"How- are- you- today?" Teaching or Getting Back Home from Pilgrims 35th Anniversary Conference

Clem Laroy, Belgium

Clem Laroy has been teaching since 1962 and training here and there - but mainly in Belgium since 1975 . He is co - author of ‘Musical Openings’ (Longman/Pilgrims) and ‘The Standby Book’ (CUP) , author of ‘Pronunciation’ (OUP), as well as articles here and there. He believes more and more in holism and in particular in our sense of beauty and so in the beauty of teaching and of what we teach! E-mail: clemlaroy@yahoo.com

'It is £ 10.65 and 'How are you today?" This was said to me by a young cashier at a self - service restaurant as I was paying for my meal at St Pancras station in London, on my way back home after the Pilgrims 35th anniversary conference in August..

Spontaneously (?) — automatically (?) — I responded "And how are you yourself?". This resulted in a puzzled, amused/bemused expression on his face. This look remained on his face until the next customer. – "It's £ 4.95, And how are you today?"

So, once seated, I observed his and the other staff’s behaviour with their customers as I was eating my meal and noticed that they systematically asked this question at almost the same moment during the exchange..

It seemed funny to me, because I felt it was it somehow out of place. Rarely this resulted in a " Fine, thanks." Most customers, however, did not respond at all. Some looked suspicious. They had that distrustful "Are- they- trying- to- distract- my- attention- in- order- to- fiddle- with- the- change?" look.

This repeated, apparently routine, behaviour by the staff made me think they had been trained to do this as part of the company strategy to set a congenial atmosphere and lure customers to come back – and this set me thinking about humanistic teacher training – and my own teaching ... .......

For many years — longer than I care to check ( more than 30 years I would guess ), I have been training trainees to create a good atmosphere, create rapport in class .... by, for instance, greeting the class at the beginning of the lesson.

When this is purely behaviouristic - not based on real empathy - this may well result in artificiality and at its worst in incongruity. The class looks tired ( they have had a maths test ) and the language teacher asks "How are you today?" ... They are going to have an exam "How are you today?" . Or the teacher is herself or himself totally bored, hates this particular class anyway ... "How are you today?"

Few people are fooled. Even fewer students are fooled. Such superficial — behaviouristic — tricks reek of manipulation and comes across like this. The atmosphere set in class is artificial and the subsequent response is one of (Yawn) OK let's try to pretend we are nice to each other — possibly that we don't hate each other. Basically, let's try and make the best out of an unpleasant situation. We are in the same boat and let's try to get to the end of the language class as quickly as possible without making matters more difficult for all of us.

Humanistic learning — teaching is about relevance and reasonable authenticity. This requires an ability to achieve genuine spontaneity – not that spontaneity we have prepared the day before or even in the morning while driving to work, or while half - dozing in the train, bus or underground to work, looking up to a not particularly pleasant day. We need to be able to 'smell', 'sense', 'perceive' the mood of the occasion and respond to it on the spot.

Everyday is different, every class is different, every lesson is a new experience. So, we need to seize the moment - the opportunity, like players catch an unexpected ball during a game, when we there actually is a ball coming their way, and not pretend they are playing a ball game, when they are really playing chess.

We can in fact change our own mood and consequently the class atmosphere by allowing the instant to take over. Explaining how to achieve this is by no means easy – beyond words maybe. I will try to convey what it takes with an example.

I remember a (Sigh& yawn!) Monday-morning class I had to teach in a (more yawning !!) despair inducing school with a group of (deeper sigh & yawn !!!) boring learners.

On my way to school on foot I came across a group of youngsters (younger than my own bunch) all dressed in their self - chosen uniform (I mean the clothes of their gang or group — not the school uniform ). Basically they were all dressed in black — black — and black.

I could not help thinking about how a common desire to be different had resulted in their all wearing the same, how this probably enhanced their sense of belonging in the group etc ... , but I sighed more thinking of confronting / having to face a lot / gang of learners all (self?)programmed along similar lines. How would I manage to stimulate them towards creative use of their potential?

When the class started I did not ask them how they were ... (didn't feel like it) and immediately spoke about this encounter which was still resonating in my mind ... and genuinely asked non - judgmentally but with an authentic degree of puzzlement about their own view on this way of dressing, which I then described ....

Everybody woke up ... They all had something to say. So, I suggested first that we try to describe what youngsters wore and why. In groups they worked on their own preferences .... some of the current gear ... the combinations they liked or did not. And finally they designed the clothes they would like to be able to find in shops or have made it they could have their wishes fulfilled.

Allow your teacher - brain to function and see / hear / feel .... what language was needed, what lexis, which grammar came handy, what functions were used .... and, as a result of the feelings, what intonation was necessary .... So, what was I doing monitoring their groups?

Presentations were made .....

Recaps of some language points were asked for ....

It took us about two hours, and at the end it was suggested to look up on the Internet if any of the things they wanted were available and at what cost.

The next class started with a spontaneous report (presentation ?) on some findings and of the budget they would need. What choices they would make within the limits of their budgets. ............

Coming out of my mental trip at St Pancras' I realised I had found a wonderful topic for one of my next language classes as well as a topic for my trainees. For my vocational school learners: how to really engage with the customers, and for my teacher trainees how to genuinely create rapport through spontaneity ....

This need for congruence and spontaneity is one of the essential points I have learned again and again at Pilgrims. Authenticity is based on catching the moment, the opportunity, or rather on allowing the instant to take over. It is one of the fundamental tenets of linguistic psychodramaturgy as proposed by Bernard Dufeu (1) and also by so many other trainers at Pilgrims, from a different point of departure.

Real mastery of a language can only be considered to be achieved if the learners can spontaneously use the language to express what they need / wish to express in congruence with their message and feelings at the moment they need it ... Back in 1957 Chomsky already (?) defined language mastery in this way.

This is for me — yet again — one of the essential feelings I went home with after the 35th Anniversary Pilgrims Conference ... not forgetting that this is somehow so simple .... , yet not always easily to achieve.

(1) see www.psychodramaturgie.de