Getting to Know Each Other
Michael Berman, UK
Michael Berman works as a teacher and a writer. ELT publications include A Multiple Intelligences Road to an ELT Classroom and The Power of Metaphor for Crown House, In a Faraway Land (a resource book for teachers on storytelling), and On Business and for Pleasure (a self-study workbook) for O-Books. His latest book, English Language Teaching Matters, has been written with Mojca Belak and Wayne Rimmer and was published by O-Books in March 2011.
E-mail: michaelberman@blueyonder.co.uk, www.Thestoryteller.org.uk
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The circle game: A first day activity
In my beginning is my end
Draw a circle on the board and write a name of a person in your family or someone who has had a major influence on your life, a number that means something to you (your lucky number perhaps or the number of times you failed your driving test), and a place that is of special significance (where you would like to live perhaps or where you had your first kiss).
Tell the class members that the information on the board is somehow connected to your life, and than invite them to guess why the words and numbers are important to you.
Have each student draw their own circles and complete them with the information that is meaningful to them, then pair them up. They must now guess the importance of the words and numbers from looking at each others’ circles and asking yes/no questions (e.g. Is 4 your lucky number?)
A good reason for using this activity on the first day with a new class is that it quickly takes the focus off you and then gives you the chance to find out all about the learners you will be working with in future – their strengths, their weaknesses, and how they interact with each other.
At the same time, you can earn the learners’ confidence by following up the activity with an error correction slot, based on what you noted down while they were working together in pairs.
Why draw a circle on the board, not a square or a triangle you ask? Perhaps the answer lies in the following verses:
The Almond-Tree
As the kernel of an almond is spoilt utterly
If it is plucked from its husk while unripe,
So error in the path of the pilgrim
Spoils the kernel of his soul.
When the knower is divinely illumined,
The kernel ripens, bursts the husk,
And departs, returning no more.
But another retains the husk,
Though shining as a. bright sun,
And makes another circuit.
From water and earth springs up into a tree,
Whose high branches are lifted up to heaven;
Then from the seed of this tree
A hundredfold are brought forth.
Like the growth of a seed into the line of a tree,
From point comes a line, then a circle;
When the circuit of this circle is complete,
Then the last is joined to the first.
Intermingling
You are plurality transformed into Unity,
And Unity passing into plurality;
This mystery is understood when man
Leaves the part and merges in the Whole.
The verses are taken from The Secret Rose Garden of Sa’d Ud Din Mahmud Shabistari, rendered from the Persian with an Introduction by Florence Lederer. London: J. Murray [1920], scanned, proofed and formatted at sacred-texts.com, September 2005, by John Bruno Hare, and in the public domain.
Sa’d ud Din Mahmud Shabistari was born in Persia, in Shabistar, near Tabriz, about 1250 CE. His best known work, The Secret Rose Garden is a set of verses that uses the rich Sufi allegorical language to explore the path back to God, to what we originated from, the only real journey we ever take.
Is this new teacher any good? – The students wonder. Are they going to like me? – You ask yourself. What do you do first day with a new class? Clearly this will depend on their level and whether they already know each other or not. However, we each have our preferred activities and here is something I frequently use with classes from Intermediate level upwards that you might like to try.
Draw a circle on the board and write a name of a person in your family or someone who has had a major influence on your life, a number that means something to you (your lucky number perhaps or the number of times you failed your driving test), and a place that is of special significance (where you would like to live perhaps or where you had your first kiss).
Tell the class members that the information on the board is somehow connected to your life, and than invite them to guess why the words and numbers are important to you.
Pair up the learners and have them draw their own circles and complete them with the information that is meaningful to them. They must now guess the importance of the words and numbers from looking at each others’ circles and asking yes/no questions (e.g. Is 4 your lucky number?)
A good reason for using this activity on the first day with a new class is that it quickly takes the focus off you and then gives you the chance to find out all about the learners you will be working with in future – their strengths, their weaknesses, and how they interact with each other.
At the same time, you can earn the learners’ confidence by following up the activity with an error correction slot, based on what you noted down while they were working together in pairs.
Why draw a circle on the board, not a square or a triangle you ask? Perhaps the answer lies in the following verses:
The Almond-Tree
As the kernel of an almond is spoilt utterly
If it is plucked from its husk while unripe,
So error in the path of the pilgrim
Spoils the kernel of his soul.
When the knower is divinely illumined,
The kernel ripens, bursts the husk,
And departs, returning no more.
But another retains the husk,
Though shining as a. bright sun,
And makes another circuit.
From water and earth springs up into a tree,
Whose high branches are lifted up to heaven;
Then from the seed of this tree
A hundredfold are brought forth.
Like the growth of a seed into the line of a tree,
From point comes a line, then a circle;
When the circuit of this circle is complete,
Then the last is joined to the first.
Intermingling
You are plurality transformed into Unity,
And Unity passing into plurality;
This mystery is understood when man
Leaves the part and merges in the Whole.
The verses are taken from The Secret Rose Garden of Sa’d Ud Din Mahmud Shabistari, rendered from the Persian with an Introduction by Florence Lederer. London: J. Murray [1920], scanned, proofed and formatted at sacred-texts.com, September 2005, by John Bruno Hare, and in the public domain.
***
As well as giving thought as to the most effective ways in which to start off new courses, we also need to consider how best to bring them to a close. So here is a suggestion you might like to make use of for the purpose that “kills two birds with one stone” – for it also includes a Present Perfect review:
Looking Back in Time for the Present Perfect
LOOK back on time with kindly eyes,
He doubtless did his best;
How softly sinks his trembling sun
In human nature’s west!
Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Complete Poems. 1924.
When you look out into space you are actually looking back in time. This is because of the speed of light. Light moves at the speed of 300,000,000 meters a second (186,000 miles a second). At short distances the light travel time is only a fraction of a second. However, the Sun is so distant from Earth (150,000,000 Kilometres) that its light takes 8 minutes to reach us. So when you look at the sun in the sky (never look at it directly, you'll go blind) you see it as it was 8 minutes ago.
As distances get larger, so does this "look-back time." The closest star, Alpha Centauri, is so far away that its light takes 4.3 years to reach us. When we look at the closest spiral galaxy to our own Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy, we see it as it was 2 million years ago (when Humans first began walking the Earth). And now that we are approaching the end of this course, our “look-back time” is upon us.
On a personal level, the older I become, the faster time seems to fly. There are many things I regret doing and there are things I wish had never happened. I know that I'm the sum of all the things that I have experienced in life, that I wouldn't be the person I am today without them but, at the same time, there are of course still things I would like to either have undone or at least be able to forget. How about you?
Working in pairs, ask each other the following questions, make a note of the answers, and then report back with the most interesting thing you found out about your partner to the rest of the class:
- What have you done so far in your life, in your present job, in this class, or in this country that you’re proud or ashamed of? Start your answer with: I’m proud or ashamed of the fact that _____
- What have you been criticised or praised for recently?
- What have you spent or perhaps wasted a lot of money or time on recently?
- What’s the most important lesson you’ve learnt from living, working, or studying here?
- Who’s been the most important influence on you in your present job or in your life so far, and why?
Please check the Building Positive Group Dynamics course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Literature course at Pilgrims website.
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