Editorial
The text was also published with minor changes in the local journal "International Education and Career"

All Is Good In Its Season

Elena Kashina, Russia

Elena Kashina is professor of English from the Samara State University, Russia. Recently a regular contributor to HLT. E-mail: e_kashina@mail.ru

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Introduction
Spring
Summer
Autumn
Winter

Introduction

Dong Larson once said: “Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush”. The process of teaching also comes through different “seasons”: spring and summer, it’s the time when classes are full of different activities, the teacher and students enjoy every minute of being together, the atmosphere of learning and wisdom reigns in the classroom.

In early seventies when I worked in Kuibyshev Pedagogical Institute, the faculty of foreign languages we used to go to the largest villages in the suburbs of our city and select the best, the brightest pupils for the faculty. It was supposed that they would return to the native village after graduating from the Institute and continue working there as teachers of English. There I got acquainted with the teacher whose personality impressed me so much that I remember her all the years since, even now in the 21-st century I often quote her. So many years have passed. She was a very experienced and inspiring teacher and taught pupils perfectly well. And her name was also beautiful and memorable – Vassa. She told me the words I remember and often quote when I start talking about different aspects of teaching English: “I enter the classroom, meet my pupils and I feel like singing!” I heard the words from the teacher who lived in a very poor village with no roads, instead - sticky oily mud you got stuck in. And that teacher managed to motivate and inspire her pupils, who felt a burning desire to study, to learn English though they had never left their native village and could hardly imagine what the UK looked like.

Spring

Being a teacher of English for almost forty years I feel the same. Spring is my favourite season. And it reigns in the classroom most of the time. ‘I am a teacher at heart and there are moments in the classroom when I can hardly hold the joy? Parker Palmer writes in the book “Courage to Teach”. The main aim I am trying to achieve is to motivate students? Because motivation serves as a great internal drive that makes students work miracles in the classroom. They feel interested when they are actively involved in the process of a foreign language acquisition.

It is very important to arrange a lively and very unusual beginning of the lesson. “ Hi, early morning people! Glad to see you. Reflection… things from yesterday, good things, less good things… excellent meetings, ideas you created yourself yesterday. What are you doing today? What are your musts and what are your maybes? How will you pace yourself today?” The techniques are various? e.g. Amazing questions are given by the teacher and the students are supposed to answer them. “Who always goes to bed with his shoes on? What has a neck, but can’t swallow? What tables can you eat?, etc.”

Ken Wilson in the preface to the book “Drama and Improvisation” writes: “Most teachers have very little time to do anything in the class apart from following the coursebook and preparing for exams or tests. Following the dictates of a coursebook and the requirements of an exam often mean that the teachers become lecturers and providers of information? Which can mean that students spend a lot of time only passively involved in the lesson. This situation can be improved by an activity that inspires students in a way that “normal” class activities do not”.

The task given to students can be very successful if it involves their imagination, creativity and sometimes sense of humour which is also appreciated in teaching and learning English. Let’s take for instance “What Do You Do With This?” This is a word- meaning guessing game. The students need an English-English dictionary. They create their own quizzes.

1. Sulphur
   1. soft light fur
   2. kind of fruit
   3. chemical element
2. Fluff
   1. a game
   2. a chemical element
   3. a flower
3. Grub
   1. a young insect
   2. Spanish traditional food
   3. a large bag
4. Parsnip
   1. a vegetable
   2. an animal
   3. a dog breed
5. Rookie
   1. a large bag
   2. national clothes of Italy
   3. someone who doesn’t have much experience
6. Sack
   1. a strong bag for carrying things
   2. someone who doesn’t have much experience
   3. a kind of fruit
7. Scalp
   1. the skin under the hair on your head
   2. national clothes of Germany
   3. someone who makes clothes
8. Mallet
   1. kind of music
   2. kind of food grown in Israel
   3. a wooden hammer

Answers: 1. b), 2. a), 3. a), 4. a), 5. c), 6. a), 7. a), 8. c)

Another very interesting activity is “Learning English is like…” It is done to find out about students’ study habits and their feelings about the learning process. This is what the students write.

“Learning English is like the sun. It shines and you feel warm and comfortable; if you walk in the sun you’ll become sunburnt. But you should be careful; you can get sunstroke if you spend a lot of time in the sun. The same about learning – if you don’t have a rest a bit and study all day, all night you’ll run mad.” (Akimova Tatyana)

“Learning English is like eating a cake or a salad. There are many ingredients. When you first taste it you can’t feel all the flavours. But when you get into the tastes are so various and great that you feel thrilled. English is the same. The more you get into it, the more you are exited. (Tkacheva Sophia)

“Learning English is like eating a bony fish: you should be very accurate not to make a mistake (learn English properly) and finally succeed and to be well fed.”(Kulagin Anton)

“Learning English is like building the house with your own hands. You feel really tired but you understand that you do it for yourself and you’re satisfied.” (Koshev Eugene)

Summer

Then summer comes, the weather gets warmer still and sometimes it’s very hot. And our classes hot up – become more exciting. We are fond of activities based on JUsher’s method “Total Physical Response”. There are “Running Dictations”, singing and dancing in the classroom or one of my favourite techniques “Moving pictures”. It may be a new version of “Red Riding Hood”. The task was given to the international group of teachers at the International conference in Portonovo, Italy. One of the students recites the poem, others pantomime it.

Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf

As soon as Wolf began to feel
That he would like a decent meal,
He went and knocked on Grandma's door.
When Grandma opened it, she saw
The sharp white teeth, the horrid grin,
And Wolfie said, «May I come in?»
Poor Grandmamma was terrified,
«He's going to eat me up!» she cried.
And she was absolutely right.
He ate her up in one big bite.
But Grandmamma was small and tough,
And Wolfie wailed, «That's not enough!
I haven't yet begun to feel
That I have had a decent meal!»
He ran around the kitchen yelping,
«I've got to have a second helping!»
Then added with a frightful leer,
«I'm therefore going to wait right here
Till Little Miss Red Riding Hood
Comes home from walking in the wood».
He quickly put on Grandma's clothes,
(Of course he hadn't eaten those).
He dressed himself in coat and hat.
He put on shoes, and after that,
He even brushed and curled his hair,
Then sat himself in Grandma's chair.
In came the little girl in red.
She stopped. She stared. And then she said,
«What great big ears you have, Grandma».
«All the better to hear you with», the Wolf replied.
«What great big eyes you have, Grandma»,
said Little Red Riding Hood.
«All the better to see you with», the Wolf replied.
He sat there watching her and smiled.
He thought, I'm going to eat this child.
Compared with her old Grandmamma,
She's going to taste like caviar.
Then Little Red Riding Hood said
«But Grandma, what a lovely great big
furry coat you have on».
«That's wrong!», cried Wolf.
«Have you forgot
To tell me what BIG TEETH I've got?
Ah well, no matter what you say,
I'm going to eat you anyway».
The small girl smiles. One eyelid flickers.
She whips a pistol from her knickers.
She aims it at the creature's head,
And bang bang bang, she shoots him dead.
A few weeks later, in the wood,
I came across Miss Riding Hood.
But what a change! No cloak of red,
No silly hood upon her head.
She said «Hello, and do please note
My lovely furry wolfskin coat».

Autumn

Autumn in the classroom is also delightful, the classes may be a little quieter, the best time is “Indian Summer”, the classes are well-planned and emotional colouring of the lesson is yellow and golden. We write rambling letters about what we feel or dream of at the moment, write stories and they are a vital part of everybody’s life, besides it’s an excellent way of developing fluency and of recycling learned language. Let’s analyze the task ”Dead Man’s Pocket” (A. Wright). We build a person’s character from the objects they carry with them, building a storyline that takes account of these details. What we need are details of physical appearance (short, fat, ugly, plain, etc.); ability (intelligent, silly, creative, etc.) The man is dead and his personal belongings characterize him. The students write a character profile of the dead man and an incident leading up to his death.

Winter

Winter is the worst time. “If you are a teacher who never has bad days, or has them, but does not care, you will not understand me”, writes P. Palmer. Sometimes it is just like in O’Wilde’s fairy-tale “The Selfish Giant”. Then spring came, and all over the country there were little blossoms and little birds. Only in the garden of the Selfish Giant it was still winter. The birds didn’t care to sing in it as there were no children and the trees forgot to blossom…The only people who were pleased were the Snow and the Frost…The snow covered the grass with her great white cloak, and the Frost painted all the Trees silver”. And it often happens with us and the classroom becomes snowy and very cold. Sometimes it depends on the teacher, but very often some external circumstances make us feel like these. P. Palmer writes that the teacher –bashing has become a popular sport. And we are so powerless to strike back. We become the scapegoats, the easy target for all those who can easily shoot at it. Students often talk about good and bad teachers. Listening to those stories it becomes impossible to claim that all good teachers use similar techniques: some lecture non-stop, others speak very little, some stay close to their material and others loose imagination; some teach with the carrot and others with the stick. But in every story good teachers share one trait: a strong sense of personal identity infuses their work. One student said she couldn’t describe her good teachers because they differed so greatly, one from another. But she could describe her bad teachers because they were all the same. “Their words float somewhere in front of their faces, like the balloon speech in cartoons”, writes P. Palmer. Bad teachers distance themselves from the subject they are teaching and from their students. Good teachers weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subject and their students, so that their students can learn to weave a world for themselves. Good weavers stimulate team building in a group. I like to teach 1-year student, freshers, because I’ve got a chance to awaken in them a burning desire to learn, participate and enjoy it all.

Teacher's Prayer

I want to teach my students how to live this life on earth
To face its struggles and its strife and improve their worth
Not just the lesson in a book or how the rivers flow
But how to choose the proper path wherever they may go
To understand eternal truth and know the right from wrong
And gather all the beauty of a flower and a song
For if I help the world to grow in wisdom and in grace
Then I shall feel that I have won and I have filled my place
And so I ask your guidance, God that I may do my part
For character and confidence and happiness of heart.

James J. Metcalf

Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.