REALLY Getting to Know Your Students: Using the Anecdote Circle in the EFL Classroom

Lee Shutler, Korea

Lee Shutler is currently working for the British Council in Incheon, South Korea. His professional interests include watching students develop as people, not just as language learners.

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Introduction
The Anecdote Circle
The Method in the Classroom
Post-lesson
Conclusion
Bibliography

Introduction

Language schools all over the world like to have data on their students. It can be personal; it could be financial; it is sometimes linguistic. A school in the UK will also have data on the agent who sent them. A school in the host country may also have a map with pins in it to indicate where all the students live to help with marketing.

However, there is an area where we rarely keep data. And that is how does the student want to learn? In 2008 I was part of a British Council East Asia project tasked with trying to create a “persona” of a typical British Council student. The countries involved were Korea, Thailand, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia. On returning to the UK, I took the philosophy of the project with me, adapted it to suit a lesson and used it extensively while working as an academic manager for a language school in Margate.

The Anecdote Circle

The technique used in the project and subsequently was a variation on the theme of the “Anecdote Circle”. This is a technique championed in business as a way of getting participants to tell stories. From those stories the researcher/interlocutor can build up recurring themes that come from the storytellers. Therefore the data is real. It is not predetermined by a carefully created set of questions that are designed to produce data that management wants to hear.

But how can this be useful to an EFL teacher? This research method has two beautiful qualities for the EFL teacher. Firstly, it allows the teacher to get their students to talk about real events and their lives thereby giving them meaningful speaking opportunities. Secondly it gives the teacher an invaluable insight into how the students like to learn and interact.

The Method in the Classroom

To fit into a syllabus, this research can easily become part of a series of lessons based on the topic of education. Nearly all standard coursebooks will discuss education and practice the relevant vocabulary at some point. Therefore this technique sits easily within the framework of a good pre intermediate class and above.

A typical lesson frame could look like this:

Pre-task: vocabulary elicitation and practice. Books such as English Vocabulary in Use or First Certificate Organiser provide useful practice.

Task 1:Pairwork or groupwork: students tell stories of a positive and/or a negative learning experience. Within each pair/group, there is an appointed “secretary” who will feedback to the class.

The teacher, too, should be prepared to make notes as they monitor.

Feedback: open class

Task 2: Pairwork or Groupwork: students discuss their ideal teacher/lesson.

Feedback: open class

From these two activities, the teacher will probably get horror stories of the student’s father teaching them to swim or drive or they will hear about a caring primary school teacher.

Examples: (names but not nationalities changed)

Melina from France said “I used to hate it when my papi shouted at me when I started driving. I am not stupid. I am a grown woman.”

Miho from Japan said “I had a great teacher for English at Juku. He made everything really fun. That is why I still enjoy to study now”

From these examples, the teacher will be able to make judgements that praise and encouragement (amongst other things) are important to Melina while Miho likes her learning to be interesting and (perhaps) less “academic”.

Other issues are likely to come out – relevance, clarity, sense of progress, variety, correction, motivation, sense of involvement and evidence of preparation were all highly recurring themes.

Task 3: from the notes the teacher has taken and from the feedback sessions, a number of key points will have been raised. These could be summarized into the words and phrases like those above. In pairs or groups, students should group these words as they see fit. Some will rank them in order of importance to them; some will group them into intrinsic and extrinsic factors. There is no right or wrong answer.

I would then make a copy of their lists and groupings.

As homework, I would then ask the students to write about their “Ideal teacher”. This would probably be a composite of teachers they have met but sometimes they would name names.

Post-lesson

After all this information, you are now in a position to create a picture of the persona of your class and the individuals within it; who likes to be praised, who enjoys a challenge etc.. If you are teaching in a fairly homogenous setting, you may want to organize the information into a narrative that will allow you to inform colleagues and new teachers. This will allow teachers to make informed decisions on a number of key learning issues:

• the course
• the lesson
• the teacher’s personality
• meeting needs – perceived or real
• use of error correction
• use of praise and encouragement
• 1-on-1 moments with the student

Conclusion

Researching how the student (or indeed the parent) views their (their child’s) learning is often overlooked or is often reduced to the end-of-course feedback questionnaire and a test result. However, we should be going further. The research technique described above will allow you to get to know more – not only about the student, but about the person.

Bibliography

Coney M, Lowder M (2008): Teacher/Student personas. a teacher’s guide for effective learning practices. British Council.

Callahan S, Rixon A, Schenk M (2006): The ultimate guide to anecdote circles. Anecdote Pty. Ltd

Morgan G, Macdonald K (2008): Classroom personas: an action research project. Singapore Tertiary English Teachers Society. (They were part of the same British Council East Asia project)

Senior R (2008) Developing Rapport. ETP 54, 4-6

Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Improving English through Humour course at Pilgrims website.