1. THOU: I believe that a sense of cohesion among students and teacher — the forging of bonds between individuals to create community — is essential for optimal learning.
Consider the classic scenario in grade school classrooms: children uniting against the teacher: whispering, giggling, throwing spitballs and mimicking the instructor behind his or her back
Consider too religious wars and nationalistic conflicts: us against them.
For better or worse, I think that we humans need to feel as though we are part of something bigger than us.
I have come to believe that the language classroom is no exception. When we are linked in working toward a common goal — even when (or particularly if?) there are challenges along the way — our motivation is stronger. As part of a community, we share objectives and difficulties. We laugh together at things that people outside the community might not understand. We join each other in suffering when obstacles impede us.
Class projects are one way to unify a group, wherein everyone has a linked role. But I’ve recently come to believe that we need more: we need as teachers methodologically to lay groundwork (possibly separately from the course subject matter) that builds the students’ sense that they are an important part of something bigger as they move toward their language goals.
I never thought I’d be writing this. It seems so new-agey to me. And while I appreciated some of the icebreaker work we’ve done at SIT, I never saw its value. To be honest, I’m not sure it entirely achieved the outcome that I would like to strive for in my own teaching: not only giving students a sense of belonging, but of accountability; not only the idea of being a part of a larger whole, but of being instrumental to its success.
2. THOU: I believe that each student needs the classroom to offer a sense of safety, stability, trust and positive visibility.
I base this on my instincts as a sensitive person, on my understanding of the affective filter, and on my experiences as a learner in a panorama of settings.
I won’t expand here on the idea of emotions being equally if not sometimes more important than cognitive considerations. Research has proven that. I will draw instead from my own general experiences as learner to explain why I think I need to provide a safe environment for my students. I will use only positive examples here. In Beverly’s class, she remembers every student’s name. When they raise their hands, she makes sure that everyone knows he or she is visible. When they say something, she pulls from it whatever she can find that is constructive, which is sometimes a challenge. And she genuinely listens, responding directly to the point raised before, as appropriate, weaving the thread into a different pattern.As a teacher it is automatic for me to attend to people’s feelings since I am an emotional more than intellectual learner. And in my internship — as well as in my work in public radio — I’ve seen how teacher input can help or hinder. A girl in one of my Pachuca classes didn’t want to be there. She didn’t understand my accent. Her level of Spanish was significantly below that of the other students. She was the only girl. She wanted to drop the class, but she stuck with it. I can’t take responsibility for her choice, but I can say that I was always conscious of her challenges and always supported her, walking that delicate line between giving her too much or too little attention.
3. IT: The teacher must have — or develop — passion for the subject matter, and must find a way to pass on that passion to the students, by finding how it connects to their real lives.
This believe arises from my experience as student and teacher. I have always learned best — even in subjects I was somewhat neutral about — from teachers who had fire for what they taught. That fire sparks students’ interest not only by proximately, but by the heart that the passionate teacher puts into the curriculum development. Certainly, there are teachers who love their subject but neither prepare nor think creatively. I don’t believe that passion alone cultivates enthusiasm in a student, unless the student was predisposed toward the topic. But the passion to explore the subject — and this is related to my other beliefs — is what can ignite the students’ spirits.
Along these lines, it’s important to acknowledge that not every student can become inspired, regardless of the passion of the teacher. I could have the best organic chemistry teacher in the world and I’d still be lost and bored. At the same time, there are ways to engage even people like me. I can use public radio as an example (though I’m critical of what it has become in the last fifteen years). Certain reporters who cover complex and sometimes inaccessible topics — politics, the sciences — have the gift of transforming that material into something scintillating. I’ve noticed three things that they do: they understand the material so deeply that they can rearrange it into something presentable without compromising accuracy; that they translate into informal accessible language in a familiar register; that they abundantly use analogy and parable, and they personalize the content to the intended audience. A good teacher needs to mold the material of their passion into a form that the students will want to see and touch.
4. I: The teacher must be creative, flexible, patient, fair, and open-minded, as well as have the ability to put aside ego. Lacking any of these traits (and others not mentioned) may well have a detrimental effect.
Open-minded: Not only trying to understand new (and different) ideas, but to hear them in the first place: a very difficult task that I see as equivalent to our ability to distinguish phonology of a language very different than our own. Further, particularly in a multicultural classroom, I need to foster open-mindedness among my students.
Flexible: Organization is crucial, but so is the willingness to throw plans out the window when the class momentum is veering in a new direction. Flexibility is predicated on the previous point; one must be open-minded enough to perceive when the “river” changes course.
Creative: One way in which this applies is in the development of novel exercises for various learning styles, a gargantuan task when a) the topic doesn’t interest the teacher or b) the teacher has taught it many times previously. We always need to be ready to do things in new ways.
Putting aside ego will be a challenge for me, as it is for others — and maybe for everyone. Part of the ability to do that will be to identify what are my own objectives and expectations — my own agenda. Then I need to ascertain to what extent my teaching and my students can reasonably fulfill that. Are my goals too high? Too low? Am I teaching something to demonstrate how much I know, or to help students learn the parts that they need. I must continuing in my ongoing attempt to accept criticism without defensiveness.
I need to identify the line between teacher and student in a given situation: Are we friends? Should we be? What do they want to know from me? When am I telling them more than they want to know? When is my own opinion clouding my judgment of the situation?
The idea of “patient” and “fair” shouldn’t need expansion, so central are they to the idea of teaching. However, it is worth pointing out that patience can go too far. I cite my experience at SIT, where some students have taken advantage of the faculty’s desire to be patience and accommodating, and have long since crossed boundaries of propriety. As a teacher, I hold accountability for that as well.