Look into My Eyes

Tandy Taylor

Tandy Taylor spent the last 20 years working as an ELT trainer, teacher trainer, trainer trainer, materials writer and course director. She spent 6 years in Egypt, 2 years in China, 3 years in Laos and 3 years in Ukraine. Since 1997 she has specialised in ESP and has worked on a number of military English projects in Ukraine, Romania, Slovakia, Montenegro and Switzerland. She is currently working as a maritime English teacher trainer, tester and materials writer and also works as a consultant with the IMO (International Maritime Organisation). She is based in Glasgow but frequently has to travel abroad. Since she took up her new position in the maritime sector last November (2006) she has set up and led training courses in Malawi, India, Latvia, the Philippines and Russia. E-mail: tandy@taylor6164.freeserve.co.uk

“God, that Kevin really annoys me, he’s so lazy and spends the whole class staring into space” my colleague Chris loudly announced stomping into the teacher’s room. He was referring to one of the Chinese military officers over in the UK to improve their English. Kevin wasn’t one of my students but I would be teaching him for the first time the next day. We all had our own intensive groups. But to give the students, and ourselves a break from each other, we’d unofficially swap groups one day a week. Although no-one liked to admit it, I think we all secretly looked forward to it. Sometimes, being with the same group, day in day out, can be a bit like being in a marriage- you get a sort of love hate thing going on.

Anyway, the next day I went to teach the Chinese officers. And just like Chris had predicted, Kevin (all the Officers had given themselves Anglicized names as they were convinced their Chinese names would be too complicated for us to remember) spent most of the lesson with his gaze fixed to a point on the ceiling. However, he was able to give responses when required and seemed quite happy to interact with the others when necessary. While the rest of the group sat there furiously taking notes, Kevin just sat there staring into space. I spent the lesson closely observing him and had a vague idea what might be going on. I’d need to try something, but it would have to wait until our next meeting in a week’s time.

The next week I went in with a large detailed visual. I informed the group they had thirty seconds to try and remember as much detail as possible before I took it away. At first the group were able to remember what the people in the visual were doing, what they were wearing, what they were eating etc. But gradually their comments petered out- all except Kevin that is. We sat there amazed as he continued to recount how many flowers there were, how many petals each flower had, how many insects there were, what type of insects they were and even where they were on the petals. This went on until Kevin finally became aware that he’d become the centre of attention and the main focal point in the classroom, and he abruptly stopped. “You have a photographic memory, don’t you?” I stated triumphantly. Kevin looked uncomfortable and I remembered that he was a Military Observer. Of course, a photographic memory would be a huge asset in such a position. But I didn’t push it, knowing it was a sensitive area (often the Chinese military officers were very cagey about their jobs.)

Now I understood exactly what was going on, or at least I thought I did. Kevin didn’t take notes because he didn’t need to. I’d recently completed a course on NLP and was now a qualified NLP trainer. Part of the course dealt with something called “Eye accessing cues.” You can tell a lot about what’s going on with a person’s thought process and also learning process by watching the movement of the eyes. I won’t go into detail as it’s a huge subject area and you have to look for patterns. But basically, if the eyes move to the top left in response to a question then it can indicate the person is visually remembering something. However, if the eyes move to the top right it can indicate they are visually constructing something. Different eye movements can also indicate whether someone is recalling something by tapping into their auditory senses or reacting by tapping into feelings or emotions. It can tell you an awful lot about your learners and whether they are pre-dominantly visual, auditory or kinaesthetic learners.

Kevin’s eyes were moving to the top right. He was actually constructing his own notes in his own mind. And he was creating his own internal visual page.

So, the next time you see a student staring off into space think twice before you jolt them back to reality. This reaction could actually be enhancing their own independent learning strategy. There could be an awful lot more going on than you could possibly imagine. Or there again, they could just be plain bored!

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