Journal 1

Do We All Have a Favourite?

One of the points I tried to pay attention during my practicum was the participation of the students in the lesson. I observed three different classes in three different levels. In all of these classrooms, there were students with differing needs and differing levels of competence. Some of them preferred participating in oral tasks while some others were better in writing activities. However, isn’t it the teacher’s task to ensure the participation of all the students in the lesson?

The question I am asking in this journal is: Do we all have a favourite student? My answer, unfortunately, would be “Yes.” Whether willingly or unwillingly, I believe that we are inclined to have better relationships with the students who participate more in the classes and who make the lesson easier to handle for us. I can observe this in all of the classes I have attended. As the teachers are professional, you normally do not see that they have a preference for a certain student in the classroom as they try to behave equally to all of them. They generally have a good rapport with all the students. However, when you examine the interaction in the classroom closely, it is possible to see that some students have more chances of participation in the classroom than the others. The teachers always have a curriculum to catch up with and they want to finish the subject at hand as soon as possible. As a result, I believe that they feel more comfortable giving the chance to talk to the student they trust. There is a student in every class whom the teacher trusts that he or she will have a correct answer to all the questions. Especially for the challenging grammar subjects, I have observed that these students are generally who have the right to speak. When the teacher feels that there may occur a misunderstanding or confusion when there are wrong answers, s/he consults his/ her most trusted student.

What happens to the other students then? Especially in the lower grades, most students are too shy to confess that they have not understood the subject especially if the correct answers are given by other students. In such cases, the students just keep silent and they keep doing the same mistakes over and over as they are not corrected.

The responsibility is the teacher’s in this case, I think. Every teacher knows the level of his/ her students at least roughly. So, going on to the lesson with the high achievers and leaving the low achievers behind would be a cruel attitude. The teacher should provide equal right to speak for all her students or sometimes s/he should even favor low achieving students for the sake of learning about their difficulties and providing help.