Students' Preference for Activities and Teacher's Frequency of Use

Choosing what activities to include in a class is not an easy task. Teachers often tend to include activities based on their teaching styles and sometimes students are not included in these decisions. This paper explores the preference students have for classroom activities and the frequency in which teachers include certain classroom activities. Twenty teachers and their 263 students of the language school at the University of Baja California in the border city of Tijuana were included in the study. Students' levels ranged from 1 to 6, being the 6 the equivalent of B1 of the Common European Framework (CFE). Results indicated that teachers frequently use activities that students do not perceive as their preferred ones. Teachers tend to favor speaking and grammar activities while students prefer having listening and grammar activities. Findings also revealed that preference does not vary considerably among levels of proficiency.

Autorentext

Nahum Samperio Sanchez has 26 years experience teaching English. He holds a Master in ELT, and is a candidate for a Ph.D. in ELT with the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom. He is currently a teacher at the Faculty of Languages at the Universidad Autonóma de Baja California (UABC).