personalizing classroom activities

Personalizing classroom activities | Francesca | June 24th, 2000

Hello fellow MScers,

My name is Francesca and I've recently completed the FND and am now doing MET (about to start unit 4). As this is the first contribution I'm making to the list, you might like to know that I'm the only participant presently located in South America (Brazil) and that I work as a freelance teacher educator. If anyone is doing MET at the moment and would like to share thoughts with me, please get in touch. A general request, I'm thinking about doing my assignment on ways I can relate things to my students' personal experiences. Quite vague I know, but if you have any thoughts or suggested reading on this area, I'd be interested to hear.

Francesca

Re: Personalizing classroom activities | Francesca | June 25th, 2000

Thanks, Jonathon, for responding to my request for thoughts on exploiting students' personal ideas in the classroom. I guess I am already quite humanistic in approach - the Mosowitz book you mentioned is definitely in my top ten of most loved teaching books, I am also a fan of Stevick, I'm trying to read ' A Way and Ways' between other MSc material at the moment.

You say that some of the exercises in Mosowitz's book 'ask students to reveal to much about themselves', I think this depends on the student, the nationality and, especially, on the sex. Wouldn't you agree that women enjoy talking about their feelings and personal experiences more than men do? Does this mean that personalization is a more effective tool with classes of women ? I realize I am being controversial here, what do the rest of you think?

Francesca

Re: Personalizing classroom activities | Rob Salter | June 25th, 2000

This question really intrigues me about revealing oneself in classes. If I include talking about drinking, discussing memories of playing sports, and telling stories about causing trouble as personal experience then I would have to say that a lot of male students that I have been in classes with quite enjoy talking about such things.

I don't know a lot about this kind of sort of thing in general, but from my perspective as a Pinkie I have always found it much easier to talk about my feelings and personal experience with other men, in particular men from the same sort of working-class neighborhoods where I grew up. It is very threatening for me to reveal a lot to middle-class folks because I often feel as though they read a lot more into what I say than what I really mean. It's like there are five levels of meaning for each statement I make. I have also found that men reveal a lot about themselves through stories about events around them. I don't often hear "I hate my boss" but I do often hear stories about the latest bonehead move by the manager. I sort of make the connection and don't press for more. Perhaps I am mistaken to do so.

This topic really hit home when I was reading about the syllabus stuff in Australia in which SFG linguists were mounting a challenge to the view of writing that had been presented in Australian schools historically. That small "l" liberal idea of an expository essay that defended a position of the author was, for most of my life, completely beyond my comprehension. The SFG linguists were aware that people like me existed. That made me feel a lot better. I used to just write whatever I felt, the hell with rules because I couldn't see much sense or value in them whatsoever at all. Even though my parents went to university, I grew up in a working-class neighbourhood in which written rhetorical devices and being clever were about as relevant as Werner von Braun's rocket research.

It wouldn't surprise me then if personalisation is more effective with classes if women, especially if the teacher is a woman and is from the same sort of background as the women in the class.

Rob Salter

Re: Personalizing classroom activities | Francesca | June 26th, 2000

Despite the problems Jonathon and Robert mentioned involved with asking students to talk about themselves (certain nationalities not being disposed to discussing personal matters; women not feeling comfortable discussing feelings with male teachers or vice versa and even differences in social class between group members leading to a feeling of unease) I think the possible benefits are so numerous that it is worth trying to adapt our use of personalisation in class to suit each group.

Here are some of the ways and reasons I have for exploiting students' personal lives in class:

1 Chatting to students at the beginning of the class for free, genuine language practice (Jonathon's point about being on equal footing and having a genuine conversation).

2 As a way of relating to them and showing interest in them as people (not just students) with lives outside the classroom and, therefore, better understanding their behaviour inside the classroom.

3 Relating coursebook or other class material to students' experiences thereby making it more interesting and relevant to them.

4 Where possible, relating example sentences you give in class to clarify grammar or vocabulary to things you know about students to increase meaningfulness and aid comprehension, as the context of the unknown language is familiar.

5 Asking students to write examples with new language that are true about themselves. Students tell me this makes the new language more memorable.

6 Spending time in class discussing students' personal lives helps form good group dynamics and satisfies the often unexpressed but nevertheless present desire of many to study a language as a form of social activity.

7 The humanistic stance of encouraging students to discuss and come to understand their feelings, themselves and each other better.

There are probably numerous reasons for and ways of exploiting learners' personal lives in class. I would be glad to hear of any you're using which I haven't mentioned above. By the way, thanks for your 'hello' Pinkie.

Francesca

Personalizing classroom activities | Rob Salter | June 27th, 2000

I think the possible benefits are so numerous that it is worth trying to adapt our use of personalization in class to suit each group.

I AGREE!!

I didn't mean to say that I had problems with personalization. I meant to say that in my experience I have found many men willing to do give of themselves more willingly with men. I thought that somebody had said that women might be more willing to use personalization in the classroom than men. I was trying to say that men do personalize but perhaps in different ways. I did not mean to say that it is not worth trying.

Best,

Rob Salter

Re: Personalizing classroom activities | Andrew Packett | June 28th, 2000

In Rob's reply to Francesca's original post on personalisation, he wrote the following:

This topic really hit home when I was reading about the syllabus stuff in Australia in which SFG linguists were mounting a challenge to the view of writing that had been presented in Australian schools historically. That small "l" liberal idea of an expository essay that defended a position of the author was, for most of my life, completely beyond my comprehension. The SFG linguists were aware that people like me existed. That made me feel a lot better.

Thanks for raising this, Rob - it's a fascinating issue. It sent me off in search of a quote I'd noted months ago from Martin, J, 1992: 'English Text - system and structure': "...meaning potential is not evenly distributed across a culture (any more than material resources are). Access to genre, register and language as semiotic resources is mediated through discourses of ethnicity, class, gender and generation, which discourses are in a continual process of negotiation with each other' (p495).

The political engagement of the SFG school was something that initially drew me to it. And from the very little I know about the 'genre' teaching debate it seems this was a very public (and controversial?) intervention. Is anybody aware what has become of it? Are there published accounts?- Teaching material, etc?

There are issues here that we might like to explore, both as teachers and participants on this course. FND seemed sensitive to this when presenting the SPRE discourse pattern .TDA and GE are also, of course, intimately related to these questions.

Best wishes,

Andrew Packett
Coimbra, Portugal

Re: Personalizing classroom activities | Pinkie | June 29th, 2000

Andrew:

Found the quote interesting, but I'm afraid I'm rather ignorant of the issues you and Rob are talking about. Could I ask for some clarification?

The political engagement of the SFG school was something that initially drew me to it. And from the very little I know about the 'genre' teaching debate t seems this was a very public (and controversial?) intervention.

What was a very public intervention? How was it related to the "genre" teaching debate? And indeed what is the "genre" teaching debate: d'you mean the debate about the "genre analysis" approach to teaching writing, as championed by Swales?

There are issues here which we might like to explore, both as teachers and participants on this course.

Can you be more specific? What issues?

Best wishes,

Pinkie
Spain

Re: Personalizing classroom activities | Francesca Michalski | July 1st, 2000

Simon:

I have also used the technique of presenting 'real life' characters to introduce textbook material. I normally try to find a magazine picture and introduce it to the students as if it were a real person who they will then read about, listen to etc via the textbook. As you noted, this is an attention grabber, and students often ask, innocently, is that really him / her? Upon which, I usually own up and tell them the truth.

For my assignment I am interested in researching four areas. Firstly, becoming aware on a conscious level of the ways in which I use personal examples in class. Secondly, testing my hypothesis that my students have a preference for questions about a text that include references to their personal experiences. Thirdly, assessing the effect of personalisation on speech output (which will involve analysing tape scripts) and finally, sharing the ways I use personal examples with other teachers in the hope of picking up some new techniques from them.

Francesca

Brazil

Re: Personalizing classroom activities | Jonathan Clifton | July 1st, 2000

Hi Fancesca,

You mentioned that you wanted to look at this for your MET assignment. I looked at this for IIC. My findings were basically as follows; when a student is talking about personal experience he/she is in fact teaching me about "life". This puts us on an equal footing and a conversation can take place.

When a teacher is asking a student to do an exercise from a book about management or whatever, the teacher knows the answers to the questions and knows the text. The teacher thus assumes more power and controls the dialogue and you end up with an IRF pattern.

The above is a very crude analysis but it was my assignment in a nutshell.

An idea I really liked when I was reading for the IIC stemmed from an article (Dinsmore, D "Waiting for Godot in the EFL classroom" ELT Journal 39/4) that drew parallel between the classroom and the theatre of the absurd. The writer claimed that in fact much of what goes on in the classroom is in fact, in terms of meaningful communication, absurd: eg asking questions for which we know the answers, asking questions about texts with no involvement etc.

However, I am now running into the problem that with some students if one moves away from an IRF pattern and the consequent asymmetrical distribution of classroom power, the students feel that they are not being taught.

Have fun with the assignment.

Jonathan Clifton

Re: Personalizing classroom activities | Francesca | July 3rd, 2000

Jonathan,

I've just read the Dinsmore article (Waiting for Godot in the EFL classroom, ELT Journal 39/4) and found it very interesting. Did you find it easy to break the IRF pattern in your classes? I'm making a conscious effort to do so, but it's hard for me to control that final F part. Have you shared your research with your students? Maybe by showing them some examples of IRF patterns and other more student-centered patterns from transcripts of your classes they might come to the same conclusions as you ie that it's in their interests to change things. Also, did you use a system of analysis such as Faneslow's FOCUS (used by Dinsmore) in your work, and, if so, did you find it helpful?

My research is going to differ a little from yours in that I'm looking at ways of relating personal experiences to course material.   Lets keep in touch.

Francesca

Re: Personalizing classroom activities | Pinkie | July 4th, 2000

Francesca:

I liked your quote from Dadds: this is a serious consideration of the problem, and is moving towards a position that I could accept. However, I would replace "balanced by" by "subordinated to", giving us "where ...teacher emotion comes to cloud teacher judgment in research analysis, this clearly can be a problem. On the other hand, the knowledge that is generated by this emotional bonding may offer unique insights which could only enrich the research, when SUBORDINATED TO clear analysis and theorising." In other words, I would suggest that all those useful insights must sooner or later be passed through the "filter" of reason.

Best wishes,
Pinkie

Re: Personalizing classroom activities | Jonathan Clifton | July 4th, 2000

Did I use the FOCUS system talked about by Dinsmore? It is a long time since I read the article, but basically no I didn't use this system to analyze data. I basically looked at my data in terms of either IRF or conversation. Conversation I basically defined by saying that in a conversation who says what to whom is up for grabs. This definition comes from Nunan Communicative Language teaching ELT 41/2.

Did I share my findings with the students? No but this seems like a good idea.

Did I have trouble avoiding the IRF? Not really, but I was working with a self assured business man who was prepared to take on when I let go of the inherent power of a teacher to control classroom dialogue. As regards the feedback, I still correct the student or help him when he stumbles over words but I move quickly in and out of repair so that the teaching is minimal and the conversation is not broken. However, as I say I have recently had some problems using this style because some students get the impression that I am not teaching.

Best

Jonathan Clifton

 

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