Creative Activities and Motivating Materials for the EFL Classroom. A
Two-week Comenius Grant
by Mariana Andone, Colegiul Naţional „Vasile Alecsandri” Bacău
Key words: Comenius, Maidstone, motivating materials, creative activities,
Canterbury, Leeds Castle
I have often wondered why our colleagues were so eager to apply for Comenius
grants. And why they went through so much pain to get one. I mean I
understand the implications and the opportunities that you are offered, but
still I wouldn’t have made such a fuss about it. At some point though I
decided to give it a try… and now my perspective has changed dramatically.
Now I understand it is like a drug that I finally got myself injected with.
So I won’t start my actual presentation until I’ve said that I can hardly
wait to apply for a new one. The mobility I participated in was organized by International Study
Programmes, an education-providing institution with local organisers spread
all over the UK. My destination was Maidstone the County town of Kent, some
30 miles or so from the capital. I spent one night in London before I went
to Maidstone, so I could get a first touch of it, my very first encounter
actually with the melting pot. And what an encounter!! I fell in love at
once with the people, the places, their inside-out and upside-down style,
with their driving on the left-hand side, lousy food, loud teenagers,
piercings, funny hairstyles, tattoos. The streets of London and of the majority of the smaller towns, not
excessively clean to tell you the truth, gave you the feeling that you were
trapped between two worlds, two different ages, having old red-brick houses
in the background, narrow paved streets that still echo the sound of hooves,
Victorian shop windows, exquisite architecture of churches and cathedrals.
On the other hand, there are people dashing in and out of buildings, always
having their junk packed lunches, never looking sideways, the cars, the
subway, the trains and buses which never seem to take a break, the famous
brand-name shops, or to cut it short… the hustle and bustle of our era. For
the uninitiated traveler, this might be confusing, but little by little you
start to take it all in. I left a piece of my heart in London and headed for Maidstone the next day.
Maidstone is equally British in appearance but much calmer. I fell for it
right away and spent my first days observing every detail, watching faces
and gestures so as to get a clear feel of the place and its people. A
wonderful experience. Apart from groups of really loud teenagers, a critical
age in Britain as it appears, people of other ages were relaxed, calm,
smiling and really eager to help you when in trouble. The course started on Monday and it was pretty intensive, with classes
beginning at 9 a.m. and ending at 4.30 p.m (a real pain in the neck, as most
shops close at 5 p.m. in Maidstone) with a 1-hour lunch break in between. We
had two tutors in the first two days, Lucy and Chris. The next three days
were entirely coordinated by Chris. They are real globe-trotters who have
taught in countries and places one can hardly imagine. The focus of the
courses was on the latest trends in the British education system, ways of
approaching English classes dependent on the skills to be taught, games to
stimulate the students’ interest and boost their motivation. There were 30 teachers attending the course, myself included, coming from
various countries such as Italy (most of them were Italians), Denmark,
Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Reunion.
We were spilt in groups of 15 for the first 2 days, which was great,
because, as I noticed later on, teachers can be as noisy and disturbing as
their much younger students. Lucy and Chris tailored some very interesting
and attractive workshops. Lucy suggested activities which involved motion as
in most cases we have to deal with very static activities and students could
get bored faster. She proposed alternatives to multiple-choice questions, to
the static expression of one’s opinion. Also, her workshops centred on ways
of bringing students’ creativity in the spotlight, by creating their own
artistic response to a certain type of written input. Such responses may
refer to making a drawing, a collage, doing a project etc. More often than
not we tend to concentrate on factual information more than we care about
what the written or recorded text has stirred within the student. For
example, we were given a newspaper article about a teenager who was taken in
by a Facebook partner who proved to be a woman disguising herself as a man
and dated girls she/he met on the Internet. The article followed the story
up to the imprisonment of the impostor, running parallel with the duped
girls’ feelings of remorse and disgust. The task was to work in groups and
choose six moments in the story to illustrate on a large piece of paper.
Although this may appear more suitable to younger students, Lucy explained
that this is a complex activity which includes all four skills while at the
same time covering every stage in Bloom’s taxonomy, adapted by Anderson and
Sosniak in 1994:
Remembering-Understanding-Applying-Analysing-Evaluating-Creating. Lucy’s
other workshops included activities of creative writing adapted to the A2-B1
levels of the CEF, such as The Sandwich Story Technique, Same Event –
different points of view, Different ways of thinking about the same objects
etc. Chris was in charge of the advanced vocabulary workshops, so we did a series
of activities on teaching phrasal verbs, collocations, verbs referring to
the sounds things make, which proved to be challenging and motivating at the
same time. The next three days were more tiring and less compact because we were no
longer split in groups of 15. So I realized that a class of 30 teachers can
be as annoying and disruptive as a class of 30 students when they start
fiddling and fidgeting. Not that the activities were not appealing enough,
but 30 teachers can have 30 different reasons for attending such a course,
many of which might not be related to the desire to learn something new.
Anyway, we discussed the challenges that a teacher feels, common and
different aspects of our various systems of education. The workshops gave us
the opportunity to remember many things that we already knew and learn new
things as well. We went through a PPP grammar lesson and adjusted it to the
new Test-Teach-Test pattern. The tutor emphasized the importance of creating
an adequate context and of checking the students’ understanding of the new
structures through content-related questions which are meant to avoid the
less effective “Did you understand?” We also dealt with vocabulary lessons,
contests that we can organize during the classes, songs that we can use in
order to teach elements of grammar and vocabulary, literary extracts that
can be used with lower ability classes and which can prompt us to create new
and varied activities. These were the positive aspects of the workshops. The downside is that many
teachers felt that some activities were not applicable during their classes,
due to the level of their students. Another disadvantage consisted of the
large number of teachers of different levels and interests. Although we were
asked to mention our expectations before we even got there, I feel that
those expectations were not actually minded. Chris did his best to satisfy
all needs, but this turned the workshops into a rally race that was too
difficult to follow at some point. Also, we were advised to bring our
laptops, but no one, besides Lucy (on request) gave us any material to copy
on our laptops. So, I wouldn’t advise anyone to take it, unless they know
for sure they are going to use it. We did receive many paper handouts which
added to the weight of our luggage. Towards the end of the week the other
teachers started losing their patience, which made it difficult for us to
bear with Chris and the infinite number of activities that he handed out. I
would probably have expected fewer and more consistent activities. But Chris
didn’t mind anything and kept on doing his job like a Russian tank on the
battlefield. At the weekend we visited the surrounding areas, such as Tunbridge with its
small church whose windows were painted by the famous Russian painter
Chagall, Tunbridge Wells, a small tourist resort, Hastings and Battle, very
important in British history due to the Battle of Hastings (1066), a crucial
moment in the Norman Conquest. We also visited Rye, a fairly small town with
a fantastic cathedral. Also, on Sunday, we had the chance to visit Canterbury on really nice
weather. We went on a guided tour of the famous town, which I think should
be called a city since it has two universities. We strolled on the narrow
streets and tried to remember Chaucer’s tales so as to get a deeper
understanding of the place. We attended the afternoon service in the
cathedral, which was not as crowded as I had thought. We learned a lot of
new things about the history of Canterbury since our guide was a former
history teacher. On week two we visited two schools, one of which was a boarding school in
Rochester, King’s College, with students of all nationalities. I even met a
half Romanian there who of course knew no Romanian word, except for a
stuttered “Multumesc”. They were really nice and bright students who had
passed their GCSEs and were now studying for their A-levels. With only about
10 students in a class, it was a real delight to visit the school. I
especially liked the German Lab which was really well-equipped and probably
a pleasure to work in. The Chemistry lab was not very impressive, which was
a bit puzzling if you take into account that every student pays quite large
tuition fees (about 24,000 pounds a year, boarding included). We attended a
Geography class, a Chemistry class, Religious Studies, Business Studies and
Arts. I could notice that the students are not bombed with loads of
information during one class only; on the contrary, they focus on fewer
things and try to stick to them, which is more effective in the long run I
guess. The second school was Cornwallis Academy, twenty minutes away from Maidstone
by bus. Unfortunately, there was some misunderstanding between the school
head and our local organiser and we weren’t able to spend a full day there.
As a bonus, we got to visit Leeds Castle, which was astonishing. Peaceful,
relaxing, a piece of paradise on earth. Very well-kept, but one cannot
expect otherwise if they have to pay an entrance fee of 18 pounds.
Cornwallis was impressive as far as equipment and design are concerned. It
is an academy financially supported by Microsoft, so you can easily guess
what kind of equipment they had inside. A real school of the future.
Students as many as 60 in one large space called “plaza” worked in groups,
while being coordinated and supervised by two teachers at the same time. We
attended an English class where they did nothing else but illustrate a poem,
just like we did on Lucy’s workshop with the story of the teenage girl
tricked on FB. They had huge overhead projectors and everybody could see the
tasks clearly. The teachers were monitoring them and assisted them in case
they were needed. Being such a large school, a comprehensive state school,
the teachers and students were a bit colder and more reluctant to see us, so
we didn’t feel very welcome there. Plus, the school is not something usual
or common In the UK, so I would have preferred a regular one instead. But
things ended pretty quickly so we made the most out of the day by visiting
the Leeds Castle. On Thursday we were given the certificates and had a lecture about the
British system of education, with feedback from us based on what we saw on
the school visits. In fact, I was so tired and worried about a missing
signature on my Mobility Pass that I couldn’t enjoy it to the fullest. We
handed in our feedback forms and then bid farewell to Rita, the local
organiser. On Thursday evening I left Maidstone and headed for London. I
spent Friday and Saturday morning there and caught my flight back in the
afternoon. All in all, the British experience was very enriching. I love observing
people and noticing their behavior, so the British people provided me with
brand new material for my “research”. I loved every bit of my stay there,
with its ups and downs and I can’t wait to apply again next year. As a
teacher of English, I am grateful for the opportunity to visit the UK for
the first time and hoping I don’t become too slushy and won’t be accused of
other intentions I would like to thank the National Agency for it and
especially the people working there, who have proved to be very supportive
so far and promptly helped me with any piece of information I needed. I advise everybody to jump at this chance, because such mobilities really
broaden your horizons and change you for the better – academically,
socially, personally and interpersonally. Invite all your colleagues to
apply, because, even if there is some amount of paper work, it is really
worth giving it a try. |
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Learning
Strategies. Assessment and Training in EFL classes
by
Cătălina Ecaterina Bălţăteanu, Şcoala
cu clasele I-VIII Ţuţora, Iaşi
Keywords: self-access
resource centres,
learner-centred
instruction, learner training,
Key words: learning strategy instruction, Strategy Inventory for
Language Learning, retrospective interviews, stimulated recall
interview, note-taking, questionnaires
Implementing learning strategy instruction in the classroom depends on
teachers` and learners` beliefs in the efficiency of strategy use, on
the classroom context and management, but also on the students` prior
cultural or educational background in either teacher-centred or
students-centred contexts. Speaking about students` previous experience (both in foreign languages
and other subjects), strategy instruction should start by identifying
and diagnosing students` current learning strategies (assuming that all
students have their favourite ways of learning) and by making them aware
of their existence. At the same stage, teachers must identify the
differences in learning strategies used by more or less successful
language learners. A next step is to identify the most suitable approach
to providing instruction in language learning strategies. Eventually,
teachers must analyze whether their instruction in language strategies
has the expected impact on language proficiency and progress in foreign
language learning. According to Rebecca Oxford, teachers generally want to identify
language learning strategies used by their learners for the following
reasons : •because of personal interest; •for orienting the teaching practices; •for offering feedback to their students on their strategy use; •for anticipating strategy training;
Since language strategies are especially mental processes and are not
directly observable in terms of external behaviour, the most appropriate
method of investigating them is through learners` self-reports,
including interviews, strategies brainstorming for various language
tasks, group discussions, open-ended or closed questionnaires,
note-taking, self-report surveys, diaries and dialogue journals, or
think-aloud protocols. However, observation can be used as a method of gathering information
about language strategies use if cooperating with peers, asking for
clarification or verification, taking-notes and other observable
behaviours are taken into consideration. Through observation, strategies
may be recorded either by taking notes or by checking off those
identified in a certain period. Another aspect that should be considered
is the use of strategies by the whole group, by a small group of
students, or by one student. In the case of retrospective interviews (interviews involving
self-observation ), learners are supposed to reflect on a recently
completed task or on one they are familiar with and say what they
generally do in order to perform it. The questions may be either
open-ended (What do you do when you are listening and you hear an
unknown word?) or close, specific (When you are listening and you hear
an unknown word, do you make guesses about its meaning or just keep
listening?). This type of interviews seems to be very flexible since the
interviewer may ask follow-up questions, provide explanations if
something is not sufficiently clear, or even comment on the learner’s
answer. One disadvantage of this method is that it can be applied to a
group of three or four students whose comments can influence their
answers and sincerity. Moreover, willing to make a good impression,
students might mention strategies that they never use but are preferred
by their teachers or by the good language learners. Another form of having access to the learners` thinking processes is by
applying a stimulated recall interview ”immediately after the student
has engaged in a learning task” , which leads to a more accurate
description of the learning strategies. The task is generally videotaped
and the learner is asked to comment on his or her thoughts at particular
moments during the task. Note-taking is another self-report technique that asks learners to write
down their difficulties when performing a task, or to take notes on a
grid about the strategies they use. Then they are supposed to analyze
the frequency of the strategies use, their usefulness and efficiency.
Questionnaires also help collect information about learners` use of
learning strategies. One of the best known and most applied
questionnaires was designed in 1989 by Rebecca Oxford and it is entitled
Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL). It is an instrument
which classifies strategies as cognitive, compensation, metacognitive,
social and affective and which adopts a general approach, without
relating students` use of learning strategies to particular
contextualized tasks. Besides being easy to administer and to gather
information from large numbers of individuals for quantitative
comparisons, questionnaires indicate the frequency with which learners
use a particular strategy. The disadvantages of this method are that
learners may not understand a question, or that they may want to give
”the right answer”, the socially desirable one. Diaries or journals are subjective and free-form self-reports that allow
learners to freely express their thoughts, feelings, worries, fears,
difficulties, achievements, as well as their impressions of peers,
native speakers, teachers and the learning process in general, with all
its variables. Think-aloud protocols represent a technique through which a person
expresses verbally his or her thoughts while working on a task . It is a
one-to-one interview, which is recorded, transcribed and then analyzed
in terms of language strategies use. While performing the task, the
learner may be asked open-ended questions like ”What are you thinking
right now?”. One of the shortcomings of this technique is the presence
of the interviewer that might affect the behaviour of the learner and
his responses. These are some of the forms of descriptive studies carried in the field
of learning strategies and aiming at the identification of learners`
language strategies. In general, descriptive studies may be followed by
intervention studies whose focus is to provide explicit
classroom-instruction on language learning strategies and to measure
their effects on learners` achievement level, especially in areas such
as performance on tests, increase in the use of strategies, attitudes
towards language learning and self-efficacy. Strategy training, also called “learner training”, learning-to-learn
training”, “learner methodology training”, or “methodological initiation
for learners” is intended to help learners learn more effectively,
dealing also with their feelings and beliefs about speaking a foreign
language. Practical strategy training is essential since learners must
know how to effectively learn, whereas teachers must know how to
facilitate this process, their main objectives being to: •provide meaningful learning; •enhance collaboration between learner and teacher; •discover and practice strategies that lead to self-direction in
learning; •familiarize learners with options for language learning.
Studies have revealed that learning strategies instruction in the
classroom calls for special instruction, support and practice. Attending
language learning strategy sessions at professional development
workshops and conferences, observing model lessons, coaching, as well as
consulting resource guides are just some ways of understanding how
teaching learning strategies functions. In the United States even a
learning strategies curriculum was implemented, pilot-tested and revised
according to feedback from students and teachers. The result of this
study was that students enjoyed activities based on learning strategies,
that they reacted differently to different strategies and that too many
strategies presented at once led to confusion and failure in performing
a task. The difficulty of implementing learning strategy instruction in the
classroom consists in the following aspects: •it should be integrated into the regular course work, not treated
separately; •it should take into account the needs and levels of the learners; •it should explicitly name, model and describe the strategies; •it implies new teacher and learner roles, the former becoming more a
facilitator than a director; •there should be an appropriate scope and sequence of strategies for
different levels. According to Rebecca Oxford, there are three types of strategy training
: •awareness training, also called consciousness-raising or
familiarization training, is intended to familiarize learners with the
use and usefulness of strategies, without involving them in actual,
concrete language tasks; •one-time strategy training combines learning and practicing strategies
with language tasks; however, this is a short-term training, related to
particular and very precise strategies that can be taught in a few
sessions; •long-term strategy training, like one-time training, involves learning
and practicing strategies in on-the-spot language tasks, with the
difference that it covers more strategies and is more prolonged. The same author provides a model for long-term strategy training
including planning and preparation, implementation, evaluation and
revision. All these steps are summarized in the following eight steps:
•establish the learners` needs, strengths and weaknesses, and the amount
of time available; •select the strategies to be taught according to the needs and features
of the learners; •integrate strategy training with the tasks, objectives and materials
used in the language programme; •take into account motivational issues; •prepare materials (handouts, handbook) and activities that are
interesting for the learners, or let them choose; •conduct completely informed training which tells the learners why
strategies are important, how they can be transferred to other tasks, or
how they can evaluate the success of a particular strategy; •evaluate the strategy training through observation and learners` own
comments about task improvement, skills and attitudes improvement, or
transfer of strategy to other tasks; •revise the strategy training, including the materials.
Besides methodological training opportunities in the classroom, other
models of learner training include textbook embedded training ,
practical self-help guides, and learning centers. As far as the first
model is concerned, more and more textbooks combine language content
with the study and utilization of learning strategies. The English
textbook from which the other samples have been provided includes not
only activities that involve strategies, but also explicit “learn to
learn” parts that raise students` awareness of strategy use and
usefulness.
Source: Harris, Michael, Mower, David (1997). World Class, Longman, UK,
p. 38
Source: Harris, Michael, Mower, David (1997). World Class, Longman, UK,
p. 67
Assigning or recommending self-help guides to students is another way of
making them aware of learning strategies. They include information, tips
and exercises about the successful use of strategies. Learning centres
provide learners with outside-the-classroom assistance in all the four
language skills, as well as in study skills, aiming at the development
of their strategic competence in language learning. Despite the troublesome character of strategy instruction, studies have
revealed that it has positive effects on students, helping them better
understand the target language, become more active and more responsible.
Moreover, due to strategy instruction, learners` motivation for language
learning seemed to improve, as well as the independent use of
strategies.
[i] Benson, Phil (2001).
Teaching and Researching Autonomy in Language
Learning, Pearson, London, p. 10
[ii]Jiao,
Lijuan (2005). Promoting EFL Learner Autonomy. Retrieved from
http://www.linguist.org.cn/doc/su2005/su20050506.pdf
[iii]
Schmenk, Barbara (2005). Globalizing Learner Autonomy in TESOL Quarterly,
vol. 39, no. 1, p. 110
[iv]
Thanasoulas, Dimitrios (2002). What is Learner Autonomy and How
Can It be Fostered? in The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. VI, No.
11, November 2000. Retrieved from http://iteslj.org/Articles/Thanasoulas-Autonomy.html
[v]
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2003). Beyond Methods:
Macrostrategies for Language Teaching, Yale University, New
Haven, p. 133
[vi]
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2003). op. cit., p. 144
[vii]
Jiao, Lijuan (2005). Promoting EFL Learner Autonomy. Retrieved from http://www.linguist.org.cn/doc/su2005/su20050506.pdf
[viii]
Benson, Phil (2001). op. cit., p. 12
[x]
Richards, C. Jack (2002). 30 Years of TEFL/TESL – A Personal
Reflection in RELC Journal, vol. 33, no. 2, p. 15.
Retrieved from http://rel.sagepub.com
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Developing students' language and culture
awareness
by Iria Creţu, Şcoala nr. 13, Botoşani
Keywords: stages,
instructions, key features, linguistically aware teacher
"Learners could be trained to use task-specific strategies to enhance their
performance. Teachers have the important role in encouraging children to
reflect on the process of the learning they do, in preference to
concentra¬ting solely on the product of learning. This is achieved within
three stages: preparing, planning and reflecting." (Kennedy and Jarvis,
1991, Ideas and Issues in Primary ELT, p. 127) In the first stage teachers can explain what the goals of the exercise are
and how they relate to previous work. Teachers can support their learners in
the planning stage by teaching the appropriate strategies and language
required for different task types. After completing the task, the
effectiveness of different kinds of strategies might be discussed and
modelled. Modelling is more than demonstration and mere 'show and copy'. It
should represent an attempt to foster a transi¬tion for the child from
control and direction to self-regulation. Successful teachers used and
demonstrated learning strategies to their pupils in their methodology.
Developing this kind of metacognitive awareness takes time. It is important
that teachers of young learners ensure that their pupils understand the
specification of the task and begin to learn strategies required to
negotiate meaning in English for: • providing feedback to show they have understood something; • indicating that they do not understand something; • asking questions to clarify misunderstandings; • checking details when a message is inadequate. Teachers might train their older learners to work independently when
following written instructions. Learners will be then supported in
understanding, instructions which ask them to sort (classify, put things in
order, match, say which is important). In the final stage the learners could
be encouraged to reflect on the learning that they did in their group. This
could be achieved through tape-recording, learner diaries, group or
individual questionnaires. If we accept the need to develop the students' language awareness in the
foreign language classroom, some common pitfalls must be avoided, such as: • the frequent lack of a clear, previously defined objective for awareness
raising activities; • the induction of language awareness activities to tasks aimed at
increasing knowledge of the formal properties of language; • the low degree of initiative students are usually allowed to have and the
high degree of control the teacher exerts by taking the central role
(explaining, exemplifying, describing language properties or asking
questions) • the avoidance of the mother tongue, often resulting in either
oversimplification procedures on the part of the teacher or comprehension
problems on the part of students; • the tendency to emphasize individual work and teacher directed
interaction." (Vieira, Language awareness and language learning, 1991, p.
15) The process of awareness raising is seen as being a gradual one. Attitudes
and beliefs change slowly. Therefore, language and culture awareness is
concerned with behavioral changes of attitudes, greater insight, these ones
being the foundations for future courses of action.(Wright and Bolitho,
1993, p. 298) The outcomes can be restated as broad objectives to be
attained step by step over a period of time. Language and culture awareness
activities are designed to contribute to this process. "We attempt to
realize these processes through tasks and activities that are characterized
by the following key features "(Wright and Bolitho, 1993, p. 298): 1. Talking about language is valuable. It can increase a trainee's
confidence . 2. Language awareness has: • a cognitive dimension (it encourages thinking at various levels of various
types) • an affective dimension (it engages and evolves attitudes and values) 3. Language awareness involves: • the left brain (it is logical and rational); • the right brain (it involves intuition and the unexpected). 4. Language awareness work is: • educational/developmental; • functional/utilitarian (it has obvious practical relevance). 5. Through involvement in language awareness work, we enable
teachers/trainees to become autonomous and robust explorers of language,
capable of maintaining a spirit of honest and open inquirer long after the
course ends. Awareness raising helps trainee participants to ask questions
about language, the ones that enable them to be effective teachers and to
develop their analytical powers. Competences of linguistically aware teacher "A linguistically aware teacher will be able to accomplish various tasks:
preparing lessons, evaluating, adapting and writing materials,
understanding, interpreting and designing a syllabus or curriculum,
testing, assessing the learners' performance, contributing to English
language work across the curriculum." (Wright and Bolitho, 1993, p.
297)Communicative teaching depends on a higher level of language awareness
in teacher due to the richness and complexity of a communicative view. A
lack of awareness of language manifests itself at classroom level when a
teacher is unable to identify and compensate for shortcomings in a course
book or he is caught out by the learners' questions on the language. In
these situations the teacher needs to draw upon the learners' linguistic
knowledge and provide the necessary expertise to help the learners overcome
difficulties. In Edge's view ( Edge, J., Applying linguistics in English
language teacher training, 1988 - Wright and Bolitho, 1993, p. 297), the
three competences which an English teacher needs are: • the language user • the language analyst • the language teacher. Edge's definition allows the teacher to be approached through the user
and/or the analyst and the analyst to be approached through the teacher and/
or the user. None of the competences is seen as predominant.
Bibliography: 1. Allwright D & Bailey KM, Focus on the language classroom: an introduction
to classroom research for language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press,1991 2. Bolitho, Rod and Tomlinson, Brian, Discover English, Macmillan ELT,2002
3. Doff, Adrian, Teach English. A Training Course for Teachers, Cambridge
University Press, 1988. 4. Duranti, Alessandro, Linguistic Anthropology, Cambridge University
Press,1997. 5. Ellis, Rod, The Study of the Second Language Acquisition, Oxford
University Press, 1994. 6. Hatch, Evelyn, Discourse and Language Education, Cambridge University
Press, 1992. 7. Nunan, David, Collaborative Language Learning and Teaching, Cambridge
University Press, 1992. 8. Prodromou L, English as cultural action, EFT Journal, 1988, vol 42, no 2,
pp 73–83. 9. Wright, Tony and Rod Bolitho, Language Awareness: a Missing Link in
Language Teacher Education?, ELT Journal, 4 (1993). 292 - 302.
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Sloganeering
in Education. Biases and Fallacies in Didactic Communication
by
Gabriela Pachia, Master in
Journalism, Colegiul Naţional Bănăţean, Timişoara
Key words: bias, communication, education, fallacy, sloganeering, social
psychology
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
Alan Kay
The sciences of communication reveal the mechanisms of the social influence
phenomena – “the art of influencing” and “the art of communicating”. On the
grounds of the systemic theory of communication, also making use of
comprehensive analysis, we have investigated the field of didactic
communication with a view to identify persuasion, manipulation, empathy, as
well as the biases, fallacies, and the blockages in communication, making
themselves manifest particularly in the form of sloganeering. As a good
communicator, the teacher of English ought to spot and thwart the “viruses”
in communication, resorting to the psycho-pedagogical foundations of
communication since “we are not creatures of circumstance, we are creators
of circumstance” (Benjamin Disraeli). Our paper aims at classifying and
exemplifying group and individual biases and fallacies which characterise
didactic communication due to its high levels of subjectivity, “truthfulness”,
and to the frequency of sloganeering. Examples from daily-biased sentences
are offered with the hope of restoring communication to its genuine
condition. Social influence envisages the generation of new – both positive and
negative – significances through a multitude of processes and phenomena such
as compliance, persuasion, normalisation, obedience, imitation, manipulation
etc. For motivationists, “«good communication» means the communication which
engenders a wish, a motivation or a profound need, and which, almost without
the subject’s knowledge, will make him «move» towards the object of his
wishes” (MuccAc, 25). According to the formal-transactional paradigm,
communication becomes a ‘game’, a “system of recurrent transactions,
superficially plausible, with hidden motivations” (MuccAc, 32), which
employs stratagems to cause the interlocutors “«to enter the game» and to
play a complementary role” (MuccAc, 31). From the point of view of the
systemic-relational paradigm, groups, families, institutions are considered
‘ill’ if their rigid games place the participants in the position of
subordinates / complementaries, i.e. schismogenesis (MuccAc, 44): dominator
/ dominee, teacher / pupil, adult / child or teenager, master / disciple
etc. The praxeological-phenomenal paradigm emphasises the permanent
collective reconstruction of the world, through empathy, stating that “we
build the world, we do not perceive it” (Palo Alto NLP, Apud MuccAc, 57).
Interpersonal communication requires deep knowledge of social psychology,
the constructivist-situationist perspective distinguishing between seven
fundamental contexts which create meaning: space, the physical and sensorial
context, time, the actors’ relative positions, the immediate sociorelational
context, the cultural and the expressive contexts. Accordingly, teachers
must positively change the meaning attributed to a situation to effect a
change in behaviour, by creating ‘affectional «proximity»’ (e.g. ‘school is
the place where I feel fine, I can affirm my personality and skills, I can
improve myself, I have a wide circle of friends / coworkers, I am
appreciated and rewarded’). As a consequence, communication as social
interaction is “an instrument of human action” (MuccAc, 245). The “prejudices” / “biases” / “errors” / preconceived ideas / a priori /
“sophisms” / false beliefs of communication display a subjective character –
the so-called “unacknowledged favouritism” –, leading to both self-deception
and miscommunication. Broadly speaking, there are confirmation / validation
prejudices (e.g. ‘I believe so because I want things to be my way’) and
systemic prejudices (e.g. wrong evaluation), to be found in the following
fields: cognitive (statistics, memory errors, wrong attribution), inductive
/ logical (“minimum description length”: ‘the simplest solution is the
best’; “minimum features”: unessential features should be eliminated;
“maximum margin”: groups, classes or forms can be obviously delineated;
“nearest neighbours”: the neighbouring elements are similar to each other;
the “perfect solution fallacy”: since no solution is perfect, it is not
worth tackling any solution), media, statistics (students are frequently the
subject of media investigation, being overrepresented in surveys). The cognitive biases distort reality, arising from localism, one’s native
environment, loyalty requirements (e.g. “representativeness heuristic”:
judging from similar cases or experiences) and being characteristic of
groups (“the risky shift”; “ingroup bias” and “outgroup homogeneity bias”:
the group members are more highly regarded than the outsiders; “déformation
professionnelle”: the excuse of small-scale perspective; “rank-based
organisation”: reward is proportional to one’s hierarchical position –
Nielsen, 2004) or of individuals (“fundamental attribution error”;
“actor-observer bias”; “group attribution error”; “positivity effect”;
“negativity effect”; “overconfidence effect”; “negative proof”; “argument
from ignorance”: things are real since they have not proved to be false).
Biases and fallacies may affect: • decision making (“selective perception”; “illusory correlation”; “loss
aversion”: since a loss is twice stronger than a gain; “endowment effect” /
“divestiture aversion”; “hyperbolic discounting”: the preference for
immediate rewards, however small they might be; “framing”; “hindsight bias”
/ “‘I-knew-it-all-along’ effect”: past events seem predictible; “impact
bias”: overestimating future events; “pseudocertainty effect”; “wishful
thinking”; “bandwagon effect” / “herd behaviour” / “groupthink”;
“reactance”: the tendency to do the opposite of requested things; “extreme
aversion”; “illusion of control”; “focusing effect”; “planning fallacy”:
underestimating dead-ends; “information bias”: ‘knowledge is power’); • memory (“anchoring” in the past; the “egocentric bias”; “choice-supportive
bias”: exaggerating former decisions; “consistency bias”: incorrect
rememoration of the past; “rosy retrospection”; “beneffectance”;
“suggestibility”: suggestions are taken for memories); • motivation (“hot cognition” versus “cold cognition”; “self-serving bias” /
“self-directing bias”: greater appreciation of one’s success than one’s
failure; “illusion of asymmetric insight”: the belief that one has better
insight of the other people than vice versa; “mere exposure effect”:
preference is based on familiarity and repeated visualisation); Several biases and fallacies develop in areas such as: • probability and beliefs (“attention effect”; “ambiguity effect”;
“clustering illusion”: presupposed connections where they do not exist;
“ludic fallacy”: reality is but a game; “optimism fallacy”; “overconfidence
effect”; “positive outcome bias” / “wishful thinking”: expecting a positive
outcome; “gambler’s fallacy”; “conjunction fallacy”; “primacy and recency
effect”; “reminiscence bump”: recalling events from youth; “telescoping
effect”: reversing time distances to events; “stereotypy”; “spotlight
effect” etc.; • “social biases” / “attribution biases” (“halo effect”; “projection
effect”; “the just world” phenomenon: people get what they deserve;
“notational bias”; “group-serving bias”; “self-fulfilling prophecy”:
adopting the bevavioural patterns which confirm our beliefs; “system
justification”; “trait ascription bias”: assuming that the others are
predictable; • “logic of emotions” (“appeal to emotion”: ‘school belongs to children’;
“appeal to consequence”: ‘clonation is useful; “appeal to fear”; “fear,
uncertainty and doubt”: ‘if you do not graduate from a great college, you
will not find a decent job / you will remain poor’; “appeal to flattery”:
‘an intelligent student like you will certainly understand’; “appeal to
pity”: ‘if you give me an 8, my final mark will never be 10’, ‘I need a 10,
otherwise my mum will give my puppy away’; “appeal to ridicule”; “appeal to
spite”: ‘Why do you take part in the competition? The teacher will never
give you more than 8!’; “wishful thinking”: ‘My new classmate speaks English
so well! I think he will be my friend!’; Sloganeering in education is often based on biases or fallacies as mentioned
before: “Less is more”, “Get them interested!”, “Put first things first!”,
“Create synergy in the classroom!”, “Treat all students fairly!”, “Every
school a good school!”, “Excellence in education”, “quality education”, “To
really educate, teach Values!”, “The best course of action is that which
benefits the most people”. They are deeply grounded in the students’, the
parents’ and the teachers’ minds and are easily detected during the English
classes, too: • “knowledge is power”; • “students in cities learn English better than those in the countryside”; • “you will never learn English properly since it is a foreign language”; • “if you belong to a good form, you will be a good student”; • “twins speak English in the same manner so they should have the same
mark”; • “if you start learning English properly, you will finally be an excellent
student”; • “learn English the emotional way”; • “descriptive essays are hard to write”; • “funny students are always rewarded”; • “I do not want to learn English because my former teachers neglected me”; • “I did not deserve that bad mark!”; • “each student gets what he deserves”; • “teachers never listen”; • “my former students were much better in English”; • “I am just a teacher of English”; • “English portfolios are a waste of time”; • “English will help you in life”; • “you are preparing for your future”; • “I can speak English, but I can’t write”; • “I like English very much / more than other languages”; • “the teachers of English are different from the rest”; • “I am not stressed during the English classes”; • “where there is a will there is a way”; • “think positively!”; • “I shall never forget my English teacher”; • “I have learnt so much for the evaluation paper in English”; • “students used to read more English books”; • “English has nothing to do with French or Latin”; • “if education is expensive, try ignorance”; • “the costs of education can be reduced” etc. Unfortunately, slogans generate ambiguity, frustration, and resentment – W.
Edwards Deming denounced mottoistic slogans –, in spite of their apparent
lofty intentions and motivational power, due to the fact that they hide
logically questionable statements. Building identity in our complex world
may easily be biased by the wrong assumptions, by slogans which abound in
every aspect of our everyday life. Nowadays, the teachers’ task increases to
follow the most recent developments in social psychology, having to
reconsider communication as “a meaning-generating relationship” (MuccAc,
15), “creating an intersubjective world which should serve
intercomprehension” (MuccAc, 71).
Bibliography
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Saddle River, NJ, Prentice Hall, 2004. Cardon, A., Jocurile manipulǎrii, Bucureşti, Editura Codecs, 2002. Cuilenburg, J.J. van, Scholten, O., Noomen, G.W., Ştiinţa comunicarii,
Bucureşti, Editura Humanitas, 2004 (sigle: CSN, 9). Dâncu, Vasile Sebastian, Comunicarea simbolica. Arhitectura discursului
publicitar, Cluj-Napoca, Editura Dacia, 2001 (sigle: DCom). DeVito, J., Human Communication. The Basic Course, New York, Harper & Row,
Inc., 1988. Eiser, J. R., van der Pligt, Joop, Attitudes and Decisions, London,
Routledge, 1988. Facione, P., Facione, N., Thinking and Reasoning in Human Decision Making:
The Method of Argument and Heuristic Analysis, The California Academic
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Television Portrays Presidential Elections, 2nd ed., Rowman & Littlefield,
2006. Fine, Cordelia, A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives,
Cambridge, UK, Icon Books, 2006. Gamble, T. K., Gamble, M., Communication Works, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1993. Gilovich, T., How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in
Everyday Life, New York, The Free Press, 1993. Gilovich, T., Griffin D., Kahneman, D. (Eds.), Heuristics and Biases: The
Psychology of Intuitive Judgment, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press,
2002. Grant, C.A., Sleeter, C.E., Turning on Learning: Five Approaches for
Multicultural Teaching Plans for Race, Class, Gender, and Disability,
Indianapolis, Jossey-Bass, An Imprint of Wiley, 2006. Griffin, Emory A., A First Look at Communication Theory, New York:
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comportamentul de consum, Iaşi, Editura Polirom, 2006, Traducere de Marius
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No. 6, 1999, pp. 1121-1134. Ladson-Billings, G., The Dreamkeepers, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1997. Miller, K., Communication Theories: Perspectives, Processes, and Contexts,
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1994. Pease, Allan & Barbara, Abilitǎţi de comunicare, Bucureşti, Editura Curtea
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Iaşi, Editura Polirom, 2001. Piatelli-Palmarini, Massimo, Inevitable Illusions: How Mistakes of Reason
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The
Teacher as Class Manager. Dealing with Problem Behavior
By Mihaela Dascălu, Şcoala de Arte
şi Meserii Argetoaia, Dolj
Keywords:
teacher, manager, behavior, rules
It is common knowledge that what actually makes teaching challenging and at
the same time extremely demanding is not the mere activity of transmitting
new information, but the teacher’s ability to establish a strong,
communication-based relationship with their students. Maintaining good order
in classrooms and dealing with problem behavior is one of the most difficult
tasks facing young inexperienced teachers, such as myself. The task has
become more difficult over the past few decades as young people's attitudes
to people in authority have changed dramatically. Some of the changes have
led to greater self-confidence in students- a self-confidence which, to a
certain extent, is of great use for the teacher himself. Others - such as
the acceptance of violence to achieve ends, attitudes to substance abuse and
an increasing lack of respect for authority - have made classroom management
and life in school generally more difficult, and more demanding, on those
who are charged with maintaining a positive learning environment. Problem behavior from students can take many forms, from disruptive talking,
tardiness and poor attendance to cheating in tests and unwillingness to
speak in the target language. It is nonetheless true that the students’
personalities and behavior are closely bound up with their levels of
self-esteem – how they feel about themselves and the level of
self-confidence they are experiencing. Many disruptive behaviors in the
classroom can be alleviated before they become serious discipline problems.
Such behaviors can be reduced by the teacher's ability to employ effective
organizational practices which are at the heart of the teaching process and
are essential to establishing and maintaining classroom control. In like manner, the first encounter between the teacher and the students
might be quite misleading, especially for inexperienced teachers; this is
when the students formulate their impressions of the teacher. Students sit
quietly, raise their hands to respond and are generally well behaved. The
teacher is easily misled into thinking that this is an ideal class and may
relax their vigilance. However, within a week or so, some students will
begin to test the waters to see what they can "get away with"; this is an
attitude that I have noticed within the first weeks of my activity as a
teacher. It is during this period that the effective teacher - a teacher
that we all aim and train to be - should establish the expected ground-rules
for classroom behavior. Establishing a set of classroom rules to guide the behavior of students at
once is of utmost importance. Discuss the rationale of these rules with the
students to ensure they understand and see the need for each rule. Keep the
list of rules short. The rules most often involve paying attention, respect
for others, excessive noise, securing materials and completion of homework
assignments. Though some of the students may consider these rules a sheer
formality, it is the teacher who must make sure to apply them whenever
necessary. I have noticed that calling a student by his or her name early in the year
gives him an increased sense of well being; moreover the student’s
self-confidence is increased, provided that we deal with aloof, sometimes
hostile students (especially teenagers). This way of dealing with students
also gives a teacher greater control of situations. Nonetheless, a teacher
can be firm yet still be supportive and friendly with students despite the
fact that sometimes we find it difficult not to lose our temper. A firm
teacher can provide an environment where the students feel safe and secure.
Many teachers report that it is easier to begin the year in a firm manner
and relaxed later, than to begin in a relaxed manner and then try to become
firm. In addition to this , when we plan our classes we need to think how we can
engage students in a reading or listening activity before starting detailed
work, this way introducing topics that are relevant for our students’
experience. “Praise is better than blame”, some researchers stated about four decades
ago (Madsen et al 1968) and I myself have noticed it when dealing with
disruptive, uncooperative students. When they are told off for their
inappropriate behavior, it had little effect. However, even ‘difficult’
students responded extremely positively when they were praised for
appropriate behavior; but praise has to be offered in the right way and for
good reasons if it is to be effective. In order to act according to the above-mentioned guidelines, it is essential
that teachers be thoroughly prepared. It is good preparation that gives the
teacher time to be proactive that is to be able to anticipate the students’
problematic behavior as far as possible. This teacher doesn’t have to
scramble between classes setting up materials, printing copies in the
office, and hurriedly writing instructions on the board. He or she has
enough time to observe her students so that she knows who is angry and
likely to vent that anger soon. The proactive teacher has planned her
lessons so that she has a few minutes at the end of each period to get
things ready for her next class before passing time. Proactive classroom control begins with setting the tenor in your room in
the first few minutes, before behaviors can become problems. If you miss the
opportunity for a smooth, controlled start, you will spend more of your time
trying to calm things down and regain control. By following a routine that the students can count on, the proactive teacher
heads off many discipline problems that the reactive teacher faces daily.
Students arrive to class over the course of several minutes during passing
time, but the children go right to work on a daily start up activity when
they enter the room. The reactive teacher is trying to get attention when
the bell rings. He starts the period by interrupting "free time."
In a nutshell, whether we work in primary, secondary or high-school we will
all experience problem groups and encounter problem behavior at some time in
our teaching careers. More often than not, the problem is minor and can be
easily dealt with, especially if we can refer to a previously established
code of conduct, and if our responses to discipline are based on solid
principles and strategies.
Bibliography:
1. Harmer, Jeremy- “ The practice of English language teaching”, London:
Pearson 2007 2. Celce-Murcia , Marianne – “Teaching English as a second foreign
language”, New York : Newburry House 1991 3. Larsen-Freeman, Diane- “Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching
(Teaching Techniques in English as a Second Language)”, London: Oxford, 2005
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Chuck the Textbook! Role Plays:
Developing Fluency, Accuracy and Complexity in Speaking
by Raluca Sârghie, Dr. I. Meşotă National College, Braşov
Keywords: different contexts, challenge, spontaneity, mock trial, role
cards.
A major issue that continues to challenge language teachers is how to ensure
that students develop accuracy and complexity in their speaking, as well as
fluency in a variety of different situations while keeping their interest
alive.
Another challenge is that in large classes talkative students tend to
dominate and the quieter ones do not get the chance to speak. Some of these
students are also inhibited when using a foreign language in front of their
class-mates and they worry about making mistakes and about being laughed at.
Even if they have to talk, they try to speak as briefly as possible.
However, in a role-play activity they cannot avoid answering questions and
in this way they are actually compelled to talk. Jeremy Harmer (2001)
considers that role plays are particularly effective because: “they allow
hesitant students to be more forthright in their opinions and behaviour than
they might be when speaking for themselves, since they do not have to take
the same responsibility for what they are saying.” (p. 275)
Moreover, Harmer also notices that “by broadening the world of the classroom
to include the world outside, they allow students to use a much wider range
of language than some more task-centred activities may do.” (p. 275)
Therefore it is clear that role plays increase students’ speaking skills,
since they give them an opportunity to practise, in a relatively low-stress
environment, the kinds of speech acts they would need in interactions
outside the classroom. Students develop their own ideas and this makes them
more involved and more enthusiastic.
Additionally, children like to imitate adults in various situations such as
getting married, going shopping, conducting a class, etc. In such situations
they have to adapt the language they know and conform to social conventions
governing the way real people would express themselves in that situation.
Thus, role plays encourage their creativity and develop their imagination by
giving them the opportunity to use language in different contexts.
In a role-play activity students will:
• Cooperate and communicate • Be spontaneous and improvise
• Give depth to their characters • Rely on previous experience • Improve speaking skills • Speculate • Justify opinions • Agree and disagree
Setting the scene and generating interest Before choosing a situation for a role play teachers should keep in mind
their students’ needs and interests and provide them with opportunities to
practise what they have learned. My students were between 15 and 16 years
old and had as a textbook Gold- New First Certificate, Longman. Unit 12
focuses on crime and punishment vocabulary which is good but the exercises
are far from ideal for encouraging conversation amongst them. In order to
bring this unit to life I made use of my creativity and decided to organise
a mock trial as a role-play activity. In this way I managed to get the whole
class speaking English together and familiarised them with court procedures
and human rights law. Every student received a character card with their new name on it and the
details that they would need in order to play that particular character. I
organised the class so that the desks were in twos and facing each other.
Some of the students grumbled about this new arrangement as they were out of
their comfort zones but I considered that this new arrangement could improve
both audibility and visibility. The judge was invited to the teacher’s desk
where he had a bell which he would ring in order to make silence in the
court. After the first witness was interviewed I realised two things. All my
students’ attention was fully focused on what was going on in the classroom
and the entire activity actually generated great fun. Model preparatory task In order to prepare students for the trial I told them that they would act
in a criminal case in which the defendant Sharon Smith was charged with
first degree murder. The prosecution claimed that the murder was
premeditated because Smith had planned to kill her old husband. However,
Smith had a strong alibi as she was seen at a party the evening her husband
was murdered. Moreover, I also offered them the following clues: • There was a cigarette end next to the deceased’s body, but he was a
non-smoker. • There was a suicide note, but it wasn’t written in the deceased’s
handwriting. • The note contained some grammar mistakes. • Forensic evidence suggests that the killer had auburn hair and that he/she
was wearing something white. I gave students role-cards with clear role description so that they could
play their roles with confidence: the judge, the jurors, the prosecution
lawyer, the defendant, an unemployed person, and so on. For example, the
judge was provided with the following information: conduct the trial, ask
lawyers to introduce themselves and the defendant, listen to all the
witnesses, pass sentence if the defendant is found guilty. Each card
contained detailed instructions and in some cases stating the problem but
without giving any solutions. For instance, the prosecution lawyer received
the following cues: think of a motive for the crime, prove that the
defendant had time to leave the party, commit the murder and then return to
the party, interview the defendant, interview the prosecution witnesses:
Lisa Gordon (the defendant’s sister-in-law), Walter Simpson (the butler),
Thomas Shepherd (the victim’s business partner), Ray Blackberry (the
victim’s personal lawyer), The Browns (neighbours), Harry Jones (police
investigator), interview the defence witnesses: Sharon Smith (the
defendant), Helen Smith (the defendant’s sister), Ben Lamont (the
defendant’s supposed lover). Student preparation time After each student read his/her character card they had five minutes to
think of what they were going to say in the trial. I encouraged the lawyers
to think of a list of questions to interrogate witnesses and suspects. Due
to the unpredictable nature of communication I considered that longer time
was useless. Challenges – dealing with problems Students had to be familiar with the target language because they had
already worked on the vocabulary activities from the textbook in the
previous class. However, some of them were not able to remember important
words and they had to paraphrase or switched to Romanian to ask for help. I
encouraged them to continue using English and try to make themselves
understood by omitting some information if necessary and making their ideas
simpler.
Error correction was another problem I had to deal with. I didn’t want to
interrupt them in the middle of the activity so I put down their mistakes
and discussed them at the end. On the one hand, constant interruption may
destroy the flow of conversation. On the other hand, not providing any form
of feedback would make the activity largely arbitrary and disconnected from
the needs of the learner. I also provided students with the correct English
words that were avoided or paraphrased.
I helped quiet or non-fluent students with ways to get their point across
and at the same time I reminded dominating talkers to be patient and to
invite others to participate. I also encouraged students to interrupt for
clarification whenever necessary.
Conclusion
Students get more speaking practice during a role play activity than during
a traditional, teacher-fronted class and they slightly make fewer errors
than those in teacher-controlled activities.
To my amazement, my bored teenagers sprang to life, improvising brilliantly
and using the language provided by the textbook in a new context. The
activity proved to be interactive, funny and an excellent opportunity for
students to use a wide range of vocabulary, structures, functions and
intonation patterns. The main advantage is with large classes because they
can all be involved and asked to work towards a negotiated final decision.
In this way a boring activity that might make students lose interest can
instead be skilfully disguised to become more creative and involving. All in all role play activities show that students are really willing to
interact and they can work independently without depending on the teacher.
This actually raises their awareness about the relevance of what they are
doing in class to real life. Bibliography:
Harmer, Jeremy (2001): The Practice of English Language Teaching, Longman,
London Seymour, David and Popova, Maria (2005): 700 Classroom Activities, Macmillan
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How
to Be Resourceful Against All Odds. A Teacher’s Testimonial of Past Times
Before the Internet by
Margareta Lencu, “Nicolae Iorga” School, Iasi
Keywords: internet, cheap, materials, train tickets, brochures, TV guide,
paper
I became a teacher in 1997 AD which means 1 million years ago and mainly the
fact that I did not have any access to Internet or teaching books except for
the regular visits to the British Council Library. I also visited the old
book fairs but that did not help much as the books were really old and could
not be applied as such but with serious adaptations. This determined me to
rely on the most available sources I could find: me, myself and I. You may
all smile at this but what can you do as a young teacher when you do not
have teaching materials and much money to spend on them. Some of the
experienced teachers helped, others even lent me books; I also attended
workshops during MATE conferences and training sessions for young teachers,
where I learnt the real thing and not dry and tasteless theory. Still, I
resorted mostly to myself and my crazy ideas I did not know I had; they were
cheaper and I could afford them on my “rookie” salary. I am not going to bore you senseless with my ancient methods or the
materials I used during my classes then; I am going to write here only about
the most scandalous ones, the ones you would not use unless forced to do so
by sheer ill-luck. For example, one day it suddenly dawned on me that I
could use my train tickets that I had been collecting, as I was a commuter
at the time, in order to teach my students the irregular verbs. I simply
grouped a number of verbs according to their past tense and participle
endings and then wrote them on the tickets. The students got a group of
irregular verbs that they had to match present-past or present-past-past
participle in groups of 4 or 6 in 3 to 4 minutes. They found it funny and
engaging and even decided to take the game home by doing this on pieces of
paper or cardboard of their own, so as to play it with their friends or by
themselves. So my first experiment went well thus encouraging me to try some
more. My next experiment was to collect from the British Council Library all I
could find for free: brochures, forms, advertisements for teacher-training
courses abroad or BA and MA degrees at foreign universities. I used the
pictures in brochures for teaching tenses, more precisely teaching the
Present Tense Continuous, for making descriptions, for playing games in
which the students had to mime and define the gestures in the photos. The
best use I made of the forms was to teach students how to ask personal and
work-related questions necessary to fill in such things. I also photocopied
them for every student so that each and every one of them could have an
example of how to do it when they needed it in real life. The BA and MA
brochures had forms in them but also pictures of the places the courses
would take place, their libraries, dorms or language labs. I used them in
order to show the students their future possibilities and what life was like
at the academic level, as my attempt at giving them some motivation to take
English seriously. And here comes the funny one: what would you use the tubular cardboard piece
supporting the toilet paper rolls for? Yup, I took one of those to my
English class and you can imagine the 5th graders’ faces when I asked them
to bring some more the following week. They did and once we’d collected
enough of them, we put them on a long piece of string and used crayons and
water colours to paint them beautifully. Then we used markers to write first
an irregular verb in the infinitive and right next to it, its past tense
form. The students loved the work in itself and then its educational value.
I enjoyed the fact that even those with serious learning problems took part
in the activity, feeling confident and capable of doing their part. We also
used those cardboard pieces to teach word order: this time the students got
words they had to put in the right order on a piece of string during a
contest for small groups. I also used old Romanian TV guides and fashion magazines – the cheapest I
could find – and supplied the students with them for projects on topics
focused on their lives. Some of the Romanian magazines or TV guides were
used for translations of titles and film synopses and sometimes simply as
pretexts for conversation. The cheapest of all were the A4 paper sheets used for writing funny notes to
be deciphered or making paper houses with rooms and imaginary characters
living their extraordinary lives inside them. I used my own voice for the
listening exercises when I could not find the cassettes and asked a
colleague and good friend of mine to help me with the dialogues; I think I
still have that cassette somewhere in the house although times changed and
supplied me with so many modern and useful resources. I even tried my luck
at drawing certain objects or animals for my younger students; they liked
them just as they were and for that I will always love them. I always thank God for the Internet, the huge ocean full of resources for us
teachers and for our students; this short article is only a reminder of the
fact that we could once live without it and do something important at the
same time: have fun in a very old-fashioned educational style.
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Traditional
Traveling vs. Mass Tourism in Post-Industrial America
by Ovidiu Aniculăese, C.N. "A.T. Laurian", Botoşani
Key words: popular culture, novelty, otherness, package
holiday, space and time, worlds of fiction
Foreword: The following article is based on a sub-chapter in the
previously published high school textbook “Life in America. An
Introduction to the Study of Contemporary American Culture” by the same
author. For the sake of this publication, some class activities, case
studies and questions have been removed while other parts have been changed.
As a nation, Americans are the most traveled people in the world, with the
highest mobility both inside and outside the country, especially by car and
by plane. Yet, this alleged constant exploration, this unique opportunity
for cultural enrichment seems to leave them with little more than all the
other forms of entertainment made available by the American popular culture.
The reason for that is that the once challenging and enlightening experience
of traveling has, in the hands of the technological culture, been
transformed into the diluted and contrived experience of mass tourism in
order to suit the different priorities of the postmodern common man. Before the advent of the industrial revolution, people used to travel for
two main reasons, depending on their social status. The poor and oppressed
traveled in search of material freedom, while the privileged did it to rise
up to their status by reaching further knowledge and maturity of thinking.
Youngsters from noble families were often sent on a journey immediately
after graduation in the hope that the trip would bring them a sense of
responsibility and more experience of the world. Throughout history, these noble travelers have been responsible for
constantly challenging the way of life in their country by confronting it
with their experience of other countries. This is what brought about such
progressive cultural phenomena as Renaissance and Enlightenment in Europe.
Those explorers actually went through a genuine exchange of values and a
cultural debate, eventually passing their restlessness onto their fellow
countrymen. Furthermore, people traveled out of their limited environment to places
where they could meet with
great minds or people sharing the same interest, thus being able to develop
their particular interests rather than allow their community to level them
down. People in today's technological societies – Americans in particular – sleep
on the cozy assumption that instant communication through technology and the
entertainment provided by the mass media can guarantee wealth of knowledge
and wisdom. Unfortunately, the fact remains that making it physically easier
for us to gain knowledge and open-mindedness is not the same as actually
giving us that knowledge and open mind.
Today's tourists no longer travel for exploration or for the challenge of
new worlds. To a large extent, globalization has erased the cultural
differences of most tourist destinations around the world. Moreover, those
particular destinations have been especially modernized, changed and forged
in order to give the tourist a pre-staged experience similar to that of a TV
show: strange and shocking, but faithfully matching people's expectations of
it and, most importantly, an essentially American, thus familiar experience
in its material comfort and technical support. No actual contact with the
host country or genuine dialogue with the natives is sought. The journey then meets other needs than those of past explorers. Post-modern
Americans’ life tightly revolves around their career, inside a highly
organized society which has already created all the choices and alternatives
for their existence, which makes for a pre-determined standardized life,
despite some obvious shallow variations. This is also due to the fact that
today's American is confined in a thoroughly materialistic existence that
overshadows the diluted socially oriented religion he still practices. Thus,
living a materialistic standardized restrictive life, the post-modern
American feels a dire need for transcending, for getting the feeling of
going beyond, for finding novelty and otherness, but is only equipped to
experience his standardized technological life. This is what gave rise to
popular culture as a standardized system of remedies for the soul which
provides exactly that novelty. In fact, it only provides people with a
sensation of liberation or transcending, by means of forged experiences like
tourism. If we were to imagine modern man’s lost spirituality as an ocean
and materialism as dry land, then today’s American is an amphibian on dry
land whose sophisticated reason cannot accept the existence of the ocean,
though his heart needs it badly; this is why he needs to at least fantasize
about that ocean or find ways of experiencing something similar. In the particular case of tourism, the experience of traveling is designed
to provide a concentrated feeling of adventure, exploring novelty, while
keeping the tourist confined in the same way of life. For example, while
traveling to Thailand, an American will encounter basically the same culture
as that of home: his transport will be ensured by a large company that
guarantees the same standards everywhere, the hotel will be part of a
worldwide chain like Hilton, Sheraton, Four Points or under such franchise
to guarantee the same rooms, beds, showers and service everywhere,
irrespective of local traditions. The entertainment facilities will match
the American style too, only adding a superficial local perfume. This scant
liberated experience cannot be that of authentic Thai culture, since the
tourist is not equipped for that learning experience and, even allowing a
superficial experience of it, one risks getting bored, because what the
tourist needs in order to reach satisfaction is a physically appealing,
extremely concentrated experience, therefore by all means one carefully
contrived* in advance by the tour operator or entertainment business.
Finally, the reality at the end of the journey is not only forged to match
the actual reality in homeland America, but also the nature of excitement
prescribed by popular culture at home. Thus, the tourist destination in
Thailand will have to match the American fantasies of an exotic isolated
piece of heaven popularized in the mass media. In other words, Thailand will
have to match the exotic kitsch that American televisions say it has to be
in order to become satisfactory. One other aspect that today’s tourism has lost in comparison to traveling in
the old days is its material challenge. Once, a trip involved careful and
skilful planning, large expense, it was physically difficult, tiresome and
posed serious threats to the traveler’s health and even to their life. Now,
modern technology provides transportation that is becoming more and more
comfortable each day, as well as more reliable, safer and far cheaper.
Thanks to that development, almost no effort is required from the
prospective traveler: journeying across the continent and even across the
world has become almost as commonplace as commuting to work everyday (though
the latter might actually involve more risks and difficulties). Finally, the practical challenge of being in an unknown city or country has
been obliterated too. The emergence and development of travel agencies has
fostered a tradition of surrendering to professionals all the worries
related to organizing a trip, choosing routes and destinations, deciding how
long to allow for enjoying each spot and when to take a break, all by simply
buying a package holiday. Like any other action in his life as a mass man,
all that this adventure and exploration comes down to is … buying! The guided tour or package holiday falls within the requirements of today’s
materialistic culture in the US, which bids people to seek pleasure and
material comfort above all. Subjecting oneself to needless pain and strife*
by taking control of one’s journey is no longer thought to be good for
building character and opening eyes to personal discovery as it used to be.
It is simply regarded as ridiculous. Choosing to use one’s automobile rather than a guided tour is sometimes
preferred by virtue of tradition, but it is not necessarily conducive to a
richer traveling experience. Cars and the 75,000 kilometer network of
expressways across the USA form a world of its own which seems to be
floating above America, perfectly insulated from the rich diversity of its
regions.
For
practical reasons, highways are built over the dullest possible route and
they not only help, but actually force the long-distance traveler to avoid
the cities in their path. Getting out of the highway to drive on small
countryside roads or to go through a city is potentially so complicated,
stressing and time-consuming, especially by unfair comparison to the
tempting ease and comfort of the highway that no one will venture out of
that colorless highway and most people will remorselessly choose to see
practically nothing (experience nothing new or enriching) during their
journey. Just like an actual tourist destination, the American highway has all the
blessings of the traveler’s home civilization: there are gas stations,
supermarkets and hypermarkets, bridge restaurants accessible to drivers in
both directions and high-quality motels of standardized comfort which,
together, make it practically unnecessary for the traveler to go into
cities. That is why many people end up having their vacations mostly on the
road, with little time reserved for the destination: the highway itself is
the destination. Like the contrived tourist destinations of package holidays, cars and
highways make up a world that replaces reality because they suit the
American technological culture. Driving and traveling by plane annihilate
two essential dimensions of reality – space and time – because contemporary
life no longer takes place in that reality, but in that of technology, an
artificial reality that functions according to its own laws. Distances are
no longer relevant, since huge ones can now be covered as if they were very
small. Time itself, understood as history, is irrelevant since society now
rejects the past as a series of illusions or abuses and ignores the future,
since materialism bids all individuals to just live the moment. While in
other ages, people felt as if they were carrying on a millennial history
towards a religion-driven eternity, today’s people see no relevance of
either the past or the future for them. Whereas people in the past were
often judged according to their contribution to tradition and history,
today’s people have become addicted consumers of technology whose personal
worth is often judged according to their involvement with state-of-the-art*
technology. Time has disintegrated and life today develops in the dimension
of technology. As a consequence of civilization eliminating natural reality in postmodern
America, worlds of fiction rule as the most popular tourist destinations. In
Florida, Walt Disney World (see photo) is a 111 square kilometer complex of
at least four distinct theme parks: Magic Kingdom (similar to the original
Disneyland near L.A.), Epcot Center, including Future World and World
Showcase (which gives a glimpse of eleven different countries), Disney-MGM
Studios and Animal Kingdom. The complex as a whole includes four lakes and
about 100 restaurants. Competing with Disney, Six Flags has fourteen theme
parks contriving an exotic experience out of history topics or regional
traditions, and three water parks across the US.
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