Monitoring your class

What is monitoring?

Monitoring is the term given to the set of activities the teacher does to keep track of how students are performing. It plays an integral part in facilitating the decisions you make and the feedback you give students.

What does it look like?

You will often see teachers walking around the class, watching and listening to the pairs of students or groups as they work on a task. They might be with groups for a period of time and might intervene if or when it’s appropriate.

When should you monitor?

All the time! Monitoring often takes place while the class is taking part in written exercises or group activities. Monitoring may be general or multipurpose, focusing on one or more.

What is the purpose of monitoring?

Quite simply monitoring offers you the opportunity to assess how your students are doing and to look at the individuals rather than the class as a whole. It provides you with an indication of what to re-teach or practice further.

Monitoring helps:

• Teachers to be careful not to teach to the lesson plan but rather to be aware of how the students are getting on and the need to change plans if required.
• If teachers are listening to ensure that the students are on task they can hear if some re-instruction, modelling of the activity, or prompting may be required.
• Some activities work better with one class than another, others are being tried out for the first time. Monitoring offers the teacher the opportunity to assess the success of an activity and to get feedback from the learners.
• With decision-making in terms of what to do next, whether to modify the original lesson plan, planning future lessons, and giving feedback to students on their performance.