Movement in EFL
Peta Mason Gray, UK
Peta Mason Gray is a freelance teacher, trainer and author with a background in drama, counselling and anthropology. She is based near Cambridge where she worked for many years at Cambridge Academy in Girton and later at Anglia Ruskin University. She has worked at IH Barcelona in Spain and does teacher training for Pilgrims She is interested in all aspects of teaching ,learning and culture,. Has co-written Letters OUP, Safety and Challenge for Japanese Learners of English, How to Use the Internet for ELT Pearson Education. Current interests include English for non-native teachers, young and very young learners, academic English, using music, fine arts and drama, dealing with “difficult” students particularly those with attention disorders, and the relationship between pronunciation and music. E-mail : petamasongray@hotmail.com, www.rosemarycottage.me.uk
Menu
Background
Waltzing Words
Vote with your feet
Human Cameras
Bibliography
I remember loving the music and movement class on Wednesdays when I was at primary school though with hindsight they were really rather tame. They involved going into the assembly hall-cum-gym and following the instructions of a soft voiced radio broadcast presenter of a programme for schools called appropriately “music and movement”. But it was a treat partly because apart from playtime and PE our lessons generally entailed sitting down and listening and looking.
NB. Playtime was often spent in detention with other kids who like me had “ants in their pants.”
That is until Mr. Gibbs came to our school with his little parcels. I remember in detail the day he told us we were going to have a science lesson (!) and put us in groups (!) on tables facing each other (!) and gave each group a mystery box to unpack. My group got a battery and some wire and a light bulb and an envelope of hints It was a truly multisensory task based lesson and I loved it. I haven’t needed to buy a torch ever since! He was the only one though and he left to coach the local boys football team soon after and I moved on to secondary school.
There, in the wood panelled school hall, I spent a wonderful time doing mental acrobatics in morning assembly. In my imagination I would swing like a monkey from balcony to balcony stopping off to climb along the organ, each slippery pipe shorter than the next and finally to swing down and land on the grand piano which was great for tap dancing.
Later in the classroom I would explore the irregular terrain of my desk lid where the softer grain of the wood had worn away leaving only the shiny bones of the harder bits and grooves between them that collected dust and gunge which I picked out with my compass. Then, imagining myself very small, or them very big, I scrambled along them like in Honey I Shrunk the Kids until I got to the ink well .Here probably many intrepid adventurers had met with a blue/black end before me, clinging to the inner overhanging edge of the well, feet sliding desperately on the wet inner surface before finger strength having given out, I would fall down into the ink and having to tread water. It was a rich fantasy life that had more in common with Martin Rattlers life in the Amazon after the shipwreck (a favourite childhood book) than my real life incarceration at boarding school.
After some years of these private adventures and regular detentions it became clear that there was a new tension in the air that involved both teachers and the other pupils. It came clear after a while that this was to do with soon-to-be-sat exams, O levels, that I had heard mentioned for years. It transpired these were to actually take place the following week and we had to learn by heart everything we had covered in the last two years! Help, I might have to pay some attention here. I borrowed notes from more studious classmates and took to reading them by torchlight at night under the covers when everyone else was asleep. It was all surprisingly interesting apart from the history which I seemed unable to engage with. I made a strict timetable for myself in the homework periods and worked for twenty minutes, then went outside and danced for five. It seemed to work for other stuff but the history was the problem.
In desperation the day before the exam I gave myself over to what now strikes me as an extraordinary impulse. I went outside to the garden, threw the swing up and over, out of the way and getting on my bicycle proceeded to ride figures of eight around the swing frame with the history book and Mr. Gladstone balanced on the front basket. The balancing and maneouvring without the book falling off seemed to skim off enough latent attention that I could learn the facts and dates without interference. At least I can only suppose that's what happened. I passed the exam anyway...just. It is only with hindsight and with what I now know as a teacher that I realize all this behaviour was a way of providing myself with ways to cope with the sit down, keep quiet and listen way of teaching. I found it necessary to have another life, a secret and kinaesthetically rich life.
Another good discovery was the handwriting trance. This was a wonderful salve for the anxiety I felt at being confined to my desk. I would watch the hand of the person to my left or right writing. What they wrote didn't matter but the thing was it made my gaze defocus and soon I was slipping gently into some soft warm edgeless and timeless state of mind close to sleep. I would often get told off for not paying attention to my own work but trying to copy someone else's which was irritating as I had no interest in what they wrote only the mesmerizing motion of their pen on the paper. However, the tellings off were but not as bad as the trouble I used to get into before I learned to interiorize my illicit movement. Having run out of excuses to move around, sharpening my pencil three times, going to the toilet and searching for countless unnecessary things in my desk, I would sometimes resort to other more antisocial entertainments such as putting my ruler between the two water pipes that ran around the edge of the room at floor level and pinging it loudly. The noise would reverberate around the room without it being obvious where it came from. That was fun but teachers hated it as it disrupted the class, as did my drumming, drawing, experiments with sulphuric acid, target practice, and attempts to balance my chair on one leg nd so on. Finally, I took to writing a diary in class which worked well as it appeared that I was working but after 15 fat volumes they were confiscated, read by the headmistress and I was unceremoniously expelled. But that was half a century ago and things have changed enormously.... haven’t they?
Much has and can be learned from primary school teaching especially in the UK where key stage one where children write in sand and do dance-write classes and brain gym as a matter of course. Remedial teaching methods have much to contribute: lots of ideas for kinaesthetic and colour-coded classification exercises to help learners learn to make distinctions and connections: a skill essential to language learning. Music is often used to focus and anchor learning .Who does not at least tap or sway to music mentally if not outwardly.
However it seems to me that as soon as kids reach a certain age they are supposed to lose their physicality or at least reserve it for the playground or sports field. In UK primary schools key stage two (7-11 yrs ) is the point where this maturation is supposed to start and life rapidly becomes visual and auditory. Modern Foreign Language classes in primary are often the least deskbound as songs and games are so useful for language learning. But where does EFL fit into the picture?
Certainly in the last twenty or more years in the EFL literature there has been a growing if not widespread acceptance that all learners need to "get up and move around a bit". The communicative method encouraged “cocktailing” and “onion circles” and communication games got us using cards and board games We brought in realia , to be more multi-sensory and three dimensional: to make learning more concrete and authentic and enlivened. Drama activities are popular with students and teachers these days and even course books have built in role-play and “now get up and circulate “ sections.
For young learners all kinds of traditional games like hopscotch, musical chairs or statues, or leapfrog can be adapted for language practice and some enlightened language schools take students out of the classroom altogether and look to the wider locality for a wide variety of hands on and non-sedentary activities which are linguistically useful. Cambridge Academy of English in Girton, Cambridge have run some excellent languages courses for adult and teenagers involving accompanying students on a trip up Helvelyn mountain planned and executed to the last detail by the students.
NLP has highlighted the needs of more kinaesthetic learners, young or old, not to be confined to the bums-on-seats, eyes-on-books position as can result from inept use of a course book. Of the sensory channels visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory and gustatory (VAKO,) very often it is only the first two that are well catered for in most classrooms by the EFL teacher, olfactory (smell) and gustatory (taste) elements are generally left to the students), and kinaesthetic (movement and feeling) activities are often grossly undervalued, seen as rewards for good behaviour, things to use as carrots and rewards to be withheld if students are uncooperative, i.e. don’t sit down quietly and watch and listen.
Howard Gardeners theory of Multiple intelligences has been influential in shifting attitudes somewhat. Good with their hands people were (are? ) considered less academic and kinaesthetic students: the fiddlers, fidgets and chair-tilters, are often just seen as disruptive for no good reason.
There can now be few teachers who don’t introduce opportunities for movement into their lessons. Even teachers of exam classes who may prefer a predominantly studious approach are aware of the need to revive flagging attention with a little stretch and some oxygen to the brain. So yes things have changed, a bit : the kinaesthete is acknowledged if not redeemed so why am I writing this article about movement in the classroom?
Well despite apparent changes in the literature the use of movement in EFL it is still pretty thin on the ground in practice as far as I can see and is often limited to role-play and TPR games. What’s more it is often regarded as pedagogically irrelevant, something seen as a break from learning to relieve the tedium of the “real work” when and if time allows. But movement is primary where communication is concerned and central to learning not just for young learners or the odd highly kinaesthetic adult but for anyone wanting to engage deeply and wholeheartedly in their learning. I quote from Carla Hannefords book “Learning is not all in the mind”.
"Movement initiates and supports mental processes and anchors thought bringing together three distinct but interconnected kinds of body/mind processing: sensation, emotion, and thought.”
When Japanese children have their hand guided by the teacher as they learn to write their script they are learning concepts with their muscles and from her touch on their skin and the feel of the pen or brush in their hand.
After all movement is the universal medium. Cultural specifics apart, movement is still the very basis of communication. We can’t produce sound of any sort without doing so physically with tongue, larynx and lip movement. Language is accompanied by, and sometimes very effectively replaced by, facial expressions, gestures and postures
Possibilities for a kinaesthetic approach to teaching language include using gesture and facial expressions, sorting buttons, tapping out rhythms, passing around real or imaginary objects, singing, marching, dancing, playing board games, making words with plasticine, wool or rope, identifying objects by feel, arts and crafts, acting out stories, TPR games, learning brail, shopping and even mountain climbing .
The advantages include benefits to the group dynamic, it releases latent energy in some and generates energy in others, clears attention, aids memorisation, prevents discomfort and generally livens things up. It is also very effective in relieving and preventing the build up of stress which is an underestimated obstacle to learning and the root cause of many learning difficulties. It takes attention off language and onto communication and so releases inhibitions and prevents the kind of anxiety that makes people frightened to risk making mistakes.
True, there are some for whom a sudden demand for movement may cause discomfort and inhibition but if the teacher creates an ambience in which sitting down with a book is only one of many different class activities this seems to cause few problems. Certainly it should be voluntary, encouraged not forced, and meaningful not mindless.
So why are we so stingy about it? Is it just that we live in such an anti-body and anti-emotion culture with a deeply Descartian view of learning? Lots of teachers recently tell me that they offer fewer opportunities for people to move in class than they would like to or feel they ought to . Common reasons given include:
- constraints of classroom layout and furniture style. (truly a setback but get-roundable by making movements smaller or even internal or moving the class to an open space if not prohibited)
- with a large number of students in the classroom there’s a potential for chaos and noise. So clear limits and boundaries are important along with clear instructions. Not all students need to move as the watchers will empathize with the movers (google "mirror neurons" for more info)
- teachers are reluctant to risk discipline problems, (on the contrary both under-controlled students and over-controlled students seem to relax and their attention improves)
- it’s simply a matter of time, they have a syllabus to get through, an exam to prepare for.(movement speeds up learning and anchors it better so no time wastage)
- Its fine for kids but teenagers and some adults think it’s childish.(Re-educate them)
- it can’t all be fun and games they have to learn to manage their energies and suppress the urge to move. (True, but learning to managing something that is managed for you is more difficult.)
My immediate thought, while sympathetic to most of the above is that it’s not that we have to put movement times into learning time We just to have to stop taking it out! Leave the learner intact and free to process as s/he finds natural. This includes not discouraging yawning and stretching, shaking, laughing or even on occasions crying: the body's way of healing emotional hurts, letting go of fear or embarrassment, freeing up attention, helping us face new challenges and move on. But that's another article.
Well I imagine after hearing about my sixteen thousand hours of suffering and heartfelt pleas on behalf of kinaesthetically oriented learners that readers would like some ideas for using movement in the classroom in ways that are linguistically useful. The first I'd like to introduce is one I have used very often to raise learners awareness of the close relationship between music and language and movement. Its called Waltzing Words. The second is a classic exercise that never fails to work well. The third is an activity I have used successfully with children teenagers and adults.
Aim: to train the ear to notice word stress
Level: any
Age: any
Preparation : optional drums, a piece of waltzing time music
or prepare to sing some waltz music. I usually hum the Viennese Waltz by Strauss,
students usually help out when they realize how bad my singing is! Learn the basic rhythm and steps of the waltz!
ONE two three, ONE two three
Procedure: ask for two volunteers to dance the waltz to your music/ singing. If none come forward demo and teach them all the basic posture and step (ONE... two.. three, ONE.. two... three) and then invite them to practise it briefly.
Then write on the board the word ‘beautiful’ or some other 3 syllable word and point out that the rhythm is the same as the waltz. BEAU ti ful ... EL e gant ...EFF ort less.
Ask students to brainstorm words with that rhythm .Then elicit them to the board. Dance them in pairs to the waltz music.
Put large sheets of paper/card around the floor space or on desks where this is not practicable. On each there should be either a visual representation of a word stress pattern. or you can make it easier by writing the following words like this, one on each sheet.
WONderful LOVely reLAX fanTASTIC good
Demonstrate the rhythm with a drum or by clapping
Students move around the room freely while you drum/clap/voice one of the rhythms above. Once they have identified the rhythm they should move to the matching paper on the floor/desk They should try to stand on/touch the paper. Those who fail are out. Those remaining should form pairs and try to make a simple dance step using that rhythm... As the game goes on you might want to reduce the size of the pieces of paper so that fewer people can fit on. If students are over competitive then play it as a team game to encourage cooperation.Some students may enjoy making a dance routine combining the different patterns.Others may prefer to design other activities involving stress patterns.Others may prefer to write poems and thus exploring rhythm in language.
Aim: To consult students and / or give practice in expressing opinions
Level: adaptable for any
Age: adaptable for any
Preparation: find pictures or realia or make notices with a set of highly visible statements of opinion on (e.g. I like dogs/ discussion lessons/ swimming or for older classes, all health care should be free. ) to put around the walls of the room.
Procedure: Make sure the meanings of the statements are clear to all and then ask students to vote with their feet and stand by the statement they most agree with.
Give time for the people standing at one notice to talk to each other about their reasons, and level permitting, to prepare to explain their point of view to others.
Regroup the students into mixed opinion groups and give more time for discussion.
Aim: to provide students with a fun stimulus for descriptive writing
Level: elementary to advanced
Age: all ages: learners under 10 will speak where older learners write.
Preparation: You may need to check that it is OK for students to be allowed beyond the confines of your classroom during lesson time.
Procedure:
Take the students outside and pair them. Ask them to decide who is A and who is B.
Explain that person A is the photographer and that Person B is the camera.
Person A stands behind B and holds B by the shoulders.
B has her eyes closed.
Person A moves B around, being very careful that blind B does not trip as they walk. When A wants to take a “photograph” of something, she points her camera, Person B, at the object or scene she wants to snap.
A presses B’s shoulder for 5 seconds, B opens her eyes and mentally recalls what she sees.
When A stops pressing, then B closes her eyes again.
Demonstrate the above sequence with a student as your “camera”.
Tell the A people to take three photos of different scenes or objects.
Ask the students to reverse roles; B is now the photographer. She also takes three snapshots.
Take the students back to the classroom and ask them to write a paragraph describing one of the “photographs” they recorded mentally when they were in role as camera. They write three paragraphs, so describing each mental picture.
The students read their descriptions to their partners.
Note: since this is a trust exercise it is good to use it when you feel the learners are ready to get to know each other a bit better
Peta is currently writing a book on Movement in EFL with Mario Rinvolucri giving teachers lots of ideas for introducing a wide range of physical activities into their teaching. Many of the activities are adaptable for different age groups and levels.
Carla Hannaford Smart moves: why learning is not all in your head. Great Ocean Publishers, Inc., 1823
A Running Start: How Play, Physical Activity, and Free Time Create a Successful Child. New York: Marlowe & Company, 2006.
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Teaching English Through Multiple Intelligences course at Pilgrims website.
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