Humanising Language Teaching
Year 3; Issue 4; July 2001
Arming you for the Exam
Level: lower intermediate to advanced
- Ask the students to shut their eyes and notice their breathing.
( the first time you do an exercise like this with them the students
may well react with titters and noisiness- you simple need to ride
through this.)
Now use this text in a gentle voice with plenty of pauses:
I can see us meeting- I notice the place where we meet.
I see the colours round us
I can hear the sounds in that place
I notice how I feel when in my friend' presence.
I can hear our conversation and the good feeling it gives me.
I feel I am fully in the place where we are meeting.
I feel my own confidence and happiness as we meet.
And now I am going to chose a code word, a number or a sound that will immediately make me come back to the meeting, and be here again.
I am going to choose a code word, or a number or a sound that will help me
when I am feeling less good in the future.
And now I choose the code word for this place, this friend, this feeling.
Bring the students back from their trance.
Explain to them that they are to remember their code word, code sound or code number so that they can use it as they walk into the Exam room. This will bring back the good scene and the good feeling, and reduce any feelings of fear or anxiety.
Note:
Between the time you do the above confidence-boosting trance work
and the exam, it is worth asking them to use the code word before doing this
or that exercise, so that they can find out for themselves just how effective it is
for them in terms of changing their state usefully.
It may be useful to take the students back into their " good friend" reverie
a couple of days before the exam, to strengthen it as a resource for them.
The kind of listening practise offered in this unit is the least stressful possible and allows students to live the sounds and meaning of English in a gentle, stress-free way.
Acknowledgement: we learnt this resource state anchoring exercise on a course at Pilgrims, from Maya Wordsworth, Rainach, CH.
