continued from No. 42
Raising the Motivation
A transparent and specific explanation of what we want of them at any
step of the learning process is related to the problem of task-assignment and deals with
the so-called SMART tasks, which help both sides to perceive, measure and enjoy the
progress made. It may also encourage students to speak more at the lesson, as some stay
inactive because of the fear of spontaneous speech and a flood of mistakes connected with
it. When students know that it is their homework that is being checked and assessed, fully
explained from the point of view of the task, they might feel more at ease speaking during
the lesson and discussing other things, completely or partially new to them.
SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and
time-bounded (B. Nelson & P. Economy). For instance, giving a good summary
of a newspaper article is essential for a good information perception and is not usually
connected with detailed retelling of the text. From the point of view of quick news
grasping this task can be considered relevant and important. So, with the proper choice of
an article (answering “why-question” of the diagram, i.e. what points make the story
of any use for us), for students who are not accustomed to such kind of work we begin with
filling up the following chart (or any other, but it is preferable to use a scheme of any
kind as a visual aid):
For beginners it is quite enough to start with just words and phrases;
then the students should be encouraged to use sentences and paragraphs and be able to
expand any information given into an utterance. The why-question stands here
for preteaching the issue and it’s important to zero in. On the practical use of
anything we can get out of the discussed text/conversation/etc. Pragmatics implies
something that students can think over; it can be a question or a problem presented by the
teacher based on complicated and controversial, or vital; grounds; that could be done
within 3–5 minutes of the lesson as a writing task to be checked later.
To evaluate the skills and knowledge gained at the end of the term we
put forward our demands: we want each student of the group to write within several minutes
a short summary of an article. We can give a number of sentences, for example, of a
composition. We’ll put a mark according to special rules: full coverage of the chart and
no grammar, pronunciation or spelling mistakes, all for “excellent”, any lack of the
above mentioned things – for a good mark, and so on.
The second argument – “we’ll forget everything by the time there
is some need” – is a stumbling stone of the process of learning. On the one hand,
information becomes obsolete and superfluous much more quickly than it is usually thought.
On the other, for many it’s almost impossible to retrieve it from the dusty cellars of
their memory. So, the more paths lead to the cell, the better we remember them, but it is
also important what to remember. Do you know an old saying about a son asking his
father what the German for “mechanisation” is? The dad answers that he can’t recall,
but if need be, he’ll look up in a dictionary, and the son ruefully says he told their
teacher the same thing, but she gave him a ‘two’.”
If the stress is laid on the ways of helping students remember
properly, using different activities and always summing up after their work, it can give a
great impact on learning. As a Chinese proverb says, “give a man a fish and he’ll be
sated till the end of the day, teach him how to fish and he’ll be sated till the end of
his days”.
To go back and sum up, or just repeat the main points, is crucial for
better remembering, so every task should be observed from the beginning and, the shorter
the better. Sometimes we only need a sentence, but the most important one.
The student’s individual work at class, thinking over and discussing
problematic issues, attempts to explain various things to their mates “as though they
were three years old”, and games of different types may serve the same aim of making
“paths” to notions and new words. Books like Five-minute Activities by
P. Ur & A. Wright and of that type may serve as an indispensable source for
short activities at the lesson that gives children the relaxation they need so much.
For example, while discussing the ways of talking over the phone, the
above-mentioned book presents a game called “What are they talking about?” The
procedure is to write a sentence (e.g. “You can’t? Well, we’ll just have to manage
without.”) which represents a bit of conversation that has been overheard and have the
students guess what the person is talking about; what sort of person the speaker is; what
the relationship between the speaker and the person addressed is; and so on. Variants also
are given, very funny ones. For very shy students a choice of options can be suggested by
the teacher just to make them speak up. Then the children might try to make and act out
their own dialogues according to the chosen patterns that contain the phrases from the
list. The material from children’s textbooks used in a game can’t but be remembered
with no evident effort. For example, “noughts and crosses” as a device for learning
new words became a very popular game in one group after a while, and definitely helped the
pupils distinguish between their different usages. Those who caused their team to lose
were ashamed, and each win was met with such a burst of gaiety that you couldn’t help
feeling happy, too.
The importance of a game should not be underestimated; it plays a great
role in the process of learning. We remember 70% of what we’re doing (it is 50% of what
we both see and hear), and the notion of a game is identified as a social practice of
actual life phenomena reproduction. Usually it is opposed to practical activity and has a
special property of reward; but apart from the pleasure connected with it, may also be a
very serious thing, e.g. E. Bern mentions war as a most ominous kind of game.
In other words, to learn effectively, we should “try on” every situation we feel vital
for us, and try to find a solution to every problem we face during the process of
education, because that is our aim, after all, in real life.
Unfortunately, attempts to create game activities, role-playing, and
reward-finding, take a lot of inventiveness and experience from a teacher; so if the
student’s book doesn’t provide us with the materials it may be too hard to develop
them ourselves. And nevertheless it’s the shortest and surest way to “pleasant schools
and easy ways of learning”.
And the last idea: what very busy people usually have to make is a list
of things to do. Having completed all the tasks for a day (week, month, etc.), a person
usually feels satisfaction; that is an important motivating factor itself. Teachers write
their plans for an academic year, forgetting to write a similar syllabus for their
students. Students in their turn can only see the items of the topics and grammar
phenomena of an incomprehensible choice in their books. It might be a useful thing to
compose a list of “things to learn” by way of understandable (SMART) tasks for the
term, put it on the board for all to look at, and tick each task when completed. Students
will learn what they are doing, and what for, too, in simple words.
Thus, the motivation of children doesn’t differ much from that of
adults. The latter usually come to work for money, but as they get there, other factors
begin influencing their work. It is much the same with children. They have to go to school
for all their winnings; but they also want to have interesting lessons, fair and immediate
appraisal, and a feeling of taking part in something important. The role of the teacher
from this point of view is to set a list of tasks to fulfil, to clearly and explicitly
present the demands explaining what is expected at the end, and to bring the standards to
the knowledge of students. Then, continual monitoring is essential, with a fixed objective
and a formal assessment of the results (not a mark only), explained and discussed
beforehand. Students should be involved in collaborative activities at each lesson; games
are of real help. Have fun all through the lesson.
By Olga Mishchenko
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