A Fresh Start at School - Fresh Students?

Małgorzata Oberg, Poland

Małgorzata Oberg holds an MA in English Philology from the University of Wrocław. She is a certified teacher of English currently employed at a secondary school. She is particularly interested in teaching English as a communicative tool and in ways to lower student’s affective factor and inhibitions in speaking. E-mail: m_oberg@onet.eu

When I start a new year at school, I am always full of energy and hundreds of ideas to demonstrate in the classroom. I am almost 100 per cent sure that how to attract students’ attention and motivate them to learn. As the time goes by, I am the only person who is still so enthusiastic about using a foreign language in the classroom. What is more, there are people who are yawning at the beginning of the first lesson... I am generalizing, of course. There are students whose level of interest is always high. However, am I too an ambitious teacher to have all students being attentive during the lesson? Or too young to master the ability to ignore the most bored ones? What I know for sure is that it is a very time-consuming process to ‘get them back to classroom life’.

So, in the beginning, I am also the only person enjoying the exercise because students usually do not really see the point- the point of anything. But after they having noticed that English could be a great fun, they ‘wake up’ for a couple of weeks. But still, most of them look at me with open eyes, not knowing how to behave whenever I explain to them the instructions of any language game. I was given a lot of them during the course about Multiple Intelligences at Pilgrims Course “Teaching English through Multiple Intelligences” in Pilgrims, at University of Kent, Canterbury. One day, I introduced to my students the alphabet game. They were supposed to form the letters with the body and thus demonstrate a word to others ( the game taken form Hanna Kryszewska’s workshop about alphabet games at Pilgrims). The great majority of students liked the activity but there were one or two classes who spent more than 20 minutes on deciding how to show a word. But they still were not ready. Finally, they stood in front of the classroom and looked at me again with their eyes wide open! Then I thought to myself that during the workshop the teachers could be only people who genuinely enjoy the activity and be able to perform it perfectly well.

My typical procedure in the situation of having students indifferent is just to explain: that they should not be afraid of the language, and that they should speak the way they can because the teacher will not always correct the grammar or pronunciation as it is simply not the main priority. Then, I suggest that people do make mistakes and if they knew everything then they would not have to come to school, and so on. I never reveal other students’ marks nor criticize them for saying something not appropriate. Sometimes I wonder how much time should I spend on telling them about the language than on teaching it itself. Adolescents are often hindered a lot even though they are enjoying the games. How can I make them be more spontaneous, free-thinking or creative? Can I do it at all? Should I worry that much about ones who are reserved or even frightened, just because I demand from them to be themselves? I realize there are different factors which lower their affective filter but how can I put them aside and make students enjoy the lesson only? Why not to abandon the idea of motivating those ‘worse’ students and concentrate on the majority of them who are so enthusiastic about my way of teaching? It’s a great feeling in your teaching when you hear: “oh, we didn’t realize the time now” because they are surprised of the bell ringing.

Or maybe the whole Polish educational system should be to blamed for making our students unable to meet a challenge? Aren’t our pupils used to swotting and learning by heart from the very beginning? Does not the teacher tend to pick the children’s mistakes and comment on them in front of the whole group?

My son is a great mathematician. I am not saying that because I am the mother who always glorifies her child. He adds up, subtracts, multiplies and of course counts everything that can be counted. He cannot divide, and with all respect for Mr. Piaget’s assumptions about the abilities of certain age groups (Jean Piaget was a psychologist, who studied the development of children's understanding and how their minds work), I am not persuading him to do that. He is 5 years old. One day, his teacher told me that he could not hold the scissors and cut out the figures from the piece of paper and also that he refused to colour the pictures ( I was told it was too girlish!). What was worse for the teacher, everyone else could do that without any problem at all! My reply was very short. “Can other children keep in their minds 9-digit phone numbers of at least ten members of their families and recite them without hesitation?”

I think I can put in picture my considerations by presenting a story I heard at the course in Pilgrims told by Bonnie Tsai (she was a teacher and trainer, who runs the courses at Pilgrims) After shortening it a bit, the story goes in the following way:

The little boy went first day to school
He got some crayons and started to draw
He put colours all over the paper
For colours was what he saw.
And the teacher said…”What are you doing young man?”
“I’m painting flowers,” he said.
She said…”It’s not the time for art young man.
And anyway flowers are red and green.”
There is a time for everything young man
And a way it should be done.

“You’ve got to show concern for everyone else
For you’re not the only one.”

And she said….”Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen.

But the little boy said….
“There are so many colours in the rainbow
So many colours in the morning sun
So many colours in a flower and I see everyone.”

Well the teacher said…”You’re sassy
There’re ways that things should be
And you’ll paint flowers the way they are.”

And she said….”Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen.

But the little boy said….
“There are so many colours in the rainbow
So many colours in the morning sun
So many colours in a flower and I see everyone.”

The teacher put him in a corner
She said…”It’s for your own good
And you won’t come out till you get it right
And all responding like you should”.

Well, finally he got lonely
Frightened thoughts filled his head
And he went up to the teacher
And this is what he said.

Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they have always been seen.”

Time went by like it always does
And they moved to another town.

And the little boy went to another school.
And this is what he found.

The teacher there was smiling
She said….”Painting should be fun
And there are so many colours in a flower
So let’s use everyone”.

But the little boy painted flowers
In neat rows of green and red.

When the teacher asked him why
That is what he said:
“There’s no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they have always been seen”.

I take into account many factors which hinder my students. These can range from psychological, developmental, social or simply originate from their home situations. All in all, I wish for myself, as well as other teachers, to have the wisdom to deal with a student who wants to be a volunteer in the classroom but asks first: “Do I have to think?”

Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroomcourse at Pilgrims website.