Teaching Busy Adults: Balancing Upstream/Downstream Notions
Irina Khan, Russia
Irina Khan is currently teaching Business English and IELTS courses mostly to professional people for a private language school in Moscow. She is interested in lifelong learning.
E-mail: i.khan@educationstation.ru, Irina.a.khan@gmail.com
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Introduction
Case 1: False beginner
Case 2: Teaching offshore
Case 3: Teacher training session
Case 4: ‘Mozart effect’
Conclusions
PS
It was Mario Rinvolucri who has encouraged me, like many other teachers around the world, to develop more personalized attitudes towards my students. A few years ago he attended one of my workshops on Teaching Business Communication (many thanks to Elena Kashina of Samara State University who had made it possible) and provided the most generous and comprehensive follow-up comment.
I introduced trainees to some extracts from the real application letters from candidates (both native and non-native speakers), looking for a marketing manager position, along with the list of the job requirements. First, trainees were asked to consider the applications in terms of language proficiency (normally it is the easiest task when it comes to search through a text for grammar and spelling errors). Then they assessed the pieces against a task performance criterion – had applicants responded to the requirements when describing their qualification and work experience. The final task was a bit unusual for teachers – they were to work out a portrait of each candidate, in other words to speculate what kind of personal qualities they may have, how smart they are, are they honest enough. This is exactly HR managers are used to when processing bulks of applications to select the best talents available in the job market.
After the workshop Mario asked me whether it makes sense to get teachers involved in such a sensitive activity. It was perhaps his reaction to my cynical comments on some candidates – subjects, including something like ‘people try to do their best to demonstrate how stupid they are’. Initially, my idea was to lead the participants through a painful and sometimes shocking activity so that they could obtain some very useful tools to use when teaching business writing. In fact, I had not thought about the EFL teachers’ contributions to their students’ applications and CVs before that seminar. I mean, some of them would help students to translate those or edit the drafts.
It is not that I have stopped exploiting such kinds of tools when teaching busy adults. Moreover, I still consider those as the fastest and most efficient way to building confidence and competence. Wrap your message up, provide some preliminary comments, consider more carefully your trainees background and emotional memory, their ability to cope with the tough activities – this is the lesson I have learned from Mario and other participants.
Moving further I would like to observe several cases from my teaching practice I have encountered recently which may explain my obsession with tough methods which I try to merge with the human touch.
A corporate student, senior manager in his early 40s, was not prepared to cope with an intensive format I tried to involve him in. He would ask for an explanation of every single word he comes across while listening to a recording or skimming a text. He would then write down translations above some 60% of the words. At the same time, he was extremely good at analysing language chunks and guessing the general meaning of audio podcasts based on topics related to his industry sector, even though some of them were far beyond his level of language proficiency.
Just a brief comment on a technique I normally use to build micro skills when opening a course for false beginners. I would ask students to focus exclusively on the words or figures and numbers they know when reading through a short text or listening to a recording. I also advise them to ignore any word they do not understand. Then I would help them to elicit some other words. At the end of this ‘warming-up’, in fact, a bit stressful activity I would involve them in a discussion, primarily, to make them feel more confident than 15-20 minutes before, once they realise that they understand much more than they could have imagined and are able to produce some meaningful messages. Of course, to make sure this works I sometimes use their first language for explanations. To tell the truth, it takes them from one to three months to get used to this way of approaching any new material and developing skills as this is absolutely against their previous experience.
After the first three months of studies, comprising some 14 lessons between his business trips, he was able to make arrangements by phone, write emails requesting information, compare different stuff when choosing a venue for his company sales conference. He was also able to express an opinion and justify it (I think this hotel is better because it has a conference hall and big meeting rooms), extending then this to ‘Also, it is not far from the international airport’.
There was one disappointing moment – any time when being exposed to a new material he would rely on the same, acquired long ago, technique like writing translations and reading aloud. All the previous experience, including paraphrasing a message to avoid producing long and too complicated sentences, would just vanish. Despite those regular setbacks he kept going forward for another two months. But after another short break he cancelled his lessons. ‘Nothing personal – I’m just too busy due to the financial crisis to continue my studies’. Sounds good, why should not I accept such a reasonable excuse. Yet it seems that the real story behind was not about too much stuff to deal with during tough times - his overworked peers are still my students.
Of course, I used to discuss fishing/hunting and football, his favourite activities, when starting any lesson. Also, we used to explore the internet - a double-purpose task, to develop scanning/skimming skills, as well as to exploit his interest in finding another exotic fishing destination. But was this enough to make him feel happier and/or more relaxed for a while? Was there anything else I could have done to ensure his progress? Was it probably just the student’s individual feature to put too much emphasis on details thus escaping more ambitious tasks beyond his capability?
A young woman, working for an oil company based far away from any language school, requested a 3-month online IELTS preparation course. Her entry level was considered as Intermediate as I could hardly score her first essay at more than 4,5 (later she confessed that it took her about 4 hours to write this piece). Initially, being a pragmatic person I rejected the request as she was targeting 6,5. Besides, she had never studied English within any formal setting but a secondary school in the middle of nowhere. In addition, she had some practice with English-speaking colleagues.
Anyway, after a 40-minute telephone conversation she managed to persuade me to start the course. One can hardly believe that she would succeed after three months distance learning plus 20 hours face-to-face teaching just before the exam, but she had done it! It was her absolutely fantastic personality driving her unique ability to spend long hours every night studying basic grammar, learning bulks of new words, writing and re-writing 6 (SIX) essays every week along with 4-5 summaries of lengthy articles I would download for her. On top of that, I was sending her gigabytes of audio podcasts to develop active listening skills and build academic vocabulary. And, of course, this was accompanied with weekly 40-minute telephone sessions between which she was sending answers to Speaking Part in writing for evaluation.
After she had received the script with the results (Speaking 6,5 Writing 5,5 Reading and Listening 6,5 each) she gave me a thank you (extremely touching) call and asked if she could contact me further on. Definitely not, I wish I could speak out. In fact, I replied exactly in a way I advise my students to use when it comes to say ‘no’. ‘ I’m afraid I have too many other students to deal with, honey. Your message is likely to be lost among thousands of others’. Poor thing, she just burst into tears. It was probably the very moment she realised that her teacher has nothing to do with that nice, friendly and caring person she had enjoyed working with.
Any time I need to find a solution to a similar dilemma when a student expects me to get emotionally involved at the same wavelength both during a lesson and outside the class, I would go back to that extraordinary person even though I do realise it is just another vain attempt to set the right distance between their hopes and reality. The truth is that, like many other teachers, I feel absolutely emotionally and physically (one may add some other features to the list) exhausted after teaching 24 to 36 hours a week to a diversity of students, from starter to academic level, from the first year students to top managers at different locations.
A young, very good-looking male participant, which is a rare character in my country teaching tribe, seemed to feel a bit puzzled at the end of a workshop on teaching reading to starters. I had presented some activities using German language elementary short stories to show how their students can:
- guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from the context and understand the general meaning of the text if we focus them on the words they are likely to know;
- learn pronunciation, provided with listening to the recording of the same story;
- roleplay hotel booking by telephone using the opening episode;
- enjoy a funny detective story using their just learned skills.
I will step for a while to explain why I would use this activity. I have come across an article suggesting that EFL teachers can benefit a lot from learning a new foreign language. Unfortunately, I do not remember the name of the author of this publication. But soon after I had read this I started studying German from the scratch. I felt fully depressed when meine Lehrerin introduced me to some basic principles of the German grammar at the first lesson and asked to drill some expressions. She was a good teacher. Moreover, unlike many other DaF teachers, she practised communicative approach. But after some 7 lessons I decided to continue on my own. It took me 4 months to fight through Grundstufe 1 and reach the survival level.
In fact, as a student-subject of this experiment I have examined different theories and methods. First of all, this helped me to rely on lexical approach, I had learned from Lewis and Hill, even stronger than before. Secondly, it has become much easier to decide shall I make use of or reject some ideas presented in numerous professional and academic books. Finally, it works as a relevant argument (I have tried this myself and survived) when it comes to encourage students to take risks when going through the challenging activities – otherwise they would be crying for more familiar tasks and looking for a more comforting setting even if they agree that their previous learning experience, mostly Read and translate/ Listen and repeat, has led them to miserable results after several years of studies.
Back to our seminar, like my peer teacher trainers, I would always refer to the major principles, such as learner-centred approach and building learning-to-learn skills, we follow, and briefly observe other methods and ideas we rely on in our own teaching practice when opening the series. For our guy it was a bit new conception, so he asked in the most plain manner: ‘Why don’t you teach phonetic symbols and reading aloud’? ‘Of course, you can stick your students to these activities if you wish and you feel like it works’, I replied (what I thought was a bit different). Not really, was the answer, some students would refuse to read aloud in front of the group. He also commented that not all of them would pass the exit test after a 132-hour elementary course. One hundred and thirty two hours! He must be a millionaire if his students can afford such an old-school style, hence, too lengthy course.
There was no need for me to think of an appropriate response. The other participants just attacked their colleague using some pieces of direct language I would not quote in writing. To sum up, they advised him to pursue another career that does not require that many efforts needed for lifelong professional development.
I can think of several reasons that fueled this furious reaction. First, most participants were not a kind of teachers who would pay for another pile of easy-to-use recipes to copy – this is something they can pick up at numerous free seminars. Many of them had to cancel either regular classes or re-schedule their private lessons to be able to spend four days on a lively information exchange. One of their objectives was to share experience and brainstorm some new ideas. They were also eager to explore and discuss some controversial issues, as well as to participate in challenging and sometimes exhausting activities. In other words, they were not prepared to tolerate a novice who was not brave enough to move forward.
Very often, when teaching an IELTS class, I feel confused with some students’ reaction to standard exam questions. Sometimes they just have no idea of a topic beyond their profession or area of studies (global warming, corporate responsibility, international aid to poor countries – what are you talking about? It’s all just rubbish). Others would provide a bit short-sighted answer to a question like ‘Should music be a compulsory subject at secondary school’, for example: ‘I don’t think parents or educators should enforce children to learn music at school, as there are much more important subjects to study’. More often, they would give another reason: ‘I’m quite happy with pop music. Those who listen to classical music are no more than snobs or freaks.’
For music lovers like myself this sounds frustrating, but as a teacher I would push students to look up the word ‘harmony’ at the Compact Oxford Dictionary of Thesaurus. It is amazing to watch them enjoying the richness of words and concepts behind those: agreement, balance, cooperation, goodwill, peace, rapport, sympathy, understanding. Next, I would play some recordings of the most beautiful pieces of music from Mahler or Tchaikovsky, Verdi or Wagner. After that we would go back to the exam materials to discuss music as a powerful tool or debate the Mozart effect issue.
Sometimes, I am lucky to observe an instant effect of these ‘music’ lessons when the student, who was strictly against teaching music at schools, would go to listen to a philharmonic orchestra and confess afterwards that he (a successful journalist) began to cry while listening. ‘I’ve never experienced such strong emotions before. This just made me feel happy’, he said. Moreover, one day he had decided to accompany a report on a high-level official meeting with a piece of music, probably to make this coverage more memorable. His editor did not think so – next day after the broadcast this episode was considered as an attempt to devaluate the importance of the event.
This leads me to a final note. To what extent can teachers use their professional tools kit to manipulate students? Shall we follow the students’ expectations and/or stereotypes to make them feel comfortable or instead set more ambitious goals for them even if they are likely to resist those? Shall we treat them as equals thus expecting them to share responsibility for their studies results? To sum up, this is the never-ending search for the answers that keeps me awake any time.
Those were the articles I have read recently in HLTMag, first, Heart of the Matter: On the shoulders of Giants by Lou Spaventa (old.hltmag.co.uk/jun09/sart13.htm), then Becoming a Facilitator of Teacher learning by Robert Feather (old.hltmag.co.uk/oct09/sart01.htm), which I wished to respond first. But while writing the first drafts of letters to the authors, I suddenly felt like their ideas and observations just urged me to provide a longer account of my reflections on their thought-provoking publications.
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the English for Teachers course at Pilgrims website.
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