When I entered the airport handling staff fist year training class for the first time, I felt like being part of a bad dream. They had arranged tables and chairs neatly aligned to the blackboard. What was that supposed to mean?
There can only be one explanation for this sort of strange behaviour. First, they don´t want to get in contact with each other, not wishing to look into each other´s faces. Second, they expect from the teacher to trickle bits of his precious information straight into the receptive ears of his students, and give orders of what to do next. Third, they are unwilling to communicate with each other.
This all is totally unfit for language teaching. Language teaching means communication, and not just reception. It also gives me an idea of how secondary schools in Germany seem to go about teaching.Universities are in no way different.
It is hard to react to this form of open refusal of self-directive learning. If I order them to sit in the form of a U, or in groups, they might refuse any sort of learning. If I leave it as it is, they might be able to influence my teaching style and methods in a way that I can´t support. I am not a supermarket of knowledge where students can shop around and take or leave whatever he wants.
Maybe I´ll just order them to work in pairs or groups and hope that they will dissolve their inflexibe seating scheme by themselves.
Happy Christmas!
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A very happy Christmas to all my readers. Thank you for everything you’ve
gifted me this year x
6 days ago
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2 comments:
Hi, Emile!
Your recent experience is such a powerful example of how well we (the education community)have defined learning for our students. From the very early grades, we put students in rows, encourage them to raise hands to speak, and reward absolute compliance in task completion. We reward lower-level, passive learning! It is no wonder that students come into our classes and procede to arrange the furniture for teacher-directed learning! They think it is what we want and expect.
Now, they have a teacher that truly values self-directed learning! They must be confused! You want them to THINK instead of recall and ACT instead of react! Perhaps first steps include designing teacher-directed lessons that requires students to work in groups of various sizes. Before too long, students will learn that you expect "group work." My experience is that most students give teachers what is expected. We, however, have to make our expectations very clear. Don't give up on these kids, Emile! You may be the best teacher that they've ever met! Take tiny steps in providing opportunities for self-direction. I'll bet (and hope!) that these students will surprise you! Please keep us posted. We don't want to leave you in a bad dream!
Yes, Beth, that has been my idea, too. I had some bad experience with the first year of training two yers ago. I started right away with a set of lessons about language learning with the topics memorising words, mind mapping, learning with the learning chart, debating etc., and the only reaction was "oh, not that again!" It shows me that in Secondary School they were forced into applying methods without practising or explaining them. Then, there is the family who have a traditional learning experience, and who want their kids to succeed in school. They don´t have the slightest idea of recent educational theories and practice, and so they pass on their traditional knowledge about learning, and the kids adopt it. The postulation is "No experiments, please!"
I have learned in nomerous courses I have held on learning methods, that for most adults, self-directed learning is a deliverance from the experience that learning must be hurtful to be effective. On the other hand, I once held a course for trainers of huntsmen who strictly refused to apply new methods because they thought they weren´t strict enough.
There is a serious handicap that teachers carry around with them, and that is their own training. We all have been taught to keep control in the classroom. It is the role which we have been conditioned to, at least in Germany. Changing this role from the hyperactive, omnipotent teacher to, as I like to put it, "master of ceremonies" unsettles most of us.
So, I will follow your advice and give the trainees a chance to adjust to my ideas and methods. Thank you, Beth,for confirming me in my efforts, it really feels good. And I will follow your blog closely.
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