A challenging teaching experience ends in successful learning

 The course is a second year in a secondary state-run school. The class is composed of 30 students who live in low-income neighbourhoods and who are not used to working with textbooks, which in case of need, the pupils must take them from the school library. The English teaching methodology consists of giving strict instructions following a Presentation Practice Production approach, and whenever the coursebook is used, the teacher follows it strictly. Consequently, the pupils' needs and learning styles are not taken into account. In this context, two trainees from a teacher-training college began teaching such group of adolescents. During one of the first lessons, they carried out a task sequence around the topic of vegetables which the teacher in charge had not agreed on since she thought the students lacked the previous knowledge to focus on it. Because of a misunderstanding, the student teachers considered that the topic had already been given in the previous lesson by the teacher. Despite this confusion, the trainees decided to keep on going with the activity. At the start of such task, each student was handed out a card with a word of a vegetable so as to find a peer whose picture card matched their own. Finally, the peers had to stick the cards on the board. To everyone's surprise, the learners solved the task successfully and with enthusiasm. In the subsequent lessons, the pupils felt more eager to participate actively in every task proposed by the trainees.