Humanising Language Teaching
Year 3; Issue 5; September 2001

To satisfy your left-brain, I'll tell you now a) these are practical classroom techniques, b) and helpful insights c) to help you to perceive left-brain and right-brain differences more clearly, and d) to help you to learn more about visual, auditory and kinesthetic channels of learning.

1. 'Closed' or 'Open'?

It's nearly the end of the lesson. I say "Oh, and for homework I want you to write about your last holiday."
Immediately my left-brain learners ask, anxiously, "How many words?" "What aspects of the holiday?" and my right-brain learners ask, rebelliously, "Does it have to be my holiday?" "Does it have to be my last holiday?"
In simple terms, left-brain learners feel they know what to do with a 'closed' task, and right-brain learners want an 'open' task, so they can use their imaginations.
So, let's run that bit again. It's nearly the end of the lesson. I say, "Oh, and for your homework I want you to write about your last holiday. BUT it must be 103 words, and one word must be 'blue'." (That has satisfied the left-brain learners.) "AND, it can be anybody's holiday, true or imagined. Yes, 'green' is OK. Yes, 105 words is fine." (That has satisfied the right-brain learners.)
Yes, I've 'opened' the task and I've 'closed' it. Think how you can do that for any classwork and homework.

2. Closing and Opening

Obviously the next thing to do, a few months later, is to train your left-brain learners to 'close' for themselves tasks which are too 'open' for them, and to train your right-brain learners to 'open' tasks which are too closed for them. They do this simply by making their own decisions, e.g. left-brain: "I will write 103 words. I will use four colours." Or, e.g. right-brain: "The answer will not be 'wrong' if I pretend my cousin's holiday was my holiday, and I move the holiday from Portugal to Thailand."

3. Planned or Spontaneous?

Your left-brain learners are made anxious if they can't see your lesson plan. Your right-brain learners are very happy to see no plan, just to experience the lesson as a series of spontaneous events. How can you satisfy both?

I show my lesson plan on the wall written large on an A3 piece of paper. I point to it at the start of the lesson and at the start of each stage in the lesson. My left-brain learners are therefore reassured and can see one stage progressing to another. My right-brain learners ignore my lesson plan and don't bother to connect one stage with another.

To satisfy my mixture of my right and left brain, my lesson plan on the wall is clear and simple, e.g.

Lesson Plan
Topic: Travel

3 mins Warm-up: brainstorm, revision
5 mins conversation practice, pictures
8 mins vocabulary input, text
3 mins fluency, dialogues
10 mins grammar, 2 games
11 mins writing, interviews
5 mins feedback/discussion

Within any stage, I am free (open, right-brain) to create what I wish, yet each stage is defined (closed) four times: Topic, Stage, Method, Time, to satisfy my left-brain learners and my own left brain e.g. if I am spontaneous and depart from my plan, my spontaneity is still on the topic, within the stage, using the method, and in time.

4. Quality and Quantity

My right-brain learners want to flow with and experience the quality of my lessons. My left-brain learners want to quantify, to be consciously aware of what they have learned, and to connect it in sequence to other items they have learned.

Therefore I make my lessons fun and at the feedback/discussion stage at the end I point out what we have 'done', e.g. "During this lesson you have learned these 20 new words. You have connected with these 10 words you knew before, and you have used 'have + past particple', the Present Perfect, with 'never'.

That quantifies the lesson for my left-brain learners. My right-brain learners want to know what they can do with what they have learned, so I add, "Because of this lesson you can all now talk about all means of transport. You can start conversations with strangers and friends while travelling and about travel."

5. A Map of Your Course

Left-brain people are usually good map readers. They see the map for what it is and what it is for. They read the map sequentially and symbolically and get from A to B.

Right-brain people, like me, read maps impressionistically. "Oh, that park looks like a dog's head, and that river is just like a snake…" I failed a map-reading exam seven times! Even in a city with every street named, and a detailed map in my hand, I still get lost!

Yes, your left-brain learners will find a map of your course very helpful. Again, use an A3 sheet with big writing (or OHP transparency). For example, list in sequence the topics of your course. As each topic is done, tick it off on the list. Yes, you are free to change the sequence, but show with arrows what you have done, and put a second tick later when a topic is revised.

6. Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic

(By 'kinesthetic', I mean emotions and feelings as well as actions.)

Your left-brain learners largely learn via the visual and auditory channels, by seeing and hearing. Your right-brain learners largely learn via the kinesthetic and visual channels, by feeling, doing, experiencing and seeing.

For example, a learner asks you, "How do you pronounce '-ough- in English?" If you answer, "Lots of different ways!" your left-brain learners are anxious, wanting to know the number of ways, and to see and hear them. Your right-brain learners want to physically put the different ways into different places.

My answer is to make columns on A3 or OHP, and invite my learners to tell me rhyming words which they know well to put at the head of each column as I say each '-ough' word.

a)

cough    enough    through     though    ought    thorough        plough

This is what one class offered:

off     stuff    too       go      or     (doct)or    cow   
cough   enough   through   though  ought   thorough   plough

Then, each time we meet a new '-ough' word, I add it to the A3 or OHP (see c).

The visual learners see each word has its place. The auditory learners hear the different rhymes. The kinesthetic learners put each word in its place. Therefore, all my learners, left- and right-brain, are satisfied.

c)

off     stuff   too      go       or      (doct)or       cow
cough   enough  through  though   ought   (tho)rough     plough
trough  slough           although thought (tho)roughfare Slough
        chough                    caught                 bough
        rough                     nought

When you teach a new word or piece of grammar, it's great to teach it using those 3 channels: visual (a picture), auditory (the sound), kinesthetic (your learners do an action or gesture, and feel an emotion). Then all your learners will learn the new item. But, normally, each learner is stronger in two of the three channels, and weaker in the third. Therefore it is essential for you to give each of your learners permission to find one channel not helpful.
For example, for the Present Perfect, I get all my learners (simply imitating me) to point one hand behind them (gesture a), then bring that hand in front of them, palm open, showing things (gesture b) (kinesthetic and auditory). Then I say, "Do it again and say with me, 'I have visited Paris and I can show you the photographs.'"
Then I say, "Make your own example to a partner, and do the gestures again,
I have visited x and I can show you y.'" (kinesthetic action and emotion - autobiography and auditory communicative).
Then I say, "The Present Perfect starts in the past (gesture a) and comes into the present, and there's something to show for it." (gesture b).
Yes, the examples are also visual, seeing the gestures, but your visual learners like a permanent visual, e.g. a diagram which is consistent with the gesture. I therefore draw an eye looking left (into the past) at a vertical line (the event). A horizontal line with an arrow leads from the vertical line to the present (beneath the eye). "I have visited Paris and I can show you the photographs. Present Perfect Simple."
But I need to say, "Hands up: who finds the gestures helpful?….Who finds the gestures unhelpful?… Who finds the diagram helpful?… Who finds the diagram unhelpful? …. Who finds the grammar explanation helpful? Who finds the grammar explanation unhelpful?" In this way my learners feel OK about finding one channel unhelpful because two channels are helpful.
If you don't give your learners permission to find one channel unhelpful, they think they are stupid, and they think they haven't learned the item properly, because they found one channel 'difficult' and didn't understand it. Which did you find helpful and unhelpful?

8. What Image/Feeling?

Your right-brain learners will each store the concept of the Present Perfect in their memory in their own way. I say, "The Present Perfect is the tense you use in job interviews to make a good impression, e.g. "I learned French" means, "My French is dead and gone" but "I have learned French" means "It's still here. I can speak it."
That use of the tense helps some of my learners to 'get the feel of the tense', i.e. logical reason (left-brain) and an emotional reason (right-brain) why the tense exists.
So, invite each of your learners to each find their own way of understanding and remembering language items. Yes, you can help by giving example ways for your left-brain learners and example ways for your right-brain learners, but always remember, each of your learners learns in a unique way, and not in the way you or the coursebook expect them to learn.

9. And You?

Have I satisfied your brain in this article? Look back through it. What was satisfying and what was unsatisfying for you? Don't worry. Be aware of your dissatisfaction. That's not disrespect for me as your teacher. No, your dissatisfaction is the first essential step for you, as learner, to free yourself to learn most effectively in your own unique way.
What is your unique way? Various books help you, as a teacher, to discover your way of learning, and thus to help you to be a more effective teacher. Knowing Me Knowing You^* puts together your self-discovery with your learners' self discovery to help your learners learn more effectively from you.

10. Instructions

For the last example, I always say each instruction twice. This gives space and time for my learners to each understand the instruction in their own way, applying their own strategies, be they left-brain or right-brain, visual, auditory, or kinesthetic.

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