Lesson Outline: Sharing a Problem ‘Anonymously’
Norleha binti Md. Baki, Malaysia and Bill Templer, Bulgaria
Norleha binti Md. Baki recently graduated from the TESL B.Ed. program in the Faculty of Education, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, and is teaching in Sabah (Borneo) in eastern Malaysia. Norleha created this lesson plan for her teaching praticum with Form Four pupils in SMK Taman S.E.A. Secondary School, Sec. 2, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia in 2010. E-mail: green87finch@yahoo.com
Bill Templer was until recently Visiting Senior Lecturer in the Dept. of Language and Literacy Education, Faculty of Education, University of Malaya, and is now back in eastern Bulgaria where he has deep roots, trying to spur interest in simpler forms of English for working-class pedagogies of EFL. He is also on the staff of the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture, University of Leipzig. E-mail: bill_templer@yahoo.com
Menu
Introduction
Lesson Plan
Structured anonymity in interaction
Teaching unplugged
References
Appendix
Language emerges from social exchange. We're meeting
socially. That's our little revolution (Meddings, 2003).
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we
used when we created them (Albert Einstein)
This is a tried and tested lesson plan from mid-intermediate level, somewhat in the spirit of ‘DOGME’ and ‘teaching unplugged’ (Meddings, 2003) in the Southeast Asian classroom. It focuses on individual students writing a letter in class about some problem they are dealing with and want advice on. The lesson rationale bears some resemblance to “A problem shared …” (Meddings & Thornbury, 2009, p. 39), but centers on writing and the protection of anonymity. For students in cultures where ‘saving face’ plays an important role in peer interaction, being anonymous in talking about a personal problem that is real permits them to speak more easily and openly about themselves.
Their anonymous letters (with disguised handwriting in some cases) are collected by the teacher, and then redistributed to the class, making sure no one get his or her own letter. Students read the letter and then on the same sheet write a short response letter of advice. In a third stage, other students are then given a colored envelope with the letter plus response, and a few read these to the whole class. Students can comment, discuss whether they have similar problems or advice, and much more.
Our experience in a Malaysian high school in a middle-class urban neighborhood, pupils aged 16, was a very high level of student engagement and interest,. There was lots of laughter among pupils listening to the anonymous letters and advice of their fellow classmates. Many of these pupils are native English users, i.e. they speak English a great deal within the family and among friends from an early age, though all are fluent either in Malay, some regional form of Chinese or Tamil.
Liquid modernity
We live in a time of “liquid modernity,” where “liquid life” for teenagers is full of constant change and uncertainty, an often bewildering ‘fluid’ state of human togetherness and people having to define and redefine themselves (Bauman, 2000; 2010). Students are caught up in that new world where little is fixed, solid and predictable. This intensifies the problems of what teenagers go through trying to become themselves, on their often lonely own --- constructing themselves without the ‘solid’ structures of past norms, well-defined pathways, the closeness of family, community and the rock bed of traditional values.
Writing and talking about problems they feel flooding in on them in a perpetually changing world is therapeutic, also gives insight into one’s self. It restores confidence in one’s own voice, and is a good antidote to ‘mute English’ (Qiang, N., & Wolff, M., 2010). It should be central to an ELT where students learn through social exchange. The song “The Climb” is in some ways an iconic monologue about the pressures of ‘liquid modernity’ in many corners of our planet, not just North America, and learning how to cope with constant change and ‘keep the faith’ in self and society.
Set induction: “It’s all about the climb …”
We suggest that the lesson begin with a set induction (10 minutes) using the song “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus. The students are given a copy of the text, but from our experience, most will know the song, now widespread in youth culture around the planet. They can either watch a youtube performance by the artist or, as in our class experiment, sing the song in unison, unrehearsed, as a group. This group singing was an excellent and musical surprise set induction, centering on key values: the struggle to find solutions to problems, to ‘never give up,’ to ‘keep the faith’ in oneself -- a key theme, esp. for teenagers but really for anybody in the world of ‘liquid life.’ The song was introduced by Miley in her lead role in the 2009 Disney movie Hannah Montana: The Movie , available in part on youtube: http://youtu.be/qolUC13bwMc Students can see Miley in live performance in Los Angeles 2010: http://youtu.be/1rl1dVh0oIg
Lyrics
I can almost see it, that dream i'm dreamin but, there's a voice inside my head sayin, you'll never reach it. every step im takin every move i make feels lost with no direction, my faith is shakin, but i, i gotta keep tryin i gotta keep my head held high
there's always gonna be another mountain im always gonna wanna make it move always gonna be an uphill battle and sometimes im gonna have to lose it aint about how fast i get there aint about whats waitin on the other side its the climb
the struggles im facing the chances im taking sometimes might knock me down but no im not breaking i may not know it but these are the moments that im gonna remember most yeah just gotta keep goin and i i got be strong gotta keep on pushin on cuz
theres always gonna be another mountain im always gonna wanna make it move always gonna be an uphill battle sometimes im gonna have to lose aint about how fast i get there aint about whats waitin on the other side its the climb x2
keep on movin keep climbin keep the faith babe its all about its all about the climb keep the faith keep your faith
Whoa oh oh oh
From: www.metrolyrics.com/its-the-climb-lyrics-miley-cyrus.html The lyrics can also be viewed as a video: http://youtu.be/qolUC13bwMc
Students can discuss: the song’s theme, the key phrases they like especially. What is the meaning of the line: “It’s all about the climb”? Is this a kind of philosophy of life? Is it about the essence of ‘freedom’ and what it demands of us? “There’s always gonna be another mountain.” Students can also discuss in what ways these lyrics are a kind of poetry, and what they notice about grammar, spelling, parallelism, alliteration.
Music as set induction
Our experience is that the students really love this song and it is a good avenue for a further activity, focusing in a sense on its theme, but personalized. As Kuźma (2008) stresses: “In my classroom I most often use songs to practice grammatical functions and as an introduction/ filler when discussing such topics as love, jealousy, friendship, money, family ties, growing up and growing old and many others.”
Pre-writing (7 minutes)
In our lesson plan, students were then give the words ‘struggle,’ ‘faith,’ ‘dreaming,’ and asked to quickly write three sentences. Five students then wrote their sentences on the board (7-9 minutes). Others respond briefly.
While-writing (25 minutes)
The teacher gives instructions to write 60-80 words about any problem they may have, personal, with their family, friends, study problems, whatever. The teacher distributes colored envelopes and one sheet of paper to all students. They write to Professor No Problem, and if possible, print so that their handwriting doesn’t give them away. Students give the letter to the teacher after 10 minutes, and the teacher then distributes the envelopes to other students. They have 10 minutes to write some advice in reply on the same sheet. Students then return the sheet to the envelope and the teacher passes on to another student for reading
Post-writing (8 minutes)
The teacher asks 3-5 students to read the informal letter and response to the class. This encourages listening and also student confidence to read something they have not prepared before a group. Our experience is that there is much fun in sharing these responses. In one lesson, one student wrote “My problem is that I have no problem,” which provoked a huge outburst of laughter. The mood in the classroom, as the supervisor present noted, was very high. Exercises like this reflect Einstein’s comment: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
Closure (2 minutes)
The teacher collects all the letters. They can be made into a poster display for an upcoming class. In the appendix some sample excerpts from three letters (from a class of 40). The problems and responses may suggest the wisdom behind one of Einstein’s most famous quotes: “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” For homework, students could be assigned to write a short journal entry on how they could apply Einstein’s insight to one of their own problems.
Follow-up
In addition to discussing what concrete problems are shared by others in the class, a number of follow-up exercises on the text of “The Climb” are possible, Kuźma (2008) has suggestive ideas on how songs can be used. For language, Pugliese’s (2003) controlled musical dictation work seems especially useful where learners have trouble in listening comprehension, everyday or artistic. The song is in some deeper sense about freedom. Bauman (2001. p. 51) reminds us: “Freedom is the uppermost among human values. But first and foremost it is a fate . Free beings, since they are free, may embrace that fate or try to escape from it, make it into their vocation or fight against it: this is also the capacity which they owe to their freedom.” Is Miley’s song somehow also about this? In what sense do your students feel they are ‘unfree’? Or do they feel their life is bombarded by too much ‘freedom,’ too many choices? That’s also part of “liquid life” and its challenges. Students can also find other songs by Miley online, or learn about her biography as actress & singer. The Freechild Project in the U.S. has many exciting ideas for young teens discovering new pathways to greater freedom and engagement in society: http://tinyurl.com/4xwrawz . This lesson plan also jibes well with basic strategies in constructivist teaching in ESL (Reyes & Vallone, 2008).
This lesson plan seeks to address in part the culture of rigorous ‘face-saving’ found in many learning ecologies in East Asia, including Malaysia (Abdullah & Pedersen, 2003, pp. 215-217). In Thailand, where one of the authors has extensive experience, an entire array of acts of criticism and other dimensions of interpersonal interaction are perceived as highly damaging to ‘face’ and thus humiliating or gravely insulting. ‘Preserving one another’s ego’ is a basic rule of most Thai interactions, up and down a power pyramid, something known in Thai discourse as kreng jai (avoiding hurting the other’s feelings, however perceived). That is bound up with a complex ‘shame-driven’ culture of deference and respect common in various distinctive modes in many East Asian cultures (Dörnyei, 2001). Though perhaps less pronounced in the Malaysian schoolroom, it is present there as elsewhere in many of our classrooms. Graham (2008, p. 1) underscores that “language learning is one of the most ‘face threatening’ subjects to learn at school […] which does not help when matters of ‘face’ are deemed so important for both teachers and students in Thailand.” There is a probing discussion of this in Komin (1990, pp. 133-135, 160 ff.), grounded on extensive empirical work, and also elaborated by Niphon (2003). Our thesis is that structured anonymity in classroom exercises can help to overcome this.
Meddings & Thornbury (2009, p. 39) suggest a dynamic pairing approach, with students talking about a problem in two parallel lines. They tell their problem and their opposite partner listens and offers advice, and vice versa. Then the student at the top of Line A moves to the bottom of the same line, and each student moves up one partner. Then they retell their problem, but now to a different opposite student. To round it off, students report on the best advice they were given. The teacher’s input centers on language phrases they find necessary or useful as they circulate. In a variation, students can interact with fewer opposite partners, just two or three. The drawback here is of course the lack of anonymity and privacy. But this is a good stimulus to real face-to-face talk.
Abdullah, A. & Pedersen, P.B. (2003). Understanding multicultural Malaysia. Petaling Jaya and New York: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. London: Wiley.
Bauman, Z. (2001). Conversations with Zygmunt Bauman. [Keith Tester interviews]. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bauman, Z. (2010). 44 letters from the liquid modern world. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Dörnyei, Z.. (2001). Motivational strategies in the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Graham, S. (2008). From the bottom up: A case study of teacher training for primary school teachers of English in a Thai school in northeastern Thailand.
http://tinyurl.com/6zq2agt
(accessed 10 September.2011).
Kuźma, K. (2008). Music and songs in English language teaching. HLT, 10(6).
Komin, S. (1990). Psychology of the Thai people: Values and behavioral patterns. Research Center, National Institute of Development Administration, Bangkok.
Meddings, L. (2003). A DOGME Lesson idea. HLT, 5(6).
Meddings, L., & Thornbury, S. (2009). Teaching unplugged: Dogme in English language teaching. London: Delta.
Niphon, S., 2003. Thai national character. In: SDBThai.
http://lox1.loxinfo.co.th/~sniphon/ (accessed 10 September 2011).
Pugliese, C. (2003). “Do you hear what I here” or music dictation. HLT, 5(6).
Qiang, N., & Wolff, M. (2010). China EFL: Mute English. CET – the bane of EFL acquisition in China. HLT, 12 (1).
Reyes, S.A., & Vallone, T.L. (2008). Constructivist strategies for teaching English language learners. Thousand Oaks/CA: Corwin.
1. Student X to Professor No Problem
Hello Professor! I have a problem. This girl, she is bugging me. She keeps calling, spamming my inbox, facebook, twitter, hotmail account every SINGLE DAY. She sucks my money like a vacuum cleaner and never pays me back. She gossips, backstabs her friends, and doesn’t believe in God. How would I go about getting rid of this girl? Yours sincerely, Anonymous
Hello Anonymous,
I think you should go easy on her and tell her about the truth. That’s the only way to explain to her and if she remains being the same person, then I suggest you keep away from her. Yours, Professor No Problem
2. Student Y to Professor No Problem
Hello! The Problem is about our class. It’s dirty. I suggest we should clean the walls of the class, the ceiling and the floor. Another thing apart from that is our class is not so cooperative. We always delay our drama acting practice. Other than that, I want every one to be happy forever. Yours sincerely, student with problems
Hi, student with problems! The onli thing you can do is, you should start work first, You should take the first action then ppl will follow you. All you got to do is stand out and be the man, make the first move.
3. Student Z to Professor No Problem
My common problem is I never had enough time to revise my homework. Everyday when I head back home, I’ll be doing my tuition homework, class homework and many more. This causes to not have enough time to study. I need to study at home because at school, teacher sometimes doesn’t let me study in class while she is teaching. Plus, at home, I need to do chores like sweeping and mopping the floor and washing plates. Yours sincerely, newmoon
Dear newmoon, That’s not a problem actually, all you have to do is a timetable and strictly follow it… Other than that you can also sleep late… Stay up and study or you can wake up earlyrer to study… That’s all, good luck … Professor No Problem
Please check the Teaching through Music and Visual Art course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
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