Month: April 2012

Invisible Structures

In my bag there’s always a small fabric ball. As I begin working with a new class, I take it out and casually toss it from hand to hand. Then, as I ask a question, I make eye contact with someone, toss the ball to him or her, and softly clap my hands. It’s obvious to everyone in the room that the person with the ball is meant to say something. Of course I encourage that something and help as needed. Then, I respond to what’s been said and depending on what’s been said, clap my hands softly again and either gesture that I’d like the ball back or that I’d like it passed on to someone else.

When I take the ball back myself it means that I’d like to clarify something or build on what’s been said.  If I then set the ball down, walk over to the board and begin to write something, it means we’re going to do a little language work that I want people to take note of and build into their responses. If after tossing the ball back, I move to the back of the room, it means they’re on their own and need to direct their own flow for a while. If I walk to the front of the room and ask for the ball back, it means we’re changing activities. It doesn’t take long for everyone to get into the rhythm of this. The ball, the handclap, the way I move and the rather dramatic way I use my eyes make it seem like some kind of game. It’s not. It’s a playful structure.

Along the way, I model little strategies like saying the name of the person I’m going to toss the ball to with rising intonation; like saying uh huh when someone says Chuck? before tossing me the ball;  like saying hmmm, let me think about that a moment before replying.  All the while, my movements in class become a pattern everyone understands.

By the second or third class meeting, the ball becomes an unnecessary prop and all I need is the eye contact and the handclap.  By the fourth class, the handclap becomes unnecessary and then all that’s needed is the eye contact.  By the fifth class, I can let go of my ritualized movement. The structure is still there, though, but it’s now invisible.

My eyes say it all and it’s at this point that I can then step back.

Still, if things ever get out of hand, I can pull the ball out, clap my hands, and use my movements again to remind people of the structure without ever saying a word about it.  If things get really out of hand, someone in the room is likely to get the Chuck look which by this time everyone knows means “you’d better get back on task and stop doing what it is you’re doing.”  I never need to verbally chastise anyone. My eyes do it, but then of course, the Chuck look is followed by my smile to let everyone know that it’s all really okay and it always is.

While you may feel uncomfortable with the ball, the handclap, the dramatic looks and the ritualized movement that I use, what I recommend is that you find a structure that works for you, build it up and then dismantle it step-by-step until only the memory of it remains.  Whether it’s a class of 20 or a class of 100, doing this before you unplug and step back to just let learning happen will help tremendously.

Teaching a large class can be challenging. The important thing is to provide a learning environment where each student is engaged in the learning process. One of the most useful strategies for effectively doing this is through cooperative learning using one of my favorite strategies, Kagan Structures. What’s special about Kagan Structures is that they are built around principals that develop individual and group learning at the same. The skills that they help develop include class building, teambuilding, communication skills, thinking skills, information sharing skills, and mastery skills. They are also designed to work with all of the multiple intelligences while improving time management skills and therefore are a really great solution for large classes.

One example of a Kagan Structure is Think–Pair–Share in which students have individual time to think about a question related to the topic of study before pairing up with a partner to share their thoughts and then working with their partner to select one idea to share with the entire class. This structure helps teachers organize group work and improves many different skills at the same time in a very simple and easy way. Working on their own to solve a problem or answer a question helps students develop thinking and mastery skills. Sharing ideas with a partner develops team building and information sharing skills. Deciding what to share with the class and then presenting that develops class-building skills as well. For further information and examples of Kagan Structures please check out this guide.

In addition to Kagan Structures some of the other strategies I use include:

–       Creating detailed plans for lessons, group tasks, and tools ahead of time.

–       Making guidelines for groups that explain rules, tasks, time limits, and expected outputs.

–       Using smile/sad face and agree/disagree cards to make it easy for students to respond.

–       Repeating the lesson’s most important points throughout the class in a variety of ways.

–       Integrating academic and team-building skills into my assignments.

–       Making use of technology but always having a plan B in case there’s no Internet.

–       Putting materials online and letting students ask questions after class by email.

Undoubtedly, technology can greatly increase student engagement and participation in a large class. The following tools and techniques are really useful:

Backchannels provide a rich environment for group discussions in real time. A backchannel is a great way to give each student a voice. Tools like TodaysMeet, Twitter streams, Googledocs, and NeatChat are some cool ways to do this.

Social media tools like Pinterest, Youtube, Facebook, Flickr, Voicethreads and Wikis will engage students and groups with different learning styles.

Note Taking apps like Wallwisher and Linoit can be used for writing important notes or giving feedback on individual and group work. They can also foster creativity in brainstorming sessions.

Nour Alkhalidy (@MissNoor28)

The largest class I have ever taught was about 15 years ago. It was an Oral Communication high school class of 52 students held in the Language Lab (LL), which incidentally only had 48 desks with headsets. Now that was an interesting challenge. I usually had 4 students sitting near the front of the room huddled around a cassette tape player while others listened through the sound system on their headsets. I had to substitute students into the main area like players in a football match. The biggest problem in super-size classes is that I couldn’t connect with all of the students, and I began to lose the students who needed personal attention but didn’t get any or didn’t get nearly enough.

My other “large” Oral Communication classes were university classes of 35 students. In these classes, I tried many strategies from the standard to the sometimes silly in order to connect with more students:

1. Use a bigger voice, greater intonation, more gestures and animated expressions to reach students in the back of the class.
2. Keep a class seating/name chart in front of me at all times. It looks like a big BINGO sheet with student names and any unique tidbits of information I pick up about students from their homework or conversations in class. I might write, “dog- “Puffy” or PT job – Starbucks. Whenever I worked little bits of their real lives into my examples or explanations, everyone would notice, and I could feel the energy pick up in class.
3. Move around a lot more throughout the room. I would cruise around a lot, or plant myself at the back of the room or near the “low concentration zones” (chatty students) in order to try to keep a connection with the outliers.
4. Warn them at the beginning of the year (when they are most open to new ideas) that they will be moving around in my class. This meant keeping aisles and desks somewhat free of clutter (“leave your coats or big bags in the back or on the side of the room”). I have 90 minutes classes and so beyond the regular check with a partner next to you or behind you, I also try to make 2 or 3 “Stand up and move” changes per lesson to give them new partners to work with.
5. Take advantage of large groups by doing group surveys, group discussions and group reports. Having students put their heads down and hands up to vote always resulted in honest answers. Having groups choose a leader, a secretary and a reporter created motivational expectations.
6. Play team games. Three groups of 12 was fun for most people if I could inspire their teams’ competitive nature, and even more fun if I could (secretly) make the teams somewhat even.

In a nutshell, with bigger classes, I try to make everything bigger, while at the same time trying to connect with as many individuals as possible. What strategies work for you?

The more the better

I believe the problems relating to large classes and mixed ability groups belong in the same category where ELT discourse is concerned. In the early days of the communicative approach, these were presented as major teaching challenges. This, in my view, is because these problems have been dealt with from a teacher-centred classroom approach, where the teacher has a hard time dealing with too many kids, or those who are very different.

I very strongly believe that every class of more than one student is mixed ability and large. It’s not the number or the difference between children that determines the challenge, but what the teacher wants to achieve. If you just deliver (favourite word: impart) material, it does not really matter if you do it for 5 people or 500. If, on the other hand, you aim at giving every single student in your class at least one meaningful moment they take away with them, even two students per class might be a tall order.

I believe that the “problem” with mixed ability and large classes ceases to exist the minute you stop looking for what you can teach to every single student, and instead start looking at ways of turning your classroom into a workshop where every student of any ability has a role.

I know this sounds far too simple and unrealistic to many teachers struggling day-to-day with thirty, forty or more students, but I strongly believe that the minute we relinquish our determination to teach our students and decide to create an environment where students learn from processes taking place in the classroom, acquire the skills of integrating into a group and defining and representing their niche (what they’ve got to offer to that particular group), the size of the class becomes an advantage.

This also allows teachers to become part of the learning process — which in turn makes their work much more fun and meaningful as well.

If the material is not a grammar structure but instead is a challenge, a project, or a task students have to complete by negotiation, discussion,  and collaboration, then even super large classes can become learning communities.

If the teacher does not deliver material but coordinates and facilitates the work done in and by groups, learning won’t depend on how many of the students the teacher can reach the ears of.

If technology is used appropriately to complete tasks, information will not exclusively derive from the teacher, and students learn independence and self-reliance.

If different forms of classroom arrangement and working solutions are applied, students will learn the immensely important skills of self-representation, negotiation and being part of a team.

All of these are essential skills to be successful not only in learning a foreign language but also in integrating into the world of work.