Teach Relations, Not words: Psycho-drama in Building Positive Group Dynamics

Nina Shvaikina, Russia

Now being a young teacher, I realize how much my school gave me. I mean it didn’t give me anything. Loads and loads of useless vocabulary taken out from the context and having nothing in common with the real Queen’s English. I am really not positive about my school and the way they taught me, as the most exciting thing we did was learning texts by heart on different topics and then reproducing them to our teachers and then we were awarded good marks. No creative approach, no desire to stimulate communication with us led to poor command of English and inability to conduct lively communication with native-speakers. As a result we seemed posh, arrogant while speaking, looking like robots abroad. No doubt our memory was well trained, but the communicative competence which is now the most important objective of the English language teaching was not formed. Learning by heart is a common practice in many schools of Russia, but, apart from my gymnasia, they seem more creative and more student-oriented and humanized. In general that method is good with Latin learning, but not English, the most widely spoken language in the world.

I longed for entering foreign language department and my dream came true. That were the most brilliant years of my life, because the atmosphere was calm and the philological charm that I was plundered into produced good effects. My knowledge increased, but still there was something I was not satisfied with. Before that I was afraid that I wouldn’t learn something to help my carrier ladder to be climbed easily. Theoretical subjects are great, but to some extent. Too much of them can be harmful for a young philological girl.

The first lesson we had was the lesson of English. I thought it would be a dull lesson with no fun and no creative approach. I was mistaken. I was grabbed by the rush of positive energy and overwhelmed with awe, when I saw and heard my teacher. At the lessons the linguistic aspect was not so important. Besides using drama techniques, my teacher and now scientific supervisor Kashina Elena Georgiyevna did a lot for uniting us together and building positive, fantastic group dynamics. Her lessons were amazing. It was like a neverending English language celebration. We were not only a student. You were a creator, as Elena Kashina inspires you to do something extraordinary, to be something extraordinary.

My view of learning the language changed and as well as of the language itself. I started to hear music in the language and perceive the process of communication as the interaction between people, who have positive attitude to each other and are intended to understand each other. For many Russian students speaking the language seems a torture as they are always in fear to make a mistake either grammatical or lexical. So my teacher has turned my linguistic outlook up side down.

Viewing the language as a positive interaction between people, my manner of speech and behavior altered so much, that humane relations in the group improved a lot. Here lies the main hypothesis of my article - psychodrama approach does a lot for building positive group dynamics. Role-playing and drama organizes the group into one entity, into a team. The fact is that many of us were from other cities, country sides, national minorities and that was hard for us to start communication and to “start the engine” of group interaction for the whole five years. In a few weeks of singing texts, performing dialogues, learning sound drills, writing dictations with a whistle made us think and live during the lesson and after together. So we resembled a living organism.

Due to the psychodrama technique Elena Kashina managed to build positive group dynamics, thus creating a team of students. Apart from building a new team of students, finding creative ways to work together and solve problems, increasing and improving communication, keeping competition healthy and productive within the team, dealing with change and its effects, students increased their confidence in speaking. We noticed that we did not hesitate in producing long conversations and could easily achieve our communicational objectives. Such positive result happened due to the fact that we could easily build rapport, use proxemics and become more empathical because psychodrama made us feel each other better.

Now being a teacher I use the methods that my scientific supervisor implements, I feel that students get more motivated because they feel how well they are addressed and how meaningful they think their activities in our class are to them. The focus of building positive group dynamics is not only on the linguistic domain but cooperational domain as well. That is why students whose strengths lie in areas other than the linguistic one activated themselves more and developed an interest in the subject.

Thanks to my teacher, professor Elena Kashina, I have understood that learning English and teaching English should take place in a certain environment, positive and aimed at cooperation. My own students now in Samara state university of architecture and civil-engineering expressed their opinions at the lessons in the form of the written essay. Here are some extracts of their essays: “The games we played at the lessons of building positive group dynamics stimulated my thinking, analyzing and reflection over my goals of studying English at the University”. The majority of interviewed students noted that they will introduce the games they played into their future carrier as managers or simply those who would work in a team. “During the lessons I felt like a battery, I was plugged by my teacher into the positive learning environment and every time the lesson started I could recharge myself”. Some students said that they started to go to the lessons with more eagerness than ever: “I changed my attitude towards the English language – for me it’s a constant delight and opportunity for training my skills and getting a good idea of what my future job is”.

The result of all these thoughts will be: teach English and speak the language as if you communicate in everyday life, be kind and positive and supporting. Believe that the environment you create is true to life and not artificial and remember that first people on the Earth were united by the language and the last rule that a young teacher should remember is that the main idol at the lesson is not a word, grammar, speed of speech, but relations.

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