Humanising Language Teaching
Year 3; Issue 3; May 2001
THE FULL FORCE OF HUMANISTIC TEACHING WITH IMMIGRANTS
by Robert Feather, Pilgrims, UK
Rex Franci from Sri Lanka cooked chicken biryani; Ali Dervishi from Kosovo showed us how to dance traditional Albanian style; Neha Dave from the earthquake zone in Rajkot, India cooked sweet and savoury chapattis; Samy Hassan from Egypt, who had been head chef at big international hotels in London, brought a dish made with lentils and pasta. There were dishes from Somalia, Kosovo, and dancing to Lingala music. This was the end of course party of the Working Links/Pilgrims Action Team for Jobs. What had changed a collection of unemployed individuals into an integrated group of people who enjoyed each other's company? What had converted timid, sceptical, depressed behaviour into a confident, giving, way of being? Let me give you some background:
Some of these people had not worked for several years, some were unable to read and write in English, some had suffered atrociously before leaving their native country, some had not received much of an education, others had qualifications from university, some had lived in England for five or six years without managing to pick up much of the language, others had only just arrived in England after gruelling journeys of escape, some were devout Muslims, Hindus or Christians, others without a particular faith, some knew several languages, some only their mother tongue and a smattering of English.
All of these people had been selected because their lack of English was a barrier to getting work. They were brought together for six weeks for the Pilgrims team to improve their English and the Working Links consultants to help them become more "job ready" and to match their skills with available jobs. These organisations worked together as a joint venture funded by Brent Council under the Government's Action Teams initiative.
At the outset, the question was: Why, after presumably quite considerable exposure to English in the London environment, had these individuals not learnt the language? One answer to this was their lack of focus. They had not discovered the focus necessary to hear the sounds of the language, let alone the patterns of grammar and vocabulary. This lack of focus was, for some of the students, not only a problem of language; it was also a symptom of a deeper lack of morale. There were other contributing factors too: the sense of failure at not having a job, the deep psychological disruption caused by fleeing their country and leaving family and friends behind, the bitter pill of having to look for a job that did not match their abilities or, indeed, the adjustments necessary on being brought together with all these people from such different backgrounds in order to start to learn to read, speak, listen and write again.
How did the learning happen? The word "respect" was, I believe, the key to the success achieved in Wembley. This is what lay at the basis of much of the teaching. I have never seen so clearly the connection between learning, self-respect and respect for others, and the importance of language in all this. Those who were dispirited, demotivated, traumatised, needy, disoriented first had to realise that they could learn. And they couldn't make the first steps towards learning until they felt they were with people who were rooting for them, who had respect for them. The teachers I worked with – Suzanne Burdon, Guy Guneri and Debbie-Jo Atkins – cared passionately that the students would learn.
An integral part of this care was discipline. It is perhaps not always the case that teachers see discipline as part of care; rather it sometimes seems to be an onerous duty akin to "policing". At Wembley, discipline was essential to enable learning to take place: the discipline of listening carefully to the sounds of the language so that they could then be produced accurately enough to be understood; the discipline of listening to each other as a sign of respect; the discipline of acting as a group. Simple things like arriving on time or offering a valid excuse if not: these forms of discipline helped students to learn and to gain self-respect and to see the importance of giving respect to each other. Due to the teachers' firmly held belief in respect for all, the group became a dynamo for the development of group members. The well-integrated group enabled members to take part in activities (such as jazz chants, team games, trust building games etc), which were certainly outside their usual experience of language learning, and could, in other circumstances, have been threatening.
At first, a number of students showed marked negativity towards both the learning and towards each other. This negativity manifested itself through a highly critical attitude to other students' attempts to learn. Mistakes were the target of nit-picking and even ridicule. But one of the guiding principles of the teachers in Wembley was that there is no such thing as a "mistake", there is only an "opportunity to learn". Such positively focused support produced the atmosphere in which even the most timid students could join in. By the end of the course, nearly all members of the group were able to say something in front of all 45 students – a real feat!
At the start of the course, many students feared looking or sounding incompetent, so they tended to clam up. The antidote to this state of affairs was: games involving physical movement, high energy and high volume; activities which were easy for everyone to achieve successfully; and emotionally cathartic exercises such as the following jazz chant supplied by Mario Rinvolucri, which was based on some of the real frustrations the students had.
JOB INTERVIEW
Good morning. Please take a seat.
Do you want a job?
Do you want to clean the kitchen?
Do you want shitty wages?
Do you have any questions?
You ask too many questions.
No job for you!
At the other end of the spectrum in terms of physical energy levels were activities which created a relaxed atmosphere and space for students to speak freely to the group about their experiences. This led to students giving harrowing and sometimes very personal accounts of events which had been of real importance in their lives. On such occasions, when something deeply important was talked about, there was an intensity of listening and interest that showed recognition of a common plight and bound the group closer together. If you are to express anything that is of deep value to yourself you need to be sure that the listeners find what you say worth listening to even if it isn't in perfect English. However bizarre-sounding another person's belief or custom is, or however much you had previously found fault with imagined people from such and such a culture, now was the time to hear them out, to give them the respect necessary for a hearing.
The result of this was perceptible growth in learning about people, their behaviour, cultures, and language. And when the students saw themselves actually learning something they had thought was beyond them, their whole demeanour and comportment changed. The way they held themselves was more relaxed, their faces became more open, their voices more assured.
To me the dramatic change I saw in Wembley both in attitude and in skill with the language was a clear demonstration of the benefits of humanistic language teaching methods. I would like to thank those authors whose books I rifled through for just the right ideas to make things work: Mario Rinvolucri, Paul Davis, John Morgan, Sheelagh Deller, Judy Baker, and Marjorie Baudains. The methods that had a strong impact on the students were often those which involved the expression of feeling and were cathartic for the students in their present state. Also of crucial importance were cognitive and physical exercises: the use of movement and physical actions built confidence, and complex problem-solving activities restored students to their true position as intelligent adults. Here more than anywhere I have ever taught, I have seen the connection between effective language learning and the motivation provided by a community that recognises and respects the individual in all his or her aspects: physical, emotional, cultural, intellectual.
