If I Were a Tree... An Experience of Working with Humanistic Activities and Teenagers
Cristina Ferreira Villamar, Mexico
She has been working for seven years at the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria 7, Ezequiel A. Chávez, of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in México City. She is the Coordinator of the English department in this school and is interested in promoting and developing the use of the almost new self-access center in the school.
E-mail:crisfevi13@prodigy.net.mx
Menu
Introduction
Background
Examples
Conclusions
Reference
Teachers who work with teenagers know that sometimes it is a little bit hard to deal with them, however if you find a good activity you can work with them wonderfully. In the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria (National High School) we teach students whose ages range from 14 to 18 years old approximately; with a few students who are younger or older than the average. Of course, we have to teach them the curriculum, and there are suggestions on how to work with the students, but fortunately for us we have the freedom to choose how to teach our students and to choose a book, materials and activities. So, I have the opportunity to try new activities in accordance with the topics in the curriculum and, in this way motivate my students.
Thus, I was really interested that they told me about Humanistic activities when I was studying a teacher training course at the University's Foreign Language Center (CELE).It was a new way to help students learn not only English but also about themselves. So, I read the book Caring and Sharing in the Foreign Language Class by Gertrude Moskowitz and chose an activity to try with my students. I chose the one called Branching Out, and I have found it very useful. I have made little adaptations but it has really worked very well with my students. They are very motivated; they have learnt vocabulary about feelings and nature, also adjectives and possessive adjectives and to talk about themselves using very short descriptions.
I have found that humanistic activities really help to improve students' moods, and the classes develop in a more peaceful and friendly way even if you do not use them every day. Dealing with teenagers is sometimes difficult, they have so many interests that is difficult to catch their attention, they are very active and unique, though some are close friends, they do not like exactly the same things. Choosing for example a song for a listening activity was difficult because half of the class liked the song and the other half did not, though they learnt something or practice their English, you as teacher did not feel very satisfied because one half of the class was not participating as they should. With the humanistic activities you do not have this problem because almost everybody likes to talk about themselves, besides it is the topic they are experts on. Maybe you will have to deal with one or two shy persons, but as the activity develops they feel secure and want to share and communicate, and that is the main purpose of a foreign language teacher to help his or her students to communicate in another language.
Another aspect that Humanistic activities has helped me to improve is students' social interaction. Even though you tell them to work in teams and you try to let them know each other, they do not always do it -- sometimes they even refuse to work in teams in which their friends are not included. What is more, some of them only want to work by themselves. (When you are working for the first time in the school year with a Humanistic activity, try to choose one that includes the whole group, later in the year you can work in teams, when they have learnt more from each other. This activity is excellent because the first stage they work individually, during the second stage the whole group participates. Usually they learn something about their classmates that they ignored, so next time they will not think or feel like they are totally strangers).
With Humanistic activities all the students participate in the class and they learn about their classmates in a positive way. That is important: avoid negative thinking and attitudes. Humanistic activities help us foster students' self-esteem and confidence by knowing and expressing themselves and their feelings; so do not allow negative attitudes and critiques or bad jokes in your class. Do not forget you are handling emotions and feelings, so be careful, let your students express themselves, but it is an English class not a personal psychoanalysis session.
The activity of students drawing a tree is simple but enriching, you can do it easily: all you need is white sheets of paper, crayons, felt pens or color pencils, a record of relaxing music and a record player, and cello tape. You can adapt the time too, I usually do it in a 50 min. class but it can take longer, especially if your students want to draw a complicated and very detailed drawing, so keep that in mind and set specific times, to implement the activity. Ask your students as homework to bring the materials (paper and color pencils) for the next class, do not worry if some of them forget them, they can share or they can use their everyday pencils and pens, they are very good artists and have a lot of imagination and creativity that they can do an excellent drawing with just that. If you have small groups maybe you can bring the materials too.
In the class, tell them that you are going to do a different activity from the ones you always do in all your classes, and ask them to have their materials ready, and then begin a brief relaxation exercise, like asking them to sit comfortably, and straight, no legs crossed, and to inhale and exhale deeply and slowly, and play the record, not very loud but a little quiet. Then ask them to close their eyes and imagine a forest, then to choose a tree, when they have visualized their tree ask them to open their eyes and to draw it. Make sure that nobody interrupts the first part of the activity, so they can get really involved and concentrate, which they usually do. Also tell them not to copy another student's tree, encourage them to draw the tree that they have imagined and maybe if they have enough time they would draw also the landscape that surrounds their tree. Emphasize that they are unique and so their trees are unique too, which they can corroborate at the end of the activity.
While they finish drawing their trees, write some adjectives on the blackboard like beautiful, happy, tall. Remember only positive thinking: do not write adjectives like ugly or bad. Also, write some vocabulary about trees and nature like roots, branches, flowers, fruits, leaves, mountain. When they have finished their drawings teach them how to do some sentences to describe the tree, and very important, they are going to write the sentences in the first person, for instance, I am tall and wonderful, I have many friends, My leaves are green, My flowers are beautiful. They usually will ask you how they do say something, or a specific phrase to translate. Try to keep the positive thinking because they may want to write negative sentences. Then, ask them to write the phrases they chose or created in their drawings. After that, ask your students to write their names in the back of the drawing. Pick up all the drawings and then post them in the blackboard and ask them who the drawings belong to and why. Usually the closest friends are the ones who guess first, they would give you answers like, It is Patty's because she likes squirrels and the tree has squirrels on it.
When the activity has finished they have learnt things about themselves and their classmates, they have relaxed, expressed their feelings through art using their creativity and imagination. It has been a meaningful activity for them. Linguistically speaking they have learnt and practiced to talk about themselves and others, vocabulary about colors, nature and positive adjectives, to describe, to use metalinguistic questions like, How do you say?, to use possessive adjectives and the verbs be, have and like, etc.
I have gotten very good results applying this activity after the first period of exams with my students who are between 14 and 16 years old, in groups of about 25 to 30 students and have a very basic knowledge of English. It is a kind of ice-breaker because it is their first year at this school and they have had enough time to meet each other but not so well. When they end the activity they realize that everybody drew a different tree, and that if they were trees they would be in a very rich forest of unique personalities.
If your students are not too shy you can organize an exhibition of their works of art. And let them share their creativity and talent and their English phrases with other groups at the school. It worked very well not only with students, but also teachers from my department and other departments were interested in this kind of activities. There a lot of Humanistic activities to choose from and surely there is one you can try to begin with and adapt to your needs. Another thing is, as students are very frequently interested in exploring psychological aspects of their drawings, I have asked help to the Psychology Department teachers who have very gladly offered to talk with the interested students. In this way, they have also learnt that English is not an isolated subject and can be related to many subjects and topics of their interest. So, try new activities, especially Humanistic ones. I hope my experience can be useful for you and your students.
Moskowitz, Gertrude.1978. Caring and Sharing in the Foreign Language Class. Boston: Heinle and Heinle.
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Building Positive Group Dynamics course at Pilgrims website.
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