Separate tables: Even circles and horseshoes seem rather formal compared to classes where students are seated in small groups at individual tables.In such classrooms, you might see the teacher walking around checking the students' work and helping out if they are having difficulties-prompting the students at this table, or explaining something to the students at the table in the corner.
When students sit in small groups at individual tables, the atmosphere in the class in much less hierarchical than in other arrangements.It is much easier for the teacher to work at one table while the others get on with their own work.It feel less like teacher n and more like responsible adults getting on with the business of learning.
However,this arrangement is not without its own problems.In the first place,students may not always want to be with the same colleagues:indeed, their preferences may change over time. Secondly, it makes whole-class teaching more difficult,since the students are more diffuse and separated.
The any students stays a lot about the style of the teacher or the institution where the lessons take place.Many teachers would like to re-arrange their their classes so that they are not always faced with rows and rows of bored faces.Even where this is physically impossible-in terms of furniture, for example-there are things they can do achieve this as we shall see in the next section.