At first, I was nervous as I knew complying with lesson timing was fundamental and also due to the fact that I would need to readapt my lesson to suit learners’ needs. The class started and I tried to used my class staging as planned by arranging students in small groups with mixed-abilities, which, in the end, would help me a great deal to keep the class alive. I also knew that the Lead-In and Setting the Scene stages were of great importance to accomplish this goal.

Time was passing by and my lesson planning was coping with the situation efficiently. For the Practice 1 and Practice 2 stages, I had mixed-ability students work in pairs to foster their confidence and help each other if needed. Not only did I know more advanced students would be able to clarify any little grammar doubts to their less advanced counterparts, but also pair working would result in a more productive performance during whole class participation.

Everything seemed to be going as planned until we arrived at the Language Focus Stage. That is, explaining the meaning, form, pronunciation, and appropriacy of the target language under timed conditions. As foreseen, most of the elementary and pre-intermediate students started to question grammar rules for clarification. This, in turn, translated into pacing slower throughout the lesson. This part of the lesson was supposed to last 9 minutes, but it took around 14 minutes. I allowed for this to happen because I knew it would be much better to have all students well prepared for the controlled and freer activities that were about to come. Also, I believed that time is not important when students come up with communicative needs.

In the end, students were able to do the controlled practice without much difficulty and they seemed to feel quite confident during the freer activity which was about speaking. Of course, my trainer let me know my lesson took longer than planned but he also recalled the fact that my lesson aim was accomplished.

Differentiation, in a school such as ours with children arriving from all over the world, is crucial for their success. A. What do you understand by the term “differentiation”? B. Give one example of a type of differentiation you have used and the impact it had on your students’ learning. C. How committed are you to differentiate your lessons?
To me, differentiation is the ability to cater to students’ needs by understanding they all come up with different motivation backgrounds and learning styles that will define the way a lesson plan should be designed.
One type of differentiation I have used in the classroom is Students’ Learning Styles. Understanding students’ learning styles will depend on how the teacher monitors individual performance. For example, there might be students with a more kinaesthetic learning style who will feel more confident with physical participation than others will. In the same way, and as I mentioned before, when you are able to let students work together they can benefit from each other by increasing their confidence and self-esteem in the classroom.

As a result, my role as an English teacher will always remind me about the importance of differentiating my lessons in the classroom in order to make students succeed at their learning task, which, in the end, is the ultimate goal in the classroom.

What experience do you have teaching students who speak English as an additional language? How do you ensure they are achieving their maximum potential in the classroom?
Although most of my lessons are designed for school students whose English is or will be used as a foreign language, I have had the opportunity to work with learners who are using it in real-life situations. For example, I had the opportunity to prepare two primary school students in Caracas who were moving to Montevideo to start classes in a bilingual school. In the same fashion, I think it is important to mention that online teaching has allowed me to train young and adult learners from different countries whose communicative needs in the English language are fundamental for