Critical incident 3

Last week, what you might call an archetypical ‘critical incident’ occurred in the staff room at Eurocentres. I say archetypical because of the way in which it not only seemed like an important learning moment at the time, but shortly afterwards its actual deeper significance sunk in, tying together two or three different trains of thought (to mix a metaphor) that I’ve had during this process. The way I interpreted it at first was as a handy tip, or a small bump in a learning curve, but the more I thought about it, the harder it was to avoid some pretty serious self-evaluation. I’m certain I wouldn’t have benefited from it in the way I have if I weren’t writing this blog – it’s made it possible to take a step back from a series of experiences and use them to give an insight into fundamental patterns in my teaching, helping me identify my attitudes and evaluate them. Even the process of writing it has made it a lot easier to hold a series of these events and reflections in my mind at once, without necessarily referring back to particular entries. It goes to show how useful process writing, or recording speech, can be in ordering and acknowledging ideas.

Morning classes at Eurocentres are shared between two teachers who swap around after the break on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, with Monday and Friday being uninterrupted lessons with the same teacher. My second teacher last week, Hayley, had been working with my class on formulating discursive essays, with a focus on thinking of and supporting arguments for and against controversial statements. After her lesson she let me know that it had gone well, but two or three of the more socially conservative Omani women in the class had been clearly uncomfortable with some of the statements, and unwilling to engage with them. Gay marriage, IVF, freedom of religion and euthanasia are examples which spring to mind.

It’s perhaps unsurprising that these topics weren’t their favourites, and there’s an argument for avoiding topics like these – “PARSNIP” topics – in EFL. The fact is, though, that all of the students who rejected these topics are planning to go to university in the U.K., where they will be asked to integrate, to an extent, into a different cultural environment to their own, and awareness around topics such as these will be important. It wasn’t just that they were averse to discussing issues which were socioculturally challenging to them, but also that they were largely ignorant (which is a loaded word, but accurate here) of them. Whatever opinion they might form of a controversial topic is up to them, but in the context of living in the U.K and going through higher education, they will need to at least be able to interact with issues like this. They’ll come across real-life examples, probably. They should have a voice, and be prepared to inform themselves about topics which might in their experience be taboo, to say the least.

Hayley let me know that they hadn’t reacted well to the topics which were socioculturally sensitive, and that she had spoken to the students concerned after the lesson. She told me she had explained that they weren’t supposed to change their minds if they didn’t want to, or to believe anything they didn’t believe, but that they would have to equip themselves to address topics which might seem distasteful to them if they were going into higher education in the U.K. Essentially, she justified to them the necessity of their engagement with the lesson topics.

My first reaction was limited to ‘what a good idea!’, as I wouldn’t have thought to do that. I decided that this was the way forward for me, if a situation like that ever arose again, as it has for me before. It seems obvious now, but I always avoided conversations like this. I probably would have encouraged them to engage during the lesson, and not gone any further had they still chosen not to, with the justification that I had at least tried. So, I resolved that next time a learner was unwilling to engage with something they realistically would have to in their future, I would gently explain the demands that would be made of them, and how they could prepare themselves for this. I felt admiration for Hayley taking the initiative, and being committed enough to spend time having that conversation, and was happy to have picked up some sensible advice.

It didn’t take long, though, before I started questioning the reasons why I wouldn’t have invested that extra bit of learner training, trying to develop learners attitudes, knowledge and habits slightly more in order to make sure they weren’t under-equipped to fulfil their learning potential, in the near or far future. It was then that I realised that this was not an isolated incident.

In my third assessed observation, I chose to avoid approaching difficult socio-cultural conversations, and to allow my learners to remain within their comfort zone, by having them choose their own social and environmental issues to ask the public about. That is perhaps an example of a missed opportunity to develop their sociocultural awareness, but maybe not such a serious one to miss. What was more serious was that I didn’t include a stage at which they could inform themselves about their chosen issues. As discussed in ‘Assessed observation 3 part 2′, that limited their potential learning outcomes in several ways, and hobbled their autonomous development of their skills and language. Had they been better equipped, they would have taken more meaningful, in-depth and personally relevant language learning from the task.

Over the course of some of the peer observations, I’d noticed that my approach to classroom management was, in the long term, more laissez-faire than other teachers’, specifically Iryna. I was inclined to deal with any problems which arose as and when they interfered with the completion of the immediate lesson aims and classroom atmosphere, whereas she took the approach of trying to develop learners’ more fundamental attitudes and behaviour, in order to improve their learning potential over time, and to create, again in the long term, a more effective and productive learning environment for other students.

In the other peer observations which have formed part of this blog, discussion afterwards moved towards non-productive mobile phone use, and a similar patterns is in evidence here. In ‘Peer observation 4’, I wrote:

‘If I extended my focus from just maintaining a successful class in terms of learning outcomes to developing my learners’ attitudes towards mobile phone use, I would actually be building their autonomous learner skills in an extra dimension. As well as equipping them for autonomous learning, and providing opportunities to do so, I could attempt to develop their attitudes towards disengaging in class’.

This was also a topic of discussion in ‘Peer observation 2’, in which I afterwards concluded that ‘if other learners are engaging, I prefer to provide them with the best possible opportunities to do so than to focus on learners who, despite encouragement and opportunities, choose not to’.

All this – the shortcomings of my third assessed observation, my reaction to Hayley’s intervention, the contrast between my own and Iryna’s classroom management approach, and the conversations I’ve had about phone use in class – points to an underlying attitude which this critical incident brought to my attention. I’m not investing enough energy and expectation in my students, beyond what is needed for the lesson. I could do more to develop their knowledge, attitudes and behaviour, both explicitly and implicity, in order to prepare them better for the roles I expect them to take and to improve their learning capabilities, both in language and other fields if relevant.

So my next question was, why don’t I? The uncomfortable answer, I think, is that its more work. Yes, I encourage learners to develop their independent language learning and autonomous skills, and I give them opportunities to do so, but I could support them more. This isn’t just theoretical either; as demonstrated above, other teachers actually do, and I could have done fairly simply. I aim for and expect certain levels of application of congitive processing power from learners, and demand this of them, but I don’t necessarily actually work on it with them. I offer chances for learners to expand their sociocultural awareness, some of whom have a pressing need to do so, but I don’t invest myself in whether they do or not. My attitude is based on the idea that if I provide something, students can take it or leave it, and if they don’t that’s their prerogative. This process has demonstrated to me that sometimes I need to invest more in my learners to enable them to fully take advantage of opportunities they are provided with. Learner autonomy is a central principle of my teaching beliefs, so I really can’t ignore this.

To be honest, I know that I can be an unconscientious person. To be more honest, I can be lazy. This isn’t self pity or an excuse, but it’s only now that the penny has dropped that I might need to work a bit harder to improve my teaching as much as I can. I think I subconsciously believed that it was just some level of understanding I needed to reach in order to be able to guide language learners more effectively, or a few magic buttons that I needed to find which would instantly upgrade the service I could provide learners with. As it turns out, I need to invest more energy, time and thought into supporting the outcomes I expect from my learners, in all fields, but particularly in their exercise of autonomous capabilities.

I suppose this is a new understanding of sorts, but more importantly it’s work. Like most work it should get easier to do the more practice I get, but the first thing I need to do is demand more highly of myself in terms of investment in students. I need to prepare that extra step, have that difficult conversation, work with that difficult student, put in that extra effort at one particular point that will help learners to fulfil their potential. Nobody said it was easy…

 

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