Humanising Language Teaching
Year 3; Issue 1; January 2001

FORGIVE ME, FOR I HAVE TAUGHT ( Secondary and general)

Should a teacher mainly be an entertainer?

by Ana Maria R. de Bergel

In education, the importance of motivation can never be overstated. Without enthusiasm, without joy, achievement will always be poor. No academic formulas, no exercises, drills or textbooks can produce results where motivation has failed or has been neglected. In the foreign language class, teachers should always strive to create a favourable learning atmosphere.

"Nothing succeeds like success", says a wise, old adage. We have all seen our students' faces brighten up when they realise they can speak fluently, or when they produce a well-written article for the school newspaper, or when they pass an examination, or when they go to the cinema and find they no longer need to read the subtitles. I thought these moments of realisation were motivating enough, and that hard work was self-fulfilling when it yielded results, but I have lately been told by some experts to disguise teaching and learning in order to enhance motivation, a concept I find not only mistaken but also perverse.

A classroom is a classroom is a classroom. A teacher will always teach. In fact, she will have studied for many years in order to do this effectively. Learners know and accept this. They also accept the fact that they need help and guidance in order to learn. They should also accept that they will sometimes have to study and make efforts, that not all the topics will be appealing and that not all the activities will be fun. This, as far as I know, is growing up.

However, we are told by various lecturers to motivate our students not by showing them the value of hard work or achievement, but by getting them to sing, dance, draw, clap their hands and stamp their feet. Having fun becomes the central issue, and all forms of learning procedures must be disguised as projects, parties, games, dramatisations, etc. - all valuable classroom activities and techniques when used with a learning objective, not for the purpose of concealing these objectives. For example, when we attempt a project with our students, they have to understand why and how this project is going to help them. It is necessary for students to know how their performance at this project will be evaluated, and it is even better if the project has been suggested or devised by the students themselves! By defining learning objectives in collaboration with the students, we ensure their active participation in their learning process - an awareness of what is to be pursued. If the same project is attempted just for the sake of the activity itself, without learning objectives, two curious phenomena will be easily observable: a) if the project is highly motivating, students will tend to carry it out in their native language or not paying attention to language matters at all; b) those students who do not find the project motivating in itself, will not work, because they will not see any other benefit in carrying it out.

It seems we should be ashamed of teaching, and pupils should never realise they are learning. No wonder violence is on the increase and levels of achievement are coming down steadily. Would you like to be locked up in a building where people tried to make you play, draw, clap your hands and stamp your feet for five or six hours per day for no apparent purpose?

The teacher's role is constantly stripped of more and more of its attributes. Books and lecturers tell us to leave most of the work in the students' hands, to keep a low profile in the classroom, even to stop talking. Although student independence and low overt teacher participation in class are both desirable, it should be noted that the tutor's planning and management of a class is what permits him/her to participate discreetly rather than become the centre of attention. Paradoxically, turning the tutor into a provider of entertainment does not favour either student independence or low teacher participation. In fact, it often results in students attending a one-man show by a teacher who is desperate to keep students entertained.

Some lecturers are seeking to demonstrate that memorable teachers are remembered for their appealing personality traits, not for their teaching methods. The corollary was that methods are not important - it is only interpersonal relations that matter. One wonders whether the purpose of teaching has shifted from achieving results to becoming memorable, and whether an appealing personality should not be placed at the service of teaching, rather than be considered an asset in itself.

As far as classroom management is concerned, it seems we are denying the value of individual achievement: every task must be done in pairs or in teams, and the members of these teams assume responsibility for teaching one another. Place yourself in the students' position again: would you like to be constantly shuffled into teams with people you may or may not like, in order to carry out tasks for which you are unprepared, and be told to look up the knowledge you need in books, videos or CD's, because it is a sin to ask your teacher, who is supposed to be a "facilitator" and not a tutor. How qualified would you be for teaching yourself - and your partners - basic Mandarin? I am an advocate of following the students' built-in syllabus and learning strategies rather then imposing a syllabus and an approach, but the message some theoreticians are sending is different: it is a sin to teach.

An interesting issue is whether these fun-related, ultra-independent approaches are actually fun, and whether they really help the development of independence. It is highly unlikely that any one human being will become independent by just being left to manage on his own. If the tutor does not create the necessary framework within which students will build up their independence, the probabilities are that some of them will begin to depend on their classmates or even their parents or a private teacher. As for having fun, it should be remembered that anything that is repeated as routine loses impact and appeal. Coming to class to have fun becomes boring.

The confusion between entertaining learning activities and just entertaining activities has reached such alarming levels that it is nowadays very difficult to make adolescents carry out tasks they find boring, which includes studying, for example. I have received bitter complaints about Cambridge examinations such as the First Certificate or the Cambridge Advanced English tests on the grounds that they are "boring". Some students have even mentioned this as the reason why they cannot pass these tests or why they are not willing to sit for them. The distortion is clear: rather than thinking that passing tests is fun, students think they are justified in failing or refusing to take tests which are not fun.

One of the worst consequences of having misled adolescents in this way is that they have lost strength, stamina and perseverance. They are very independent but do not know what to do with their independence, and look apathetic and …. Bored! We have deprived them of challenges, of the capability for setting objectives for themselves and then planning and pursuing courses of action to achieve them. It is not true that having fun will make them better learners. Like a theatre audience, they will come to class to be entertained, and will switch off if the entertainment if of poor quality.

School should help people find their place in society. Unfortunately, having fun is not a concept most universities, enterprises or even show-business professionals would consider an end in itself. The development of thinking, responsible and hard-working individuals should be better preparation for adult life than the provision of entertainment.

Students should work independently, be allowed to pursue their own interests, help each other and assume responsibility for their learning, but the teacher has to be the leader, the person who is qualified to provide advice, help and guidance. A good, democratic leader is, by definition, the person who can lead a group to the achievement of their objectives while taking everybody's needs, interests and contributions into consideration. This broadly accepted definition of democratic leadership encompasses the concepts of consensus, tolerance and empathy. In this context, individuals should feel challenged and not disheartened by the prospect of working hard to attain their goals. Achievement is fun.

Ana Maria R. de Bergel
First published in The Buenos Aires Herald in August 1999. Copyright by the author.