[Oe List ...] Fwd: ST for Wednesday from Jaime

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Speaking in tongues


 
Pimmsler's work on language learning is popular.  The Internet come-on is: "learn a newlanguage in ten days without a book or CDs".   Thewinsome smile of the lady promoting the website caught my attention, and thoughI was only methodologically curious (of course), I found out what I alreadyknew in years of pedagogy; one relies on the way students naturally learn theirnative tongue as a child: listen and repeat.
 
In the years I taught oral English to students at theShenyang Aerospace U and tutored children at the Shou Wang weekend school, theonly Chinese words I used were ting (listen)and chongfu (repeat).
 
Ting denotes payingattention.  There are three major groupsof strokes.  The first one on the left isthe "ear" with an emphasis on it being huge (open wide) written belowit.  The second is the "eyes"so that listening involves viewing and watching with intensity, occupying thetop right quadrant.  The third brushedbelow the "eyes" is the "heart", indicating heartfelt engagement.  It makes the one word with many strokes equivalentto "active listening" in English.
 
Just this one word had enormous implication in the conductof my classroom.   It required students on their own volition tobe at full attention all the time since not doing so would be obvious.  Normal classrooms had teachers equipped withmini-microphones and portable speakers so that ze voice was amplifiedthroughout the room.  In lecture halls,the rooms were equipped with sound systems enhancing the popular Power Pointpresentation; lectures were conducted with the lights dimmed save the one bythe green board with the front row appearing to listen in earnest while the restof the class fingered smartphones, or caught up with their z-z-z-z-s.
 
My class architecture was designed so there was no escapefrom the neighbor.  On my third year, whenclasses had over 30 students, they had two sessions per week so I split theminto two, each alternately attending a session and skipping the other.  I assigned them seats, my normal way of learningto identify each person by their birth names rather than the"English" ones they chose in other English classes for theconvenience of the foreign teacher. 
 
Assign seats broke-up roommates who tended to stick together; it also broadened student's circle of co-learners. I had them work in small groups withpeople they did not normally associate with. It also worked to their advantage since they were assigned work outsidethe class, encouraged to "each one teach two" (E1T2) as learning isbest accomplished when one taught what one learned.  
 
Seating arrangements silenced the loquacious and engaged theshy, in two rows of semi-circles if the class numbered more than 30.  Smaller classes were in one row around theroom, cozy since no one looked at anyone's back!
 
On the center of the room was a table covered with akerchief (a simple black and white ala Palestinianhead gear) with a hankie centerpiece holding a broken cup and spilled uncooked rice,local stones from the schoolyard and one or two gems from my collection.  (Students invariably asked what the decor"meant".)  Throughout the two-periodsession (with a break) I walked around the center table so there was no definedfront of the room.  When someone wascalled to speak, ze spoke directly to the whole class using "public"voice.
 
The students talked, though reluctant at first.  They were asked to leave their "faces"outside the door.  This was hard for manywho were used to be backbench warmers on a hide-and-seek game.  They were in a speaking class and if they hadto worry about "face", they would not open their mouths.  There was no place to hide.  Read and write, they did not hesitate, butspeaking of their sense experience, personal feelings, thoughts and deeds was"private", not in their normal comfort zone.
 
They listened to the teacher, classmates, and to their ownvoice.  I had them repeat (chongfu) what they heard so that they can hear themselves, andget comfortable with their own sound in English.  We got them to repeat familiar ads and publicsignage, and sang along popular English songs.  I got them to talk about themselves byidentifying parts of their bodies that included words they were not toofamiliar with like forehead, cheeks,chin, chest, hip, thigh, calf, shin, etc.  Varied games to do this were designed.  They learned.
 
"Listen and repeat" started babies' natural learningof any language.  The method worked inthe classroom, too.  (Unfortunately, thepassing of test is still the mode of learning in China).  In class, I described what I saw, heard,smelled, tasted, and touched as an invitation for students to do likewise intheir assigned groups.  A comfort levelwas in place because they talked of what they already knew without reading abook, to persons they are familiar with. There were no right or wrong answers. There was only the courage to speak. 
 
My students and I worked doubly hard, first onthe courage, then, they spoke!    


j'aime la vie
pinoypanda2031 at aol.com

yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!

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