’ performance. Here is some of

the criteria included in the checklist:

Criterion 1: Speaks using appropriate words that are related to the topic.

• Criterion 2: Speaks fluently with only occasional repetition or self-correction.

• Criterion 3: Speaks using correct sentences mostly, but some of them still contain mistakes.

Which of the criteria mentioned above is appropriate to assess lexical resources and accuaracy?

• Criterion 1 and 2

• Criterion 1 and 3

• Criterion 2 and 3

Paola’s students have just listened to an audio of two friends talking on the phone. Paola gives the students a worksheet that contains six sentences and a little box next to each sentence. She tells the students to listen to the audio again and tick the box only if the sentence was mentioned in the audio.

Which listening skill is Paola trying to reinforce through this activity?

• Listening for gist.

• Listening for details.

• Deducing meaning from context.

Now Paola’s students are going to listen to an audio again. There are a list of phrases they need to match with their close definition. These meanings are going to be according to the audio.

Which listening skill is Paola trying to reinforce through this activity?

• Listening for gist.

• Listening for details.

• Deducing meaning from context.

Aurelio wants to help his students improve their speaking skills through a functional activity. Taking his purpose into account, which of the following activities is it appropriate to carryout?

• The teacher pairs up the students. Each student are going to take a role of a dialogue already presented, change some personal information and use gestures to communicate better.

• The teacher pairs up the students and asks them to perform a dialogue between two

  friends: Friend A invites friend B. And friend B accept or declines the invitation. Then the teacher asks the students to exchange roles for

  further practice.

• The teacher pairs up the students and assigns each of them a topic. He asks the students

  to take turns to talk about the topic they were assigned for at least one minute. While

  one student talks, the other pays attention and asks further questions. Then they switch

  roles.

Angela wants to help his students reinforce their reading skills through jigsaw reading. He has

designed the following session:

First, the teacher divides the class into groups of four.

• Next, the teacher gives all the groups the same text split into four paragraphs. He

makes sure that in each group, each student gets one different paragraph.

Given Angela’s purpose of using jigsaw reading, which of the following activities is it appropriate

to carry out next?

• The students read the paragraph they got and write down important information in their notebooks. Teacher picks up all the paragraphs and calls on some volunteers.

• The students read the paragraph they got and write down important information in their notebooks. The students form new groups of four with classmates that have read the same paragraph. Using their notes, the students exchange the information found in the paragraph and add new and relevant information if necessary.They return to their original group.

• The students read the paragraph they got and write down important information in their notebooks.The students share the information they wrote in their notebooks. The other

  members listen and ask questions in case they have some doubts.

Flor’s students are describing people's physical appearance for the first time. The teacher asks the following question:

“What is your father’s like?” Marcia, one of the students, gives the following answer: “Your father’s is tall.” Noticing Marciaʼs mistake, Flor wants to correct her on the spot so that she can become aware of her mistake and correct it herself

• It is OK to correct inmediately, if it is new language for them. So he can stressed "My"...Is "My" father tall? and using some gestures so the student can get the meaning.

• It's not Ok to correct on the spot. The teacher can wait to the end of the activity and ak for the right answer.

• The teacher goes to the board inmediatly and elicits the chart of possessive adjectives. Students repeats chorally and help correct their friend's mistake. It is necessary to correct right away.

During the discussion, most of the students came to the conclusion that Mario has a really heavy schedule. As a follow-up activity, Stefano wants his students to develop their writing skills through a persuasive piece of writing. Which of the following writing tasks is appropriate to achieve Stefano’s purpose?

• The students write a diary entry as if they were Mario. They choose a school day and

  describe all the activities he does during that day. They also mention how stressed and

  tired Mario feels at the end of that day.

• The students write a list of suggestions as if they were Mario’s psychologist. They suggest

  Mario different ways to overcome stress. They recommend relaxation techniques and

  simple exercises for him to practice every day.

• The students write a letter to the college director as if they were Mario´s classmates.

  They ask the director to adjust the schedule so that they can have more breaks a day.

  They give reasons to support their request.