(cont).......... So, methodology has a role: a classroom method that seems appropriate, relevant and respectful to intelligent individuals is likely to enable the right conditions for ‘fertile learning’.
Language has to be presented in the right modality; for example, learners who identify speaking as their priority are more likely to respond positively to a spoken modality rather than work primarily from books or become passive members of an audience in a lecture style format.
Relevance of content is important of course -- language has to be related to what learners perceive as being useful in practical language-using situations. The course also needs to be accessible and learning has to be manageable.
Approaches diverge on this point, but I believe that structure is something that many learners approve of - the randomness, eccentricities and originality of language are not aspects that should be emphasised in the language classroom, certainly not at most levels (I want to differentiate between ‘language’ course and ‘cultural’ courses which deal with literature or creative writing etc. – combining the two things has caused more harm than good for generations of school students worldwide).
I'm not suggesting that the life be squeezed out of the language, but if the course is well-thought out enough to allow students to be aware that things do connect up and that simple things do lead on to other things (which, in turn, will be more straightforward to learn having grasped the preceding simple things) students will feel empowered - they will feel that they are just about in control of the language that they have so far learnt : it's not some slippery mystery that is constantly beyond their reach.
In this respect the structure of the course should allow constant mini goals -- the chance for students to see success throughout the lesson - as well as setting longer scale milestones which enable students to mark their progress over the months.
Most people need regular reward in order to keep the minute-to-minute motivation that sees them through lessons, but this needs to be balanced with a sense of challenge -- lessons mustn't be dumbed down. The recognition of achieving even small tasks which were unachievable in previous lessons is important – as is acknowledgement of this from the teacher. Constant patting on the back can backfire but giving credit where credit is due will consolidate a sense of self-efficacy when it comes from a respected source.
to be continued ..........
Dec 12, 2012
Nov 29, 2012
Motivation, motivation, motivation, moti......
Motivation -- often we seem to talk about it like a magic spell conjured up for us by an invisible wizard. Motivation is not just a happy coincidence -- there are many contributory elements, some of which the teacher has direct influence over and others which are beyond the teacher's direct control.
Nothing is simple of course – and even if it was, certain types of academics or other authorities would need to intervene to make sure it became complex enough for ‘serious’ discussion. It turns out that, like ‘intelligence’, ‘motivation’ doesn’t really mean what everyone thought it did. It has been dissected up into bits (a quick Google search revealed 8 different motivations to me: "Are you motivated?" - "What type of motivation did you have in mind when you asked?") but like our laboratory frogs in school biology lessons – once dissected, a frog is no longer a frog and the separate bits are only relevant if we understand them as parts of a single whole amphibian. We all know that people can be motivated in different ways and by different incentives but we need to reassemble ‘motivation’ to get back to an idea that we can all usefully understand and address. The rant bit is over now.
When talking about learning English, one of the most common observations is that students arrive with their own baggage of motivation -- they know that English is relevant and useful and is therefore a good thing to learn. Fair enough, all of us teaching in private language schools probably meet motivated adults at the beginning of every course. The trick is to maintain motivation lesson after lesson through months or possibly years -- something which becomes harder in situations where students have little or no exposure to English in real situations, and without opportunities to practise what they have achieved in the classroom they have no tangible evidence of the results.
There are different attitudes both from teachers and from students about how much people should need to enjoy the process of learning. There is a persistent ‘nasty medicine’ brigade -- the approach being, “this tastes horrible but it's good for you”. And there are indeed students who have the kind of mental discipline and single-mindedness to get on with the job regardless of how gruelling it may be. I'm not saying that learning has to be laugh, laugh, laugh all the way along the line, but I do think that the nasty medicine approach will only be successful with a small minority. I think it's certainly true that someone who has enjoyed a lesson is more likely to look forward to the next one, and the experience itself will be satisfying enough to ease the load of effort and concentration.
to be continued ......
Nothing is simple of course – and even if it was, certain types of academics or other authorities would need to intervene to make sure it became complex enough for ‘serious’ discussion. It turns out that, like ‘intelligence’, ‘motivation’ doesn’t really mean what everyone thought it did. It has been dissected up into bits (a quick Google search revealed 8 different motivations to me: "Are you motivated?" - "What type of motivation did you have in mind when you asked?") but like our laboratory frogs in school biology lessons – once dissected, a frog is no longer a frog and the separate bits are only relevant if we understand them as parts of a single whole amphibian. We all know that people can be motivated in different ways and by different incentives but we need to reassemble ‘motivation’ to get back to an idea that we can all usefully understand and address. The rant bit is over now.
When talking about learning English, one of the most common observations is that students arrive with their own baggage of motivation -- they know that English is relevant and useful and is therefore a good thing to learn. Fair enough, all of us teaching in private language schools probably meet motivated adults at the beginning of every course. The trick is to maintain motivation lesson after lesson through months or possibly years -- something which becomes harder in situations where students have little or no exposure to English in real situations, and without opportunities to practise what they have achieved in the classroom they have no tangible evidence of the results.
There are different attitudes both from teachers and from students about how much people should need to enjoy the process of learning. There is a persistent ‘nasty medicine’ brigade -- the approach being, “this tastes horrible but it's good for you”. And there are indeed students who have the kind of mental discipline and single-mindedness to get on with the job regardless of how gruelling it may be. I'm not saying that learning has to be laugh, laugh, laugh all the way along the line, but I do think that the nasty medicine approach will only be successful with a small minority. I think it's certainly true that someone who has enjoyed a lesson is more likely to look forward to the next one, and the experience itself will be satisfying enough to ease the load of effort and concentration.
to be continued ......
Jul 2, 2012
INNOCENT VICTIMS OF LEARNING STYLES?
Innocent victims of learning styles?
Diversity is so much more appealing than uniformity, and uniqueness is so more intuitively attractive than sameness. The monolithic methods that taught on the assumption that ‘languages were languages’ and that ‘brains were brains’, so that success in learning was primarily a question of how much effort you put into it, have largely been long left behind us. The mood of the times changed a generation ago and the individual became the centre of attention. In teaching, the recognition that brains were far more complex and idiosyncratic than the blank slates that we used to have in the old days has brought lots of benefits, many of which we have been able to take advantage of ourselves as students in enlightened school classrooms or universities.
Multiple intelligences, learning styles -- with all this variety, we're bound to find a category we can be slotted into, rather than simply being lumped together with everyone else. But how beneficial is it to be categorised and divided up? To what extent has the focus on these diversities been a distraction from a more essential and panoramic way of viewing learning and learners?
Intelligence lost in meaning
In terms of multiple intelligences, we can keep on adding to the list to suit whatever purpose suits us. A recent article in IATEFL’s Voice’s publication describes how to develop ‘eco-intelligence’, an individual’s awareness of the environment and the threats it faces. Does this mean that a person who is unconvinced by scientific arguments supporting the role of emissions and global warming is ‘eco-unintelligent’ rather than just ‘sceptical’ or ‘stubborn’? The idea of multiple intelligences is valid enough in the way that it can break down artificially narrow barriers and prejudices but I'm not sure if it tells us something that most people didn't already instinctively know. The thing is, of course, that when the word ‘intelligent’ becomes applicable to so many different areas of human activity, it stops meaning anything at all -- the comment that “she is a very intelligent girl” in theory becomes meaningless, except for the fact that most of us will actually know what was meant – ‘intelligent’ in the sense of the pre-multiple intelligence days.
Learning style - the goods or the labels?
Learning styles is an idea that has been so enthusiastically embraced by many teachers that it's become hard to disembrace, to stand back and look at it from a fair distance. When some of the people reading this went to school, we didn't actually have learning styles but we still had ‘good teachers’ and ‘bad teachers’, and I think those good teachers would still be ‘good’ today and, on the whole, the bad teachers would still be ‘bad’. One of the reasons the good teachers were good is probably because they were aware of learning styles: they simply had different ways of describing the attributes, personalities and receptiveness of the students that they taught. What they didn't do was to separate their classes into distinct groups -- they were able to respond deftly enough to different individuals and to accommodate them while being guided by the needs of the group as a whole - and the needs of the curriculum they had to follow.
The fact is that the classroom is one aspect of the real world which involves constant contacts, negotiations, concessions and compromises. As individuals we have to be responsive to our circumstances, aware of our priorities, aware of our strengths and weaknesses in any given situation and to be adaptable. This is true in ‘real life’ as it is in the real classroom - people who are unresponsive, unaware of their circumstances and unadaptable tend to have what we could call unsuccessful lives, and in the classroom they tend to be unsuccessful learners or teachers.
The good teachers throughout history didn't know about learning styles but they did know about people, and could base all their decisions on a more dynamic moment-to-moment and person-to-person flow of information and impressions, rather than on a set of descriptors which would label their students as being in one or another category.
One-sided or well-rounded?
Adaptability is the key, I think. Most human beings, by the time they are young teenagers, have learnt to be adaptable enough and resourceful enough to cope in a range of learning situations, including those which are not presented in their most preferred style. To design a course in order to match the specific preferences of a learner or a category of learners underestimates the mental potential of those learners and can, in reality, be unhelpful. Learning works best when different forms of perception combine and work together rather than in isolation. There is evidence to suggest that people learn better when they are required to make a little more effort and not allowed to operate in their sphere of comfort.
Most language examinations test learners’ abilities, naturally enough, in the different so-called skills. What is the normal or most appropriate thing to do when the student is weaker in one of these skills, say, listening? Do we simply say that because the student is not an aural learner it is unfair that he or she should have to face such an unfair test, or do we work hardest on improving that skill in order to bring it up to level?
Don’t talk to me like that to me– I’m a visual learner
For the vast majority of people learning a language, language will be encountered both in its spoken and written forms and it makes sense that the modality of teaching should ultimately be decided by what needs to be taught, rather than by who it has to be taught to. In other words, if understanding spoken language is important, it is important full stop.
The reason that so many people on foreign language courses regard themselves as being visual learners is that most of their personal experience with that language has been in the written form: it’s simply the most familiar form of language and, naturally enough, the form they feel most comfortable with. There are many people like this on English courses, people who have become ‘visual learners’ for convenience's (and tradition’s) sake. In reality there is more to being a visual learner than needing to see a word written on a blackboard or on a page, but this fits into a conventional understanding of it.
To get back to the point of the primary modality of teaching, SpeakYourMind is a method that favours spoken presentation and practice of language simply because that, for most people, is likely to be their declared priority: “I need to speak but I'm not very good at it”. It makes sense for everyone to address this in a responsible manner and one of the prime objectives of our course is to enable people to learn to trust their own abilities to operate in a modality which they find, or had always found, to be their weakest. If people can’t learn to trust their own abilities to understand and to speak when they are in the classroom, the chances of them succeeding to do so outside the classroom will inevitably be reduced, and the course in which they invested time, effort and money will end up a disappointment.
I am not opposed to learning styles -- I am opposed to creating unnecessarily divided classrooms, to the constant narrowing down of how we teach, and I prefer to look at how we can broaden course design and teaching procedures and teacher awareness in order to accommodate as many individuals as possible, in the attempt to meet their priorities as closely, and as pleasantly, as possible.
Diversity is so much more appealing than uniformity, and uniqueness is so more intuitively attractive than sameness. The monolithic methods that taught on the assumption that ‘languages were languages’ and that ‘brains were brains’, so that success in learning was primarily a question of how much effort you put into it, have largely been long left behind us. The mood of the times changed a generation ago and the individual became the centre of attention. In teaching, the recognition that brains were far more complex and idiosyncratic than the blank slates that we used to have in the old days has brought lots of benefits, many of which we have been able to take advantage of ourselves as students in enlightened school classrooms or universities.
Multiple intelligences, learning styles -- with all this variety, we're bound to find a category we can be slotted into, rather than simply being lumped together with everyone else. But how beneficial is it to be categorised and divided up? To what extent has the focus on these diversities been a distraction from a more essential and panoramic way of viewing learning and learners?
Intelligence lost in meaning
In terms of multiple intelligences, we can keep on adding to the list to suit whatever purpose suits us. A recent article in IATEFL’s Voice’s publication describes how to develop ‘eco-intelligence’, an individual’s awareness of the environment and the threats it faces. Does this mean that a person who is unconvinced by scientific arguments supporting the role of emissions and global warming is ‘eco-unintelligent’ rather than just ‘sceptical’ or ‘stubborn’? The idea of multiple intelligences is valid enough in the way that it can break down artificially narrow barriers and prejudices but I'm not sure if it tells us something that most people didn't already instinctively know. The thing is, of course, that when the word ‘intelligent’ becomes applicable to so many different areas of human activity, it stops meaning anything at all -- the comment that “she is a very intelligent girl” in theory becomes meaningless, except for the fact that most of us will actually know what was meant – ‘intelligent’ in the sense of the pre-multiple intelligence days.
Learning style - the goods or the labels?
Learning styles is an idea that has been so enthusiastically embraced by many teachers that it's become hard to disembrace, to stand back and look at it from a fair distance. When some of the people reading this went to school, we didn't actually have learning styles but we still had ‘good teachers’ and ‘bad teachers’, and I think those good teachers would still be ‘good’ today and, on the whole, the bad teachers would still be ‘bad’. One of the reasons the good teachers were good is probably because they were aware of learning styles: they simply had different ways of describing the attributes, personalities and receptiveness of the students that they taught. What they didn't do was to separate their classes into distinct groups -- they were able to respond deftly enough to different individuals and to accommodate them while being guided by the needs of the group as a whole - and the needs of the curriculum they had to follow.
The fact is that the classroom is one aspect of the real world which involves constant contacts, negotiations, concessions and compromises. As individuals we have to be responsive to our circumstances, aware of our priorities, aware of our strengths and weaknesses in any given situation and to be adaptable. This is true in ‘real life’ as it is in the real classroom - people who are unresponsive, unaware of their circumstances and unadaptable tend to have what we could call unsuccessful lives, and in the classroom they tend to be unsuccessful learners or teachers.
The good teachers throughout history didn't know about learning styles but they did know about people, and could base all their decisions on a more dynamic moment-to-moment and person-to-person flow of information and impressions, rather than on a set of descriptors which would label their students as being in one or another category.
One-sided or well-rounded?
Adaptability is the key, I think. Most human beings, by the time they are young teenagers, have learnt to be adaptable enough and resourceful enough to cope in a range of learning situations, including those which are not presented in their most preferred style. To design a course in order to match the specific preferences of a learner or a category of learners underestimates the mental potential of those learners and can, in reality, be unhelpful. Learning works best when different forms of perception combine and work together rather than in isolation. There is evidence to suggest that people learn better when they are required to make a little more effort and not allowed to operate in their sphere of comfort.
Most language examinations test learners’ abilities, naturally enough, in the different so-called skills. What is the normal or most appropriate thing to do when the student is weaker in one of these skills, say, listening? Do we simply say that because the student is not an aural learner it is unfair that he or she should have to face such an unfair test, or do we work hardest on improving that skill in order to bring it up to level?
Don’t talk to me like that to me– I’m a visual learner
For the vast majority of people learning a language, language will be encountered both in its spoken and written forms and it makes sense that the modality of teaching should ultimately be decided by what needs to be taught, rather than by who it has to be taught to. In other words, if understanding spoken language is important, it is important full stop.
The reason that so many people on foreign language courses regard themselves as being visual learners is that most of their personal experience with that language has been in the written form: it’s simply the most familiar form of language and, naturally enough, the form they feel most comfortable with. There are many people like this on English courses, people who have become ‘visual learners’ for convenience's (and tradition’s) sake. In reality there is more to being a visual learner than needing to see a word written on a blackboard or on a page, but this fits into a conventional understanding of it.
To get back to the point of the primary modality of teaching, SpeakYourMind is a method that favours spoken presentation and practice of language simply because that, for most people, is likely to be their declared priority: “I need to speak but I'm not very good at it”. It makes sense for everyone to address this in a responsible manner and one of the prime objectives of our course is to enable people to learn to trust their own abilities to operate in a modality which they find, or had always found, to be their weakest. If people can’t learn to trust their own abilities to understand and to speak when they are in the classroom, the chances of them succeeding to do so outside the classroom will inevitably be reduced, and the course in which they invested time, effort and money will end up a disappointment.
I am not opposed to learning styles -- I am opposed to creating unnecessarily divided classrooms, to the constant narrowing down of how we teach, and I prefer to look at how we can broaden course design and teaching procedures and teacher awareness in order to accommodate as many individuals as possible, in the attempt to meet their priorities as closely, and as pleasantly, as possible.
Jun 19, 2012
Successful teaching - the art and craft of synthesis and simplicity
Thinking back over the last school year - we've held five teacher-training courses, in different schools in three different countries and in different sets of circumstances.
Taking SpeakYourMind out there into the wide world is a relatively new and challenging experience but the hard work that has gone into it is paying off and we are learning good lessons along the way.
I have got a lot of pleasure out of getting to know and working with dedicated long-term TEFL professionals who have been open-minded and keen to look at something new. It's been interesteing too to meet and have long discussions with long-experienced teachers who could only see teaching in terms of their own vision of what that involves and could not take on board the basic premises of SyM. At the other end of the scale there have also been bright, interested trainees with no formal teaching experience. Yes, and there were lots of people in the middle - the silent army of TEFL: CELTA and a year or three's experience, keen and conscientous but with half an eye on a different career elsewhere in future.
Two main things have emerged from these experiences. A lot of teachers with long classroom experience have really liked SyM's 'directness'; the fact that the whole lesson is active, focussed and immediate. Getting across the importance of freeing the lesson of 'books and board' takes time, but when new teachers see the point and see how their skills are really challenged as a result, they enjoyed the direct, person-to-person nature of lessons.
They also really appreciated the fact that they could rely on the course material and that lesson-planning and gathering from resources would no longer be part of their busy working days.
The other thing that emerged is that SpeakYourMind makes teaching and learning look so simple. When trainee teachers observed lessons either in-person or on video they tended to think (so they told me afterwards) 'Well, that looks pretty straightforward.' The lessons flow easily and everything seems natural and friendly.
In reality, trainees often got a unexpectedly rude awakening when training got under way. The training programme is a pretty intensive 5 days including (normally) 2 hours teaching practice daily from day 2 (and homework!). What seemed so 'simple' as observers, is, they soon began to find out, the product of a combination of practical teaching skills, classroom techniques, understanding of the design and intricacies of the material, quick-thinking, intuition, and 'experience'. Walking is simple - almost everyone does it pretty often. But not on a tightrope, juggling and whistling a jaunty tune. Teachers began to see that the greater the 'familarity' with classroom procedure and material, the freer they were to teach and to enjoy their students. That 'familiarity' comes with preparation, concentration, practice and feedback.
As trainers, we don't expect people to run before they can walk, but 5 days is not long and the programme is no leisurely stroll. Each day sees ups and downs, learning is no steady straight line on a graph, but on all courses Day 5 saw breakthroughs and satisfaction.
This aspect - the apparent simplicity of lessons and learning - is something that has begun to really sink in. I think now, that this is probably the most important point of all in SpeakYourMind, that it addresses the complexities of learning and of language and arranges or models them into a form and a means of presentation that is straightforward, accessible and (very often) enjoyable.
Simplicity is a good thing - we want it in the things we use and the things we do - and if SpeakYourMind seems 'simple' that is to its credit. Just remember not to judge things on appearance.
Jun 14, 2012
'So, it's good for new teachers'
Yesterday I took part in an online tutorial as part of the conversations series on WizIQ. They host people from various fields of teaching and it is hosted very capably and courteously by Dr Nellie Deutsch.
There were a few technical hitches at my end, despite all the effort I had been making beforehand to make sure everything would work smoothly. I had to change microphone after 5 or 10 min of faffing around with plugs and dials and buttons and things, and my video connection never worked at all as I discovered later. I felt like I was in an isolation chamber.
Never mind, the people taking part could see Nellie and the live chat board seemed to be pretty active with people joining the class and asking me and each other questions and making comments. It's a very good format for this kind of discussion–next time I'll make sure I can keep track of the comments as they happen, but Nellie was very good at summing up the most relevant questions and posing them to me.
At one point Nelly invited Jesse davis - a teacher who had worked with SpeakYourMind in Japan - to recount his experiences and one of the things he pointed out was how that after having taught in Japanese English schools where he'd been pre-much dropped in a room left to get on with it and pretty much just amuse the students, he had learned with SpeakYourMind a great deal about basic classroom skills and classroom rapport and was given for the first time a set of criteria by which he could assess how learning was proceeding.
In the chat-box a comment soon appeared, “so it's good for beginner teachers". I couldn't tell from the context whether or not the implication was “it is only good for beginner teachers ", but that is a comment that I have heard in the past.
First of all, if it is a good method for new teachers, that's great! It's designed to be teachable - to be intuitive and straightforward enough for people who have the right teaching qualities, but not the experience, to be able to do a decent job right from the start.
Being good for new teachers is a far better thing than not being good for new teachers. I don't know exactly what percentage of teachers currently working in schools around the world are in their first year, but I imagine it's a significant amount. It's also very common for a teacher's first year to be almost their last year: in fact, the figures claim that on average TEFL teachers have an average career span of 18 months. So in this kind of context, being able to provide a method that helps new teachers work well becomes a very important asset.
Good teachers are, however, a school’s greatest asset of all.
In our own experience we have been lucky enough to have very high retention rates of staff over the years–fairly seldom over the last 10 or so years have we had teachers who have only done one academic year with us. The same applies to most other schools using SpeakYourMind in other countries. It may be the case that teachers stay simply because it's an easy option–they enjoy their place of work, so what reason do they have to leave? But I'm pretty sure that teachers stay largely because they very much enjoy the teaching and I'm sure that if you ask them they would certainly say they have grown as teachers because they have been able to see potentials within the teaching method and the material which simply were not accessible to them as new or relatively new teachers.
Teachers don't have the challenges that they would have working in more conventional environments, such as being able to improvise activities or having to prepare materials and presentations, even though this can be a burden more than a challenge. But teachers do face a challenge every time they open the door and walk into a classroom. The material is there for them -- the same material they've used hundreds of times – but because it's a very direct, personal, individual-to-individual lesson format, the lesson itself will be unique. The challenge comes in the dynamic nature of the lesson, the moment-to-moment assessments and decisions, the responsiveness to needs and moods, and the ability to emotionally and intellectually engage students.
I'm certainly not naive enough to believe that every teacher will be happy working with what is, after all, 'a method' There are teachers who need to have free rein and there are teaching situations where that is appropriate -- but the idea of SpeakYourMind is to be able to give students as complete a lesson as possible when the time for learning is limited. And apart from the classroom teaching itself, I think one of the things that keeps experienced teachers interested and fresh is the sense of reward they get from seeing real results from students over time. So, if the people you teach are satisfied, that will be important to any teacher – new or not.
There were a few technical hitches at my end, despite all the effort I had been making beforehand to make sure everything would work smoothly. I had to change microphone after 5 or 10 min of faffing around with plugs and dials and buttons and things, and my video connection never worked at all as I discovered later. I felt like I was in an isolation chamber.
Never mind, the people taking part could see Nellie and the live chat board seemed to be pretty active with people joining the class and asking me and each other questions and making comments. It's a very good format for this kind of discussion–next time I'll make sure I can keep track of the comments as they happen, but Nellie was very good at summing up the most relevant questions and posing them to me.
At one point Nelly invited Jesse davis - a teacher who had worked with SpeakYourMind in Japan - to recount his experiences and one of the things he pointed out was how that after having taught in Japanese English schools where he'd been pre-much dropped in a room left to get on with it and pretty much just amuse the students, he had learned with SpeakYourMind a great deal about basic classroom skills and classroom rapport and was given for the first time a set of criteria by which he could assess how learning was proceeding.
In the chat-box a comment soon appeared, “so it's good for beginner teachers". I couldn't tell from the context whether or not the implication was “it is only good for beginner teachers ", but that is a comment that I have heard in the past.
First of all, if it is a good method for new teachers, that's great! It's designed to be teachable - to be intuitive and straightforward enough for people who have the right teaching qualities, but not the experience, to be able to do a decent job right from the start.
Being good for new teachers is a far better thing than not being good for new teachers. I don't know exactly what percentage of teachers currently working in schools around the world are in their first year, but I imagine it's a significant amount. It's also very common for a teacher's first year to be almost their last year: in fact, the figures claim that on average TEFL teachers have an average career span of 18 months. So in this kind of context, being able to provide a method that helps new teachers work well becomes a very important asset.
Good teachers are, however, a school’s greatest asset of all.
In our own experience we have been lucky enough to have very high retention rates of staff over the years–fairly seldom over the last 10 or so years have we had teachers who have only done one academic year with us. The same applies to most other schools using SpeakYourMind in other countries. It may be the case that teachers stay simply because it's an easy option–they enjoy their place of work, so what reason do they have to leave? But I'm pretty sure that teachers stay largely because they very much enjoy the teaching and I'm sure that if you ask them they would certainly say they have grown as teachers because they have been able to see potentials within the teaching method and the material which simply were not accessible to them as new or relatively new teachers.
Teachers don't have the challenges that they would have working in more conventional environments, such as being able to improvise activities or having to prepare materials and presentations, even though this can be a burden more than a challenge. But teachers do face a challenge every time they open the door and walk into a classroom. The material is there for them -- the same material they've used hundreds of times – but because it's a very direct, personal, individual-to-individual lesson format, the lesson itself will be unique. The challenge comes in the dynamic nature of the lesson, the moment-to-moment assessments and decisions, the responsiveness to needs and moods, and the ability to emotionally and intellectually engage students.
I'm certainly not naive enough to believe that every teacher will be happy working with what is, after all, 'a method' There are teachers who need to have free rein and there are teaching situations where that is appropriate -- but the idea of SpeakYourMind is to be able to give students as complete a lesson as possible when the time for learning is limited. And apart from the classroom teaching itself, I think one of the things that keeps experienced teachers interested and fresh is the sense of reward they get from seeing real results from students over time. So, if the people you teach are satisfied, that will be important to any teacher – new or not.
May 26, 2012
English for inmates: lessons in prison 11
Nothing exciting or dramatic, not that exciting and dramatic things normally happen English lessons. But there is a slow drama unwinding here, as relationships develop and personalities emerge. There is an element of gentle excitement too, as a sense of achievement is present in every lesson. Because we really are making progress and even the more restrained and wary men in the class feel at ease enough to drop their guard now and then.
You have to remember that here we are all strangers to each other -- the only thing that these men in this classroom have in common is the fact that they are on this English course and, of course, that they are in prison. This is the only place, I think, that most of them ever see each other, and they're certainly not free to socialise and develop acquaintance once they leave the lesson, even if they wanted to do so.
In a ‘normal’ adult classroom people will naturally want to talk about themselves and find out about each other but that doesn't really happen here. Maybe they have all found out from each other what they are inside for -- I have no idea on inmate etiquette. Certainly it's a topic that’s not discussed in lessons, although last year a couple of students did talk about their sentences to me when we were able to have a chat while waiting for a lesson or when walking back towards the cell blocks after a lesson. The only time the subject has cropped up in class was when I corrected a student’s pronunciation: I thought he was trying to say that he was a ‘butcher’, but in reality he was telling me he was a ‘pusher’ - lots of rowdy amusement here from the rest of the class, especially since I'd spent the last five minutes explaining to everyone what a ‘butcher’ was.
As I have talked about in previous posts, my main priority has probably been to establish a sense of the lesson as a neutral safe place, where everyone needs to respect each other equally in order to enable a collaborative spirit of learning. Everyone knows there's a job in hand and we all try to get down to it. I'm not going to say that the lesson becomes devoid of personality or personal input. I want students to feel free to be themselves, without placing any sort of pressure at all to reveal the facts of themselves. Of course, as these beginners stop being beginners, there's more language available and ever more possibilities present themselves in terms of what can be talked about, and it is unrealistic to steer the lesson constantly clear of their personal lives. We can hardly not learn the language relating to families, backgrounds, likes and preferences, but the men here are free to step inside as little or as much as they want, and often it's not very far. It's not easy to talk about a toddler son who you haven't seen for two years because the mother's mother has forbidden any visits, or about parents who never visit at all, always finding a last-minute excuse not to come (I know these things from the short personal chats some men like to have when they can).
So in the lesson it's a question of finding that fine line. The other things that can make elementary lessons interesting are simply not interesting at all here: everyone wakes up at the same time, has their meals at the same time -- and exactly the same meals, and goes to bed at the same time. Mondays are the same as Fridays and Sundays -- 22 hours a day in a cell more often than not.
From a teaching point of view, you do need to introduce the past earlier than you normally would. Introducing ‘to have’, pretty soon prompts them to ask you how you say ‘had’. The car, the house, money and more: all things they ‘had’.
Well, one thing they do have is their English lessons.
You have to remember that here we are all strangers to each other -- the only thing that these men in this classroom have in common is the fact that they are on this English course and, of course, that they are in prison. This is the only place, I think, that most of them ever see each other, and they're certainly not free to socialise and develop acquaintance once they leave the lesson, even if they wanted to do so.
In a ‘normal’ adult classroom people will naturally want to talk about themselves and find out about each other but that doesn't really happen here. Maybe they have all found out from each other what they are inside for -- I have no idea on inmate etiquette. Certainly it's a topic that’s not discussed in lessons, although last year a couple of students did talk about their sentences to me when we were able to have a chat while waiting for a lesson or when walking back towards the cell blocks after a lesson. The only time the subject has cropped up in class was when I corrected a student’s pronunciation: I thought he was trying to say that he was a ‘butcher’, but in reality he was telling me he was a ‘pusher’ - lots of rowdy amusement here from the rest of the class, especially since I'd spent the last five minutes explaining to everyone what a ‘butcher’ was.
As I have talked about in previous posts, my main priority has probably been to establish a sense of the lesson as a neutral safe place, where everyone needs to respect each other equally in order to enable a collaborative spirit of learning. Everyone knows there's a job in hand and we all try to get down to it. I'm not going to say that the lesson becomes devoid of personality or personal input. I want students to feel free to be themselves, without placing any sort of pressure at all to reveal the facts of themselves. Of course, as these beginners stop being beginners, there's more language available and ever more possibilities present themselves in terms of what can be talked about, and it is unrealistic to steer the lesson constantly clear of their personal lives. We can hardly not learn the language relating to families, backgrounds, likes and preferences, but the men here are free to step inside as little or as much as they want, and often it's not very far. It's not easy to talk about a toddler son who you haven't seen for two years because the mother's mother has forbidden any visits, or about parents who never visit at all, always finding a last-minute excuse not to come (I know these things from the short personal chats some men like to have when they can).
So in the lesson it's a question of finding that fine line. The other things that can make elementary lessons interesting are simply not interesting at all here: everyone wakes up at the same time, has their meals at the same time -- and exactly the same meals, and goes to bed at the same time. Mondays are the same as Fridays and Sundays -- 22 hours a day in a cell more often than not.
From a teaching point of view, you do need to introduce the past earlier than you normally would. Introducing ‘to have’, pretty soon prompts them to ask you how you say ‘had’. The car, the house, money and more: all things they ‘had’.
Well, one thing they do have is their English lessons.
May 14, 2012
Behind Bars - English in prison: 10
The rewards from teaching come from seeing results -- seeing people achieve things they had set out to do but perhaps didn't think they could do - knowing things now that they didn’t know before. One of the great things about teaching English to adults is the access you have to so many different kinds of people from different walks of life. I don't teach as much as I used to but in the last week I've taught (among others) a professor of economics, a group of farmers, and of course, these men in jail.
Maybe if you closed your eyes you wouldn’t know which lesson was taking place where - primarily the focus on learning, the energy, and sense of complicity - these were all strongly present. (The teaching programme I use for all these courses is the same, so modality and procedures are common – this is the idea of ‘robust design’ I mentioned in an earlier post.)
The levels were different, the mood and rapport - and maybe the ‘etiquette’ had to adapt, and certainly the physical environments were very different. But really what continues to strike me when I teach is that when you get down to things, people are far more similar than they are different – the fact that we are all unique is what we all have in common. And that uniqueness seldom gets in the way when objectives and circumstances in the classroom are shared, and the lesson is in tune enough with individuals’ preferences and expectations. And of course, there needs to be the sense of trust (another long story from a short word).
In the meantime, there have been couple of changes here. Two more of our group have been released: a middle-aged Italian man called Angelo who was very reserved, very courteous and very interested in the lessons; and the Colombian man José has gone home too: it would be daft to say it's a shame, but he was a good presence to have in the group. We've also lost the younger of the two Albanian students, but he's been transferred to a high security prison apparently. So the last three lessons have seen a bit of a dent in our group.
Maybe if you closed your eyes you wouldn’t know which lesson was taking place where - primarily the focus on learning, the energy, and sense of complicity - these were all strongly present. (The teaching programme I use for all these courses is the same, so modality and procedures are common – this is the idea of ‘robust design’ I mentioned in an earlier post.)
The levels were different, the mood and rapport - and maybe the ‘etiquette’ had to adapt, and certainly the physical environments were very different. But really what continues to strike me when I teach is that when you get down to things, people are far more similar than they are different – the fact that we are all unique is what we all have in common. And that uniqueness seldom gets in the way when objectives and circumstances in the classroom are shared, and the lesson is in tune enough with individuals’ preferences and expectations. And of course, there needs to be the sense of trust (another long story from a short word).
In the meantime, there have been couple of changes here. Two more of our group have been released: a middle-aged Italian man called Angelo who was very reserved, very courteous and very interested in the lessons; and the Colombian man José has gone home too: it would be daft to say it's a shame, but he was a good presence to have in the group. We've also lost the younger of the two Albanian students, but he's been transferred to a high security prison apparently. So the last three lessons have seen a bit of a dent in our group.
Apr 17, 2012
Behind Bars - English lessons in prison
Nothing major to report – all proceeding well. Good attendance, good feelings and good progress – as good as you could hope for.
The group is a bit mixed. Although we have lost our ‘star’ (Julian the ‘English-through-Cartoon Network’ learner) there are still two students who can get by with the English they learnt at school (and in one case university) – they are still ‘elementary’ and we’re encountering plenty of gaps, but they have the advantage of knowing that they know some English – it has a sense of ‘familiarity’ to them. At the other end of the scale there are two guys who started totally from scratch and who also happened to miss most lessons over the first few weeks. They are straggling but are not detached – they are certainly very keen.
Oddly enough, one lives in the German-speaking Tirol region of Italy, although he wasn’t brought up there. At the beginning of the course he said he couldn’t speak and German, but the English lessons seem to be unearthing lots of buried bits of it. Pretty often he’ll say things in German, to his own surprise and embarrassment and everyone else’s amusement.
When you have one hour and a group of 10 or 12 to teach you have to make judgements about how to fairly do use your time and divide your attentions. The group does have a substantial ‘middle’ – seven or eight guys who are all pretty much similar in terms of initial level – all virtual beginners – and in terms of general aptitude. This ‘core’ guides the pace of the course.
Of course, you’d love to be able to do ‘everything’, to do what’s best for ‘everyone’ – but if you chase that too far you can end up doing not enough for anyone. Ultimately you have to make judicious compromises and do, on the whole, the best you can for most.
The group is a bit mixed. Although we have lost our ‘star’ (Julian the ‘English-through-Cartoon Network’ learner) there are still two students who can get by with the English they learnt at school (and in one case university) – they are still ‘elementary’ and we’re encountering plenty of gaps, but they have the advantage of knowing that they know some English – it has a sense of ‘familiarity’ to them. At the other end of the scale there are two guys who started totally from scratch and who also happened to miss most lessons over the first few weeks. They are straggling but are not detached – they are certainly very keen.
Oddly enough, one lives in the German-speaking Tirol region of Italy, although he wasn’t brought up there. At the beginning of the course he said he couldn’t speak and German, but the English lessons seem to be unearthing lots of buried bits of it. Pretty often he’ll say things in German, to his own surprise and embarrassment and everyone else’s amusement.
When you have one hour and a group of 10 or 12 to teach you have to make judgements about how to fairly do use your time and divide your attentions. The group does have a substantial ‘middle’ – seven or eight guys who are all pretty much similar in terms of initial level – all virtual beginners – and in terms of general aptitude. This ‘core’ guides the pace of the course.
Of course, you’d love to be able to do ‘everything’, to do what’s best for ‘everyone’ – but if you chase that too far you can end up doing not enough for anyone. Ultimately you have to make judicious compromises and do, on the whole, the best you can for most.
Apr 10, 2012
Shift away from topic-based teaching
This post is in reply to an enquiry we received from a teacher who was curious about SpeakYourMind but was puzzled by the design of the teaching material she had been sent as a sample.
“I see exactly where you are coming from in terms of the questions you ask about the design of the teaching material -- in fact it brings home just how big our job is in showing our work in a different light. By now I'm so used to the background thinking that I forget perhaps just how much we have to work on emphasising the underlying differences between Speak Your Mind and orthodox teaching in its various forms.
You're quite right, there is no real logical link between ‘themes’. 'A Theme' or ‘a Topic’ is not what holds a SyM lesson together - certainly not in the conventional sense. There are multiple underlying strands, but these are more to do with the on-going development of learning and of the language itself than with lesson-wide 'topics'.
The succession of ‘unrelated’ mini-topics that you see in the SyM books or that you listen to in a classroom, pick up and rework previously introduced words or grammar – the unrelated topics in a single lesson are in reality pulling together language that is being learnt over a larger time-scale. The single lesson is not ‘self-standing unit’ that it is in conventional teaching and the role of the ‘topic’ or ‘theme’ is not dominant, and the focus of interest on language and learning is more at the forefront. With SyM language is not confined to the lesson where the relevant theme has been dealt with – language is presented relatively briefly and then recycled regularly over time in a way that theme-based books do not manage and that is largely beyond the scope of teachers in theme-based lessons.
In conventional topic-based lessons, relevant new language may only erratically emerge, or its appearance may be perceived as secondary to the ideas being communicated. New language may appear and then just as easily disappear, to be recovered only by the conscientious students (or those fortunate enough to have the time) who will later go back and seek it out. Theme-based lessons -- and theme-based course books -- do not provide adequate principled recycling of language, so what ultimately remains from each individual lesson may be insubstantial in terms of learning -- the lesson may have left and enjoyable impression, but little in terms of tangible progress. This is not to say that we believe that learning is only measurable in terms of new words learned – ‘feeling at ease with a language’ is as much a part of what we aim to achieve as anything else, but motivation and a sense of self-efficacy are often intrinsically linked to a real sense of improvement and advance.
Of course, people have an affinity with theme-based lessons – they comply to tradition. When we study geography or history or literature, we settle on a subject that requires a depth of understanding and analysis -- skipping from one thing to another may not be the most appropriate approach. Apart from this academic tradition, in CLT -- which is still often regarded as being 'modern' -- topic-based lessons tend to be attractive because they mimic discussions that a group of interested people may be involved in in their own language (and usually through their own spontaneous choice): it's like dinner-table talk. Because the lesson then resembles one familiar aspect of a ‘real-world experience’, it gains validity in the eyes of the teacher and also, although not necessarily, in the minds of the students.
Nevertheless, real-world experience often involves situations or actions that are not theme-based in this way, and which require us to quickly shift our attention and focus. We might sit at a dinner table and switch our attention from one conversation to another. SpeakYourMind lessons usher in a succession of ‘topics’ – language is not de-contextualised at all, it’s just that the ‘contextualisation’ is rapid – there is no long pre-amble or peripheral distraction. The material and the teaching style are designed to ensure that engagement and personal interest is there – the dialogue does not become a detached formal exercise.
The human brain is well equipped to react to topic-shifts (concentration, elaboration and learning may actually benefit). We also have to bear in mind that students on a language course are fully aware of the fact that they are in a ‘learning situation’ which does not need to replicate a ‘real-world situation’ such as the dinner-table discussion, in order for it to be effective and interesting. I think there is a lot to be said for keeping learners alert and active and prepared at any moment to switch attention from one thing to another, and I think that in many teaching situations the advantages of variety can outweigh the advantages of sameness.
Of course, when the idea of the lesson is to have a discussion, you need to establish the right conditions for that to happen successfully and naturally. If on the other hand, the idea of lessons is to introduce new words and new grammar relatively briefly, knowing that it will all be re-presented and practiced in the following lessons, the focus and the dynamics of the lesson become different. A classroom is another aspect of the ‘real world’ and students are involved in a 'real-learning' situation rather than in a replica of a 'real-discussion' situation.
In reality there is continuity in SYM lessons, and there is plenty of continuous exposure to accessible language which allows students to become aware of how the language they are learning is interconnected and how it is applicable to many different topics and situations.
The language grants them the power to express themselves. Communication happens – in class students do express opinions and experiences, but this is also a consequence of the learning activity, ‘real-life’ situations are not the exclusive source of learning.
This whole aspect of the course is probably the biggest single barrier that we face when explaining or introducing the course to new teachers -- students seem to have a far more intuitively positive response to the idea.
It is working on this shift of mindset that takes up a lot of our initial training programme: accepting it as a sound principle and then feeling comfortable with it in terms of application in the classroom. It soon becomes a simple and natural thing, but of course to fresh eyes the structure and design of the course may well seem rather incoherent and haphazard. In reality it is far from it, the design is far more detailed, subtle and thorough than you will find in any other text book as far as I know. Once the teacher is able to see things with a sense of perspective, the ‘logic’ of what happens in the classroom becomes evident. It's like holding a written page up close to your eyes -- you can't make sense of anything, they’re just blurred shapes: but as you move the page further from your eyes, letters appear, then words then sentences -- the overall form is apparent.”
“I see exactly where you are coming from in terms of the questions you ask about the design of the teaching material -- in fact it brings home just how big our job is in showing our work in a different light. By now I'm so used to the background thinking that I forget perhaps just how much we have to work on emphasising the underlying differences between Speak Your Mind and orthodox teaching in its various forms.
You're quite right, there is no real logical link between ‘themes’. 'A Theme' or ‘a Topic’ is not what holds a SyM lesson together - certainly not in the conventional sense. There are multiple underlying strands, but these are more to do with the on-going development of learning and of the language itself than with lesson-wide 'topics'.
The succession of ‘unrelated’ mini-topics that you see in the SyM books or that you listen to in a classroom, pick up and rework previously introduced words or grammar – the unrelated topics in a single lesson are in reality pulling together language that is being learnt over a larger time-scale. The single lesson is not ‘self-standing unit’ that it is in conventional teaching and the role of the ‘topic’ or ‘theme’ is not dominant, and the focus of interest on language and learning is more at the forefront. With SyM language is not confined to the lesson where the relevant theme has been dealt with – language is presented relatively briefly and then recycled regularly over time in a way that theme-based books do not manage and that is largely beyond the scope of teachers in theme-based lessons.
In conventional topic-based lessons, relevant new language may only erratically emerge, or its appearance may be perceived as secondary to the ideas being communicated. New language may appear and then just as easily disappear, to be recovered only by the conscientious students (or those fortunate enough to have the time) who will later go back and seek it out. Theme-based lessons -- and theme-based course books -- do not provide adequate principled recycling of language, so what ultimately remains from each individual lesson may be insubstantial in terms of learning -- the lesson may have left and enjoyable impression, but little in terms of tangible progress. This is not to say that we believe that learning is only measurable in terms of new words learned – ‘feeling at ease with a language’ is as much a part of what we aim to achieve as anything else, but motivation and a sense of self-efficacy are often intrinsically linked to a real sense of improvement and advance.
Of course, people have an affinity with theme-based lessons – they comply to tradition. When we study geography or history or literature, we settle on a subject that requires a depth of understanding and analysis -- skipping from one thing to another may not be the most appropriate approach. Apart from this academic tradition, in CLT -- which is still often regarded as being 'modern' -- topic-based lessons tend to be attractive because they mimic discussions that a group of interested people may be involved in in their own language (and usually through their own spontaneous choice): it's like dinner-table talk. Because the lesson then resembles one familiar aspect of a ‘real-world experience’, it gains validity in the eyes of the teacher and also, although not necessarily, in the minds of the students.
Nevertheless, real-world experience often involves situations or actions that are not theme-based in this way, and which require us to quickly shift our attention and focus. We might sit at a dinner table and switch our attention from one conversation to another. SpeakYourMind lessons usher in a succession of ‘topics’ – language is not de-contextualised at all, it’s just that the ‘contextualisation’ is rapid – there is no long pre-amble or peripheral distraction. The material and the teaching style are designed to ensure that engagement and personal interest is there – the dialogue does not become a detached formal exercise.
The human brain is well equipped to react to topic-shifts (concentration, elaboration and learning may actually benefit). We also have to bear in mind that students on a language course are fully aware of the fact that they are in a ‘learning situation’ which does not need to replicate a ‘real-world situation’ such as the dinner-table discussion, in order for it to be effective and interesting. I think there is a lot to be said for keeping learners alert and active and prepared at any moment to switch attention from one thing to another, and I think that in many teaching situations the advantages of variety can outweigh the advantages of sameness.
Of course, when the idea of the lesson is to have a discussion, you need to establish the right conditions for that to happen successfully and naturally. If on the other hand, the idea of lessons is to introduce new words and new grammar relatively briefly, knowing that it will all be re-presented and practiced in the following lessons, the focus and the dynamics of the lesson become different. A classroom is another aspect of the ‘real world’ and students are involved in a 'real-learning' situation rather than in a replica of a 'real-discussion' situation.
In reality there is continuity in SYM lessons, and there is plenty of continuous exposure to accessible language which allows students to become aware of how the language they are learning is interconnected and how it is applicable to many different topics and situations.
The language grants them the power to express themselves. Communication happens – in class students do express opinions and experiences, but this is also a consequence of the learning activity, ‘real-life’ situations are not the exclusive source of learning.
This whole aspect of the course is probably the biggest single barrier that we face when explaining or introducing the course to new teachers -- students seem to have a far more intuitively positive response to the idea.
It is working on this shift of mindset that takes up a lot of our initial training programme: accepting it as a sound principle and then feeling comfortable with it in terms of application in the classroom. It soon becomes a simple and natural thing, but of course to fresh eyes the structure and design of the course may well seem rather incoherent and haphazard. In reality it is far from it, the design is far more detailed, subtle and thorough than you will find in any other text book as far as I know. Once the teacher is able to see things with a sense of perspective, the ‘logic’ of what happens in the classroom becomes evident. It's like holding a written page up close to your eyes -- you can't make sense of anything, they’re just blurred shapes: but as you move the page further from your eyes, letters appear, then words then sentences -- the overall form is apparent.”
Mar 16, 2012
Structured Interaction
Structured Interaction Method
SpeakYourMind needs to stand as a real alternative - so often I hear or read it judged according to sets of standards or principles that simply don't apply.
So often students get caught between the hard work of 'arid drills and study’ (grammar-based book-and board methods and audiolingual methods (often confusingly called ‘direct methods’)), and the attractive vagaries of theme-orientated CLT.
Finding a middle way – a balance that can harness a principled approach towards lexis and recycling and yet creates contexts and trigger meaningful interaction - is what we have been working on for the best part of twenty years and it continues to be a fascinating journey.
Extended recycling of lexis and grammar is essential, especially in situations where learners are getting only two or three hours a week and little or no exposure to English outside their classrooms. It is essential both in terms of making learning efficient and in terms of maintaining motivation – learners can see how what they have learnt before was worth learning and thus gain a sense of achievement. The design of the SyM teaching material ensures that recycling occurs regularly, long-term: learning is seen as a part of an continuous process rather than presenting 'the language to be learnt' in a succession of one-off episodes.
There seems to be no doubt that frequency-of-use is a primary factor in how memory stores vocabulary, but it doesn't come down to mathematics. Quantity is important - if a word is given exposure ten times it is more likely to be remembered than if it is heard or read five times -but ‘quality’ will have a significant impact too. If the encounter with a new word is able to summon up significant associations of some kind, the impression is more likely to be lasting. An association can be significant in different ways – in terms of personal or emotional context, or in its ‘language-learning’ context - how useful or interesting it is in the mind of the learner.
Words need to trigger learning-awareness, which repeated encounters will recall, re-elaborate and deepen.
to be continued
SpeakYourMind needs to stand as a real alternative - so often I hear or read it judged according to sets of standards or principles that simply don't apply.
So often students get caught between the hard work of 'arid drills and study’ (grammar-based book-and board methods and audiolingual methods (often confusingly called ‘direct methods’)), and the attractive vagaries of theme-orientated CLT.
Finding a middle way – a balance that can harness a principled approach towards lexis and recycling and yet creates contexts and trigger meaningful interaction - is what we have been working on for the best part of twenty years and it continues to be a fascinating journey.
Extended recycling of lexis and grammar is essential, especially in situations where learners are getting only two or three hours a week and little or no exposure to English outside their classrooms. It is essential both in terms of making learning efficient and in terms of maintaining motivation – learners can see how what they have learnt before was worth learning and thus gain a sense of achievement. The design of the SyM teaching material ensures that recycling occurs regularly, long-term: learning is seen as a part of an continuous process rather than presenting 'the language to be learnt' in a succession of one-off episodes.
There seems to be no doubt that frequency-of-use is a primary factor in how memory stores vocabulary, but it doesn't come down to mathematics. Quantity is important - if a word is given exposure ten times it is more likely to be remembered than if it is heard or read five times -but ‘quality’ will have a significant impact too. If the encounter with a new word is able to summon up significant associations of some kind, the impression is more likely to be lasting. An association can be significant in different ways – in terms of personal or emotional context, or in its ‘language-learning’ context - how useful or interesting it is in the mind of the learner.
Words need to trigger learning-awareness, which repeated encounters will recall, re-elaborate and deepen.
to be continued
Feb 23, 2012
Behind Bars - English for Inmates 6
Well, how about that? We have the complete group -- the reserved man who I hadn't seen since lesson to as reappeared, and that means we have the full group as on my original list. 12 of us, and no losses so far. Of course, there's always the chance that one someone might get released.
So, who do we have here? It's quite cosmopolitan little environment we have in our bare narrow room: four Italians, three Romanians, two Albanians, one Tunisian, one Moroccan, and one Colombian. The youngest is Julian, the 19-year-old from Romania who speaks very fluent and natural English (but is more limited than on first impressions). After one lesson I asked him how he had learnt his English -- apparently it was from intensive viewing of Cartoon Network since the age of three.
The rest of the group are a mixture of men in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. Once you're in the classroom (and you try to forget the bare walls and the steel barred windows high up) you could be in a class anywhere -- the dynamics, the rapport, the humour, the focus of attention, it's the same as it would be if I was teaching in school or on a company course for example -- actually in some ways it's much better than often happens outside. The big difference of course is that this classroom really is our world at least at the moment. The kind of things that often pepper normal lessons just don't happen here. We still know next to nothing about each other apart from what we have understood from these encounters -- no personal backgrounds or information on Private lives.
I can hardly asked the usual friendly enquiries such as “Did you have a nice weekend?”, “Are you doing anything interesting later?”, “Where are you going afterwards?”. At the end of today's lesson I explained how they could use their books between lessons “when you are at home”. “At home!” they all jaunted - rather ruefully. A slip of the tongue and they understood -- I was the only one who'd be going home that day.
So, who do we have here? It's quite cosmopolitan little environment we have in our bare narrow room: four Italians, three Romanians, two Albanians, one Tunisian, one Moroccan, and one Colombian. The youngest is Julian, the 19-year-old from Romania who speaks very fluent and natural English (but is more limited than on first impressions). After one lesson I asked him how he had learnt his English -- apparently it was from intensive viewing of Cartoon Network since the age of three.
The rest of the group are a mixture of men in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. Once you're in the classroom (and you try to forget the bare walls and the steel barred windows high up) you could be in a class anywhere -- the dynamics, the rapport, the humour, the focus of attention, it's the same as it would be if I was teaching in school or on a company course for example -- actually in some ways it's much better than often happens outside. The big difference of course is that this classroom really is our world at least at the moment. The kind of things that often pepper normal lessons just don't happen here. We still know next to nothing about each other apart from what we have understood from these encounters -- no personal backgrounds or information on Private lives.
I can hardly asked the usual friendly enquiries such as “Did you have a nice weekend?”, “Are you doing anything interesting later?”, “Where are you going afterwards?”. At the end of today's lesson I explained how they could use their books between lessons “when you are at home”. “At home!” they all jaunted - rather ruefully. A slip of the tongue and they understood -- I was the only one who'd be going home that day.
Feb 15, 2012
Behind Bars - English for inmates, part 6
Lesson six
I think we're getting there -- since we've been able to have a little run of regular lessons we've achieved a kind of momentum. Problems of severe lateness have been less evident and we now seem to have a definite group that has gelled into a positive and collaborative unit.
Today was really good - everyone was focused and keen. During the review that always opens lessons, students were really able to focus on the language that they had by now become to feel at ease with -- all simple stuff, but the fact that any stuff at all is now ‘simple’ gives a good sense of achievement. The oral work -- the basic question-answer work -- has got a good bit of pace to it now and that gives us the kind of positive impetus that brings us up to new work eager and ready. Here the fact of having two one-hour lessons rather than a single 90-minute lesson makes a great difference. The lesson comes to an end before anyone is tiring too much and the shorter gap between lessons helps keep things fresh in the students’ minds. Plus the fact they now have the book, which I’m really pleased to see students seem to be using a lot between lessons.
There is a fair degree of diversity in the group, in terms of level, or at least competence -- a few of the students have missed much of the course until now, either through absence or significant lateness, and unfortunately this applies to two of the real zero-beginners. On a lesson like today when everyone was here for a full lesson (more or less) it allows me to work on those who need to catch up a bit -- it's important to avoid situations where people feel they are losing touch hopelessly. For the last 10 minutes we worked with the books with the students in pairs. I tried as much as possible to pair up students so that those who had missed out could be tutored by those who had managed to follow fully. My two higher level students work together (I have given each of them a more advanced book to give them something more interesting to work from in their own time and to bring to lessons so we can find something more challenging).
It was great to see these guys working so conscientiously together-- people who would probably not have much - if anything - to do with each other, trying to explain this new language, trying to impart the best they could, the knowledge they've picked up so far in this classroom.
I think we're getting there -- since we've been able to have a little run of regular lessons we've achieved a kind of momentum. Problems of severe lateness have been less evident and we now seem to have a definite group that has gelled into a positive and collaborative unit.
Today was really good - everyone was focused and keen. During the review that always opens lessons, students were really able to focus on the language that they had by now become to feel at ease with -- all simple stuff, but the fact that any stuff at all is now ‘simple’ gives a good sense of achievement. The oral work -- the basic question-answer work -- has got a good bit of pace to it now and that gives us the kind of positive impetus that brings us up to new work eager and ready. Here the fact of having two one-hour lessons rather than a single 90-minute lesson makes a great difference. The lesson comes to an end before anyone is tiring too much and the shorter gap between lessons helps keep things fresh in the students’ minds. Plus the fact they now have the book, which I’m really pleased to see students seem to be using a lot between lessons.
There is a fair degree of diversity in the group, in terms of level, or at least competence -- a few of the students have missed much of the course until now, either through absence or significant lateness, and unfortunately this applies to two of the real zero-beginners. On a lesson like today when everyone was here for a full lesson (more or less) it allows me to work on those who need to catch up a bit -- it's important to avoid situations where people feel they are losing touch hopelessly. For the last 10 minutes we worked with the books with the students in pairs. I tried as much as possible to pair up students so that those who had missed out could be tutored by those who had managed to follow fully. My two higher level students work together (I have given each of them a more advanced book to give them something more interesting to work from in their own time and to bring to lessons so we can find something more challenging).
It was great to see these guys working so conscientiously together-- people who would probably not have much - if anything - to do with each other, trying to explain this new language, trying to impart the best they could, the knowledge they've picked up so far in this classroom.
Feb 6, 2012
behind Bars - English lessons for inmates part 5
Lesson five
A good day - an excellent day! It felt almost like our first proper lesson. We still had the noisy room but we knew so from the start, so we built it into our set of expectations. Also, most students were able to leave their cells and get to class within 10 minutes and it began to feel like we were a group at last - today there is a definite sense of team spirit.
It'll probably take another few lessons to see who we have and if anyone has dropped out, but we seem to have a core of 10 or 12 students.
There are lots of different kinds of teaching, but very often lessons where there is energy fit the bill. I think there might be some sort of equation -- if we look at last lesson, no matter how much energy I tried to emit, it all seemed to be sucked up and dispersed into the air, with very little energy coming back. In contrast, this lesson the energy equation reversed -- every unit of energy I gave seemed to trigger even more units of energy in return.
There seem to be E factors: environment is one E factor, engagement is another. Negative environments and low engagement equals low energy or possibly negative energy. Experience (and probably) expertise and enthusiasm are other E factors. Enthusiasm is a must, and experience and expertise can smooth the way to engagement, facilitating a highly flow of Energy. Anyway, I'll think about this more.
As much as possible I want these lessons to be in a whole-group format -- there will be pair work but that will be relatively limited - at least at present. I have received authorisation to distribute books, which has really pleased everyone. They all seem very serious about the course and getting the best out of it - two lessons a week now and the chance to read and revise between lessons should really give everything a boost.
A good day - an excellent day! It felt almost like our first proper lesson. We still had the noisy room but we knew so from the start, so we built it into our set of expectations. Also, most students were able to leave their cells and get to class within 10 minutes and it began to feel like we were a group at last - today there is a definite sense of team spirit.
It'll probably take another few lessons to see who we have and if anyone has dropped out, but we seem to have a core of 10 or 12 students.
There are lots of different kinds of teaching, but very often lessons where there is energy fit the bill. I think there might be some sort of equation -- if we look at last lesson, no matter how much energy I tried to emit, it all seemed to be sucked up and dispersed into the air, with very little energy coming back. In contrast, this lesson the energy equation reversed -- every unit of energy I gave seemed to trigger even more units of energy in return.
There seem to be E factors: environment is one E factor, engagement is another. Negative environments and low engagement equals low energy or possibly negative energy. Experience (and probably) expertise and enthusiasm are other E factors. Enthusiasm is a must, and experience and expertise can smooth the way to engagement, facilitating a highly flow of Energy. Anyway, I'll think about this more.
As much as possible I want these lessons to be in a whole-group format -- there will be pair work but that will be relatively limited - at least at present. I have received authorisation to distribute books, which has really pleased everyone. They all seem very serious about the course and getting the best out of it - two lessons a week now and the chance to read and revise between lessons should really give everything a boost.
Jan 24, 2012
behind Bars: English lessons for inmates: part 4
Lesson four
For every up there is a down lying in wait, and today was really frustrating all-round - no buzz in the air and spring in my step after this lesson. Again - all down to unfavourable circumstances. I made my way to the ‘good’ classroom but it was taken. Two of my students had now arrived and we found another room that seemed reasonable and began to move the chairs and tables to the way we wanted them only to be then told that this classroom was booked too. So, and by now there were four of five of us we had to go to the only free room left, a long narrow room with paper-thin walls.
Last year I taught at lunchtime and finding a decent room wasn't a problem, however this year I’m teaching in the mornings at the same time as other programmes take place (I’d managed to get the ‘good’ room for the last two lessons because these other courses were suspended for the Christmas holidays). For example, there are literacy courses mainly for North African and Asian inmates, and apparently prisons are obliged to provide education to Italian inmates who don’t have minimum academic qualifications, which is the middle school diploma (Italian school-students normally change from middle school to high school at the age of 14), so there are regular school subjects being taught too. Anyway as our lessons involve a lot of talking and the lesson next door evidently requires a lot of silence, the paper thin walls were not great. When there was talking from next door we could hardly hear what we were saying and we must have been disturbing them quite a lot, to the point that there were frequent bangs and knocks from the other side.
Again, the simple fact of students not being able to turn up to the lesson on time was a major problem -- one man was only able to arrive five minutes before the end of the lesson. To make things even more unsettled, on two occasions guards came in to call out inmates (to their surprise and with no explanations offered).
It's still not clear exactly who or how many are on the course -- the intense guy who hadn't appeared since lesson one was back and seemed relaxed and friendly. Another man who I had only seen for the last 20 minutes of the second day's lesson was back as well: he was a complete beginner but looked very keen and earnest and nodded a lot as he followed what we were trying to do. I was able to give him limited dedicated attention but among the general confusion, not enough. Anyway, the good news is that I have permission to do two lessons a week from now onwards -- everyone seemed very pleased to hear it. Let's hope that internal communications work a bit better so that the students get out of their cells in time for their lessons. I spoke to the duty guide about getting a quieter room, but as I've learnt is the case it is not something that any individual can decide – “I’m afraid you have to do make an official request”.
For every up there is a down lying in wait, and today was really frustrating all-round - no buzz in the air and spring in my step after this lesson. Again - all down to unfavourable circumstances. I made my way to the ‘good’ classroom but it was taken. Two of my students had now arrived and we found another room that seemed reasonable and began to move the chairs and tables to the way we wanted them only to be then told that this classroom was booked too. So, and by now there were four of five of us we had to go to the only free room left, a long narrow room with paper-thin walls.
Last year I taught at lunchtime and finding a decent room wasn't a problem, however this year I’m teaching in the mornings at the same time as other programmes take place (I’d managed to get the ‘good’ room for the last two lessons because these other courses were suspended for the Christmas holidays). For example, there are literacy courses mainly for North African and Asian inmates, and apparently prisons are obliged to provide education to Italian inmates who don’t have minimum academic qualifications, which is the middle school diploma (Italian school-students normally change from middle school to high school at the age of 14), so there are regular school subjects being taught too. Anyway as our lessons involve a lot of talking and the lesson next door evidently requires a lot of silence, the paper thin walls were not great. When there was talking from next door we could hardly hear what we were saying and we must have been disturbing them quite a lot, to the point that there were frequent bangs and knocks from the other side.
Again, the simple fact of students not being able to turn up to the lesson on time was a major problem -- one man was only able to arrive five minutes before the end of the lesson. To make things even more unsettled, on two occasions guards came in to call out inmates (to their surprise and with no explanations offered).
It's still not clear exactly who or how many are on the course -- the intense guy who hadn't appeared since lesson one was back and seemed relaxed and friendly. Another man who I had only seen for the last 20 minutes of the second day's lesson was back as well: he was a complete beginner but looked very keen and earnest and nodded a lot as he followed what we were trying to do. I was able to give him limited dedicated attention but among the general confusion, not enough. Anyway, the good news is that I have permission to do two lessons a week from now onwards -- everyone seemed very pleased to hear it. Let's hope that internal communications work a bit better so that the students get out of their cells in time for their lessons. I spoke to the duty guide about getting a quieter room, but as I've learnt is the case it is not something that any individual can decide – “I’m afraid you have to do make an official request”.
Jan 17, 2012
Behind Bars - English for inmates, Part 3
Lesson 3
Again a good lesson – everyone left in high spirits. The students turned up in dribs and drabs – they all need to be let out from their cells in the different sections of the prison, so time-keeping is out of their hands. As I soon found out last year, when the guards are busy, the students arrive late and sometimes they can be very late.
Once half a dozen had turned up I got things going by inviting the students to tell me what they could recall from the last lesson – virtually everything as it turned out - which set a positive note. This ‘prelude’ allows a few insights. Apart from seeing how much of last lesson's content made an impression, I also get to see some of the class dynamics: I can better see who is more outgoing or likely to be more dominant in the group and who is a little bit more hesitant and I get a few little hints as to the relationships between the group members. It's still very early days and we all need to get to know each other -- not the details of each other's private lives, but as individuals in the context of this classroom.
In the meantime one or two more students had turned up and the lesson could begin. My major aim here is to try to establish that we have a cooperative working group that can happily accommodate individuals: and that working within a common format towards a common goal does not require uniformity of knowledge or performance. Anyway, these are still early days as I said, and laying the basis for the sense of complicity and mutual trust is largely down to lots of small examples and episodes, perhaps meaningless in themselves but which together create the right kind of environment and ‘ethic’.
Starting each lesson with revision conforms to most students common sense and intuition – it assures things don’t get ‘lost’ and gives students the chance to see that they can rely on their memory and that they can get things right – enough new ‘difficult’ things will come up later on, so this helps balance things out: why jump in at the deep end?
There is another practical advantage too: it makes it easier for late-comers to join the lesson without missing out too much. In this particular lesson there were several late-comers, all of them new students and all of them arriving at five-minute intervals. In a ‘normal’ classroom on a ‘normal’ language course, this sort of thing is usually really annoying: it could have been annoying here, but we all knew that no one was late because they decided to stop for a coffee on the way or had been on the phone. In fact, each of them apologised and explained that they hadn't even known the course had started - or even that they had been allowed on it - until they were summoned from their cells. As it turns out we have a dozen students in the class and quite an interesting group and they promise to be. This is certainly the only possible place where any of us could ever have met: we are or no one's home turf here. This is neutral territory for everyone, and we all start out from scratch as people. We will be perceived as we are in this room and during these encounters.
P.S. We have gained four students but we had two missing today. The man who appeared rather intense in the first lesson was not here for the second lesson either -- I actually bumped into him as I was making my way to the classroom, he gave me a very warm smile and told me that he had a visitor and would not be able to come to the lesson. Maybe his visiting hours coincide with class -- I don't know. At the end of the lesson I asked his fellow Romanians on the assumption they might know something. “Who cares” they said: “he speaks too much anyway”. The other man who missed had come across in the previous two lessons as the quietest in the group and I was aware he didn't really feel at ease. Maybe he'll be back next lesson but unaccounted absences always worry you. When you're teaching a group in any context it's always a balancing act -- you need to create an accommodating space where everyone feels involved and everyone feels a benefit from the teaching, yet you can only stretch so far to accommodate specific needs or specific personality issues.
Again a good lesson – everyone left in high spirits. The students turned up in dribs and drabs – they all need to be let out from their cells in the different sections of the prison, so time-keeping is out of their hands. As I soon found out last year, when the guards are busy, the students arrive late and sometimes they can be very late.
Once half a dozen had turned up I got things going by inviting the students to tell me what they could recall from the last lesson – virtually everything as it turned out - which set a positive note. This ‘prelude’ allows a few insights. Apart from seeing how much of last lesson's content made an impression, I also get to see some of the class dynamics: I can better see who is more outgoing or likely to be more dominant in the group and who is a little bit more hesitant and I get a few little hints as to the relationships between the group members. It's still very early days and we all need to get to know each other -- not the details of each other's private lives, but as individuals in the context of this classroom.
In the meantime one or two more students had turned up and the lesson could begin. My major aim here is to try to establish that we have a cooperative working group that can happily accommodate individuals: and that working within a common format towards a common goal does not require uniformity of knowledge or performance. Anyway, these are still early days as I said, and laying the basis for the sense of complicity and mutual trust is largely down to lots of small examples and episodes, perhaps meaningless in themselves but which together create the right kind of environment and ‘ethic’.
Starting each lesson with revision conforms to most students common sense and intuition – it assures things don’t get ‘lost’ and gives students the chance to see that they can rely on their memory and that they can get things right – enough new ‘difficult’ things will come up later on, so this helps balance things out: why jump in at the deep end?
There is another practical advantage too: it makes it easier for late-comers to join the lesson without missing out too much. In this particular lesson there were several late-comers, all of them new students and all of them arriving at five-minute intervals. In a ‘normal’ classroom on a ‘normal’ language course, this sort of thing is usually really annoying: it could have been annoying here, but we all knew that no one was late because they decided to stop for a coffee on the way or had been on the phone. In fact, each of them apologised and explained that they hadn't even known the course had started - or even that they had been allowed on it - until they were summoned from their cells. As it turns out we have a dozen students in the class and quite an interesting group and they promise to be. This is certainly the only possible place where any of us could ever have met: we are or no one's home turf here. This is neutral territory for everyone, and we all start out from scratch as people. We will be perceived as we are in this room and during these encounters.
P.S. We have gained four students but we had two missing today. The man who appeared rather intense in the first lesson was not here for the second lesson either -- I actually bumped into him as I was making my way to the classroom, he gave me a very warm smile and told me that he had a visitor and would not be able to come to the lesson. Maybe his visiting hours coincide with class -- I don't know. At the end of the lesson I asked his fellow Romanians on the assumption they might know something. “Who cares” they said: “he speaks too much anyway”. The other man who missed had come across in the previous two lessons as the quietest in the group and I was aware he didn't really feel at ease. Maybe he'll be back next lesson but unaccounted absences always worry you. When you're teaching a group in any context it's always a balancing act -- you need to create an accommodating space where everyone feels involved and everyone feels a benefit from the teaching, yet you can only stretch so far to accommodate specific needs or specific personality issues.
Jan 10, 2012
Behind bars - English for inmates part 2
Lesson 2
Things went very well today - more ice must have got broken than I thought on the first day. The wariness seems to have evaporated and everyone seemed more at ease about being (at least partly) themselves. A huge help came from the improved physical teaching environment. Of course, ‘comfortable’ is a relative concept, but this time I was able to get the best room available. It's an oblong room, which means I can have the whole class sitting in a kind of shallow horseshoe, rather than sit in rows behind each other - they can all see and hear each other too, so it’s pretty open and even. The room has solid walls, so there’s not much noise disturbance and it’s fairly bright – it’s on an outside corner so there are windows on two walls – admittedly about 12 ft above floor level and only about 18 inches high with bars, but it’s enough to make a difference. We also have three maps on the walls, which add a bit of colour and variety, and there’s a black-board too - and it’s warm.
And there’s us – no aids or equipment to get in the way and not even any books (official application for the use and distribution of student books has been made but not yet authorised). Never mind – we’re going to get things off to a pretty practical and direct start and I don’t rely on books anyway for the first couple of lessons; but with just one lesson a week and a break for Christmas holidays (for me, not for them) it would certainly be good for the students to have something to read through (in last year’s course I was pleased to see most books tatty and dog-eared after a month or so).
We all know that this can’t possibly be the ‘ideal’ English course, but if we all take it seriously enough and everyone is patient enough when their own needs are not at the centre of that minute’s attention, we can all come out of this with real benefits. In the meantime – it’s down to business! SpeakYourMind is designed to be able to work in 'worst-case scenarios', including these very ‘essential’ circumstances: it’s speaking-based, structured (so the students get a clear sense of moving forward, which in turn can maintain motivation) and active – there needs to be focus and vibrancy in the classroom, especially at this level. There’s going to be plenty of revision and recycling in class – these students will have no access to any English between lessons, unless those who share a cell feel like revising together, but at near beginner level that does not offer up a wide scope of intriguing prospects.
Consensus and trust lies at the base of any kind of shared project if things are to last the distance: students need to trust a teacher’s intentions and ability and understand and approve of how the course will work for them. Students come into the classroom with all sorts of ideas and experiences and it’s important to hear these – the things they think are most important, the things they found difficult and the things they liked and didn’t like about previous language courses. This is not in-depth discussion or analysis, it’s a way of establishing the ‘centre’ of things – learning English which is a single ‘neutral’ centre, rather than multiple ‘personal’ centres, which would be hardly appropriate in a situation such as this where learners are naturally reluctant to reveal too much of their histories and selves. The lesson can become a safe space for equals – everyone can participate fully without any pressure to enter into private worlds.
We have to start off from the beginning – those who already know a bit claim to be happy to go back and revise through – but keeping the right pace will be key to holding an acceptable balance, within each lesson and over the duration of the course. Starting off with words for the things we see around us (not that many in this classroom) gets vocab-learning under way: of course, it’s important to explain what you’re aiming at, and that you aren’t starting with ‘wall’, ‘door’, ‘light’ and so on because they are supposed to be the most interesting possible things to learn – they are just handy because they are there (I have pictures of some things that aren’t) – you can see them and touch them, or point to them you know what colour they are, where they are, if they’re big or small, open or closed; and this will be the basis of basic sentences. We can work on sounds – we encounter virtually all phonemes very soon – and stress (one-syllable words first (clock, bin, pen) and longer words later (pencil, window, table, calendar, radiator). It’s useful to raise awareness of this from the outset, and it’s something that the non-beginners often find useful as pronunciation was often neglected at school.
Even here at this very basic level, lots of things are happening – it’s not the accuracy-at-all-cost drilling of structures that this kind of lesson-activity has traditionally been associated with – there are different dimensions and different areas of emphasis. The whole thing can actually become surprisingly engaging and even playful once you sense how to balance out achievement and challenge and can nudge things forwards little by little. Anyway – everyone seemed to enjoy it, time passed quickly and there was a general feeling that they had begun to learn things and it been worthwhile. Of course – this was not ‘real world’ communication as is often understood in teaching, but it was a ‘real’ classroom we were in, and the learning activity we were engaged in was certainly ‘real’ enough too.
Things went very well today - more ice must have got broken than I thought on the first day. The wariness seems to have evaporated and everyone seemed more at ease about being (at least partly) themselves. A huge help came from the improved physical teaching environment. Of course, ‘comfortable’ is a relative concept, but this time I was able to get the best room available. It's an oblong room, which means I can have the whole class sitting in a kind of shallow horseshoe, rather than sit in rows behind each other - they can all see and hear each other too, so it’s pretty open and even. The room has solid walls, so there’s not much noise disturbance and it’s fairly bright – it’s on an outside corner so there are windows on two walls – admittedly about 12 ft above floor level and only about 18 inches high with bars, but it’s enough to make a difference. We also have three maps on the walls, which add a bit of colour and variety, and there’s a black-board too - and it’s warm.
And there’s us – no aids or equipment to get in the way and not even any books (official application for the use and distribution of student books has been made but not yet authorised). Never mind – we’re going to get things off to a pretty practical and direct start and I don’t rely on books anyway for the first couple of lessons; but with just one lesson a week and a break for Christmas holidays (for me, not for them) it would certainly be good for the students to have something to read through (in last year’s course I was pleased to see most books tatty and dog-eared after a month or so).
We all know that this can’t possibly be the ‘ideal’ English course, but if we all take it seriously enough and everyone is patient enough when their own needs are not at the centre of that minute’s attention, we can all come out of this with real benefits. In the meantime – it’s down to business! SpeakYourMind is designed to be able to work in 'worst-case scenarios', including these very ‘essential’ circumstances: it’s speaking-based, structured (so the students get a clear sense of moving forward, which in turn can maintain motivation) and active – there needs to be focus and vibrancy in the classroom, especially at this level. There’s going to be plenty of revision and recycling in class – these students will have no access to any English between lessons, unless those who share a cell feel like revising together, but at near beginner level that does not offer up a wide scope of intriguing prospects.
Consensus and trust lies at the base of any kind of shared project if things are to last the distance: students need to trust a teacher’s intentions and ability and understand and approve of how the course will work for them. Students come into the classroom with all sorts of ideas and experiences and it’s important to hear these – the things they think are most important, the things they found difficult and the things they liked and didn’t like about previous language courses. This is not in-depth discussion or analysis, it’s a way of establishing the ‘centre’ of things – learning English which is a single ‘neutral’ centre, rather than multiple ‘personal’ centres, which would be hardly appropriate in a situation such as this where learners are naturally reluctant to reveal too much of their histories and selves. The lesson can become a safe space for equals – everyone can participate fully without any pressure to enter into private worlds.
We have to start off from the beginning – those who already know a bit claim to be happy to go back and revise through – but keeping the right pace will be key to holding an acceptable balance, within each lesson and over the duration of the course. Starting off with words for the things we see around us (not that many in this classroom) gets vocab-learning under way: of course, it’s important to explain what you’re aiming at, and that you aren’t starting with ‘wall’, ‘door’, ‘light’ and so on because they are supposed to be the most interesting possible things to learn – they are just handy because they are there (I have pictures of some things that aren’t) – you can see them and touch them, or point to them you know what colour they are, where they are, if they’re big or small, open or closed; and this will be the basis of basic sentences. We can work on sounds – we encounter virtually all phonemes very soon – and stress (one-syllable words first (clock, bin, pen) and longer words later (pencil, window, table, calendar, radiator). It’s useful to raise awareness of this from the outset, and it’s something that the non-beginners often find useful as pronunciation was often neglected at school.
Even here at this very basic level, lots of things are happening – it’s not the accuracy-at-all-cost drilling of structures that this kind of lesson-activity has traditionally been associated with – there are different dimensions and different areas of emphasis. The whole thing can actually become surprisingly engaging and even playful once you sense how to balance out achievement and challenge and can nudge things forwards little by little. Anyway – everyone seemed to enjoy it, time passed quickly and there was a general feeling that they had begun to learn things and it been worthwhile. Of course – this was not ‘real world’ communication as is often understood in teaching, but it was a ‘real’ classroom we were in, and the learning activity we were engaged in was certainly ‘real’ enough too.
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