Tables time was meant to facilitate group interaction as the children worked together in small groups to accomplish assigned tasks. In fact, Sra. Soto originally conceptualized this type of activity as a learning Centers activity. Recall from Chapter 3 that after our visit to the Calvary two-way immersion (TWI) school, she told me that she wanted children to work together on projects in learning Centers. Her original idea was that this collaboration would facilitate conversation, but over time it became apparent that the children tended to work separately on the same task. As the year progressed, this project-based activity came to be known simply as ‘Tables’ and the term ‘Centers’ was reserved for the Housekeeping and Blocks play Centers.

Nevertheless, the children were expected to engage in conversation during Tables time, and they were carefully arranged at the tables in mixed-language groups in the hope that they would speak in Spanish during Spanish time. Unlike in Language Arts, where the children were expected to focus their attention on the teacher, the children were expected to work relatively independently during Tables time. However, this activity was carefully and strictly teacher-designed. The children were expected to focus on a specific task and interact verbally with each other in ways that were guided not directly by the teacher nor independently by the children, but by the common goal of accomplishing the task at hand.

The children were assigned to one of five tables. Either all tables worked on the same project simultaneously or each table was assigned one out of a set of projects that rotated the following day, so that within several days every table had worked on all projects in the set. Tables time actually consisted of two distinct phases, characterized by very different activity structures. In the task-completion phase, the children sat at their assigned tables to complete their projects while Sra. Soto moved among them, helping children who needed assistance.