Humanising Language Teaching
Year 1; Issue 6; October 1999
Sandeha Lynch reacts to Jane Arnold's article in HLT Vol 1 Issue 3 on teaching university students in a person-centred way.
In Issue 3 of the HLT magazine, Jane Arnold writes a very interesting report on an in-class experiment carried out in Seville during 1997-98. Basing the experiment on Stevick's assertion, (1980:4) that:
“Success (in foreign language learning) depends less on materials, techniques and linguistic analysis, and more on what goes on inside and between people in the classroom”
she compared the results of a control group of students with an experimental group; the latter following a program of course work that had been designed to address the “whole” person of the student in “holistic” terms. I was grateful to read this as I have long felt that an over-categorisation of the syllabus is ultimately negative. “Good morning class. It's Wednesday so this must be your vocabulary expansion lesson”, is not something you'd be likely to hear from me.
My sympathies go out to the control group. According to the researcher/observer, the students in this group appeared sullen, recalcitrant, apprehensive, or sleepy by turns, and it got so bad that not even the observer could concentrate on what the teacher was trying to do in the class. Reading the list of four points that Arnold associates with a holistic approach, (I have adjusted them slightly for my own benefit) namely:
- personal meaningfulness
- awareness of the student as a complete being
- real communication
- awareness of the group dynamic
I was struck by one thought: how could the school justify employing a teacher who did not take these factors into account. Such a judgement on my part could sound exceedingly glib to all the many theorists and analysts who have spent years trying to unravel what goes on in the minds of learners and who have helped break down the many barriers to learning that “society” and bureaucracy can create. Nonetheless, the observer's comments referred to the technique of the teachers as much as to the visible effects on the class, and the control-group teacher did not appear to know what she could have been doing.
I agree totally with Arnold's outcomes, and with her criticism of the standard role-play of Activity 1, and for precisely the reasons she gives. But there are two issues that I feel remain unresolved in attempting to define what actually happened in the experimental group. Firstly, while Stevick's phrasing might appear a little tentative, he may have been trying to point up the irrelevance of the teaching materials. If that is true, then defining one exercise as communicative, and another as structural becomes irrelevant too. It may be that classroom materials come in two varieties, those you can get by on, and those you can enjoy, but thereafter it is surely a question of technique if the teacher is to exploit the dullest text.
Secondly, what the teacher does with the students may be at least as important as what the teacher does with the material. This again is a matter of technique, the skill of anticipating students, and steering them from behind, so that they come to take control of their learning. I should say here that in my experience, linguistic selectivity and care in material presentation is vital with absolute beginners who are learning their very first fifty words of a new language, but later, once the teacher has begun to develop the relationship that will grow between the language and the student, how the teacher handles the individual students and the class has paramount importance. As soon as the first student speaks the first words in the target language to another in the class, you have communication in the new language and a group dynamic that will need to be nurtured.
Yes, Motivators; not teachers, not instructors, nor trainers, not even facilitators, but MOTIVATORS, which is odd when you think about it, given that many a secondary school teacher has probably moaned about the constant need to motivate a class. But the essential factor is that without motivation there can be no learning – no matter what the source, be it internal or external, intrinsic or extrinsic. Facilitator is an apt term to describe just one aspect of the ELT scenario: the student, courting a new language, may find English to be both coy and elusive; the teacher's job is then akin to that of a match-maker who must bring the two together, trying to ensure that they both like each other and can get on.
But what was it that really motivated the experimental group of students in Seville? I really doubt that it was a sole matter of the effect of the shape of the materials on the students, though that will certainly have helped. I suspect that the nature of the materials probably helped the teacher far more than the students if they allowed the teacher to reach an optimal level of performance. Good teachers can recognise good materials and can get very depressed if they are “forced” to use badly thought-out, irrelevant or meaningless texts and exercises, though it is probably the lack of autonomy that is the true culprit in such cases. There is certainly a key in Arnold's words when she writes that a “motivated teacher is a motivating teacher.” But why?
The fact the “successful” group was experimental may have had something to do with it, after all, the “experimental” teacher must have recognised that they were involved in a creative project, and a sense of involvement normally gives a lift to the spirit. Did involvement in a classroom experiment help motivate the teacher? I suspect that had the tables been turned, the successful teacher just might have gained the same end-of-year results with the conventional classroom tasks and exercises, and that the “unsuccessful” teacher might have failed to breathe life into the holistic plan.
In no way would I want to underrate the importance of affective factors in classroom learning, but we have a three-horse race here, and the teacher as person must also be given due consideration. The language, the learner, and the teacher – all three must be optimised, all three must fulfil their individual process patterns, even though the only outcome likely to be subjected to evaluation is the language level of the student. An additional factor, that needs consideration in any assessment of classroom practice, is the attitude of the teacher.
I have heard teachers talk about the “inspiring” teachers of their youth, who fostered and encouraged them in their studies. It may be no more than a coincidence, but until I entered ELT, I had never met such a one in person, and since working in ELT I have met dozens. Should the teacher submit to an “attitude” inspection before being allowed into a classroom? Obviously not, if the industry as a whole does not possess the means for a qualitative evaluation of this kind. But the teacher is more than the “role” he or she plays, and the teacher's success, in whatever way it is rated, is down to more than just the choice of materials. Perhaps contemporary studies into motivation and personality will help clear a new path through this whiteboard jungle.
Noel Tichy in The Leadership Engine, (1997:3) writes that, “To be an effective teacher, one needs to be a world-class learner,” and I'm inclined to agree. The “world-class learner” that Tichy describes is an interested, enthusiastic, reflective, motivating and caring person – a person who is likely to inspire if they are given the job of teaching; a person who is silently saying to the students, “Follow me! Have I got something for you!” This is not the British army captain of 100 years ago who led troops “over the top” in more ways than one, but a teacher who can lead tends to find students who want, in both senses, to lead themselves, (mere followers would never be able to keep up) – a very important factor in those language classes where “I need” to learn English is heard more often than “I want to learn”. Such a teacher can make silk purses out of pigs' ears, transmute lead into gold … can even use Headway to effect. (I apologise for this last joke.)
Perhaps to a certain degree there is a philosophical difference to be considered: are students vessels to be filled, or candles to be lit? I subscribe to the second of these, as I find good students, like good lighting, actually improve me and my work. Most language teachers have probably noted a difference in achievement between those students who feel an urge to shout out correct answers as soon as they think of them, and those students for whom asking questions has a greater priority, (which may even be their main form of communication with the teacher.) The first student is concerned about a mechanical grading and pleasing the teacher, while the second is far too busy trying to find ways to make the language work to be bothered by other considerations.
Present pleasure, as opposed to deferred need, is one of the factors mentioned by Arnold. I don't go into the classroom thinking about my bank statements, and students who seem to be motivated solely by their final grades are only erecting barriers of their own by placing limits on what they are prepared to learn. In a sense, being motivated means feeling involved, and the language teacher's job must be centred on generating a kind of love affair between the student and the language.
If, and it may be a big if, so I'd be happy to hear if others feel the same, good students can improve a teacher as much as good materials can, then Tichy's comment may be justified. When I seek inspiration, I think back not to the teachers I have had, nor to materials I have used successfully in the past, but to those aspiring and inspiring students who have created “real” communication out of the assortment of words I have given them. They have shown me what I need to do to get results. They have charged me with enthusiasm, encouraged me to analyse what I do and so fostered my learning.
Successful learning is inextricably linked to motivation, as is successful teaching, and by and large, though it may differ in the details, the quality of motivation is the same for both teacher and learner. What we have is spiral of growth comprising student, materials, and teacher, each modified by attitude and by technique, and which does not begin with any single one of them, but with the gaps that exist between them. For this reason, professional specialisation apart, I am wary of the idea that perfecting the materials, without perfecting the technique of the teacher, can perfect the learning experience. The teacher is a whole person, too.
References
Arnold, J. (1999) “Whole or Hole”. Humanising Language Teaching. Vol. 1:3. HLT Vol1 Issue 3
Stevick E. (1980) Teaching Languages: A Way and Ways. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Tichy, N., and Cohen, E. (1997) The Leadership Engine. New York: HarperBusiness.
Sandeha Lynch is Head of English Unit at the Teachers' College of Education in Salalah, in the Sultanate of Oman. He is currently doing an MSc in ELT Management with the University of Surrey … and learning to play the recorder and clarinet. E-mail sandeha@gto.net.om
