can have a beneficial effect on the morale, motivation, and self-image of its members, and thus significantly affect their learning, by developing in them a positive attitude to the language being learned, to the learning process, and to themselves as learners’ (page 10).
But can something so intangible and insubstantial as an ‘atmosphere’ be created? This book is an attempt to show that it can.
The author begins by analysing what characterizes successful and unsuccessful groups. She goes on to offer a range of activities to develop such positive characteristics as mutual trust, confidence in self and in the group, empathy within the group, and the building of a group identity.
Many teachers will be familiar with ‘warmers’ and other activities designed to facilitate group formation. The originality of this book lies in its attention to the group process throughout the lifetime of the group. By far the majority of the activities are designed to sustain the life of the group after it is up and running. There are also suggestions for preparing students for the end of the group experience to avoid the sometimes painful withdrawal symptoms which follow the disbanding of a tightly-knit learning community.
The activities and comments are always practicable and are clearly based on the author’s long and varied experience (from Torquay to Tibet!). She makes no great theoretical claims but the whole book is infused with two rare qualities – common sense, and good-humoured kindness. Teachers at all levels will find it invaluable.
In it there is a space-ship
and a project
for doing away with piano lessons.
And there is
Noah’s ark,
which shall be first.
And there is
an entirely new bird,
an entirely new hare,
an entirely new bumble-bee.
There is a river
that flows upwards.
There is a multiplication table.
There is anti-matter.
And it just cannot be trimmed.
I believe
that only what cannot be trimmed
is a head.
There is much promise
in the circumstance
that so many people have heads.
Introduction
I didn’t mean to write this book.
I actually set out with a colleague, Angi Malderez, to write a completely different book, on learner training. But before beginning, we decided to do a little fact-finding and try to discover a bit more about the problems involved in the learning process, as perceived by both teachers and learners. To this end, we sent out two questionnaires to language schools and state colleges all over Britain. The first, called ‘Moaning and Groaning in the Foreign Language Staffroom’, invited teachers to list their most common staffroom moans about problems involved in the teaching/learning process: the kind of preoccupation that fills your head when you have just finished a lesson you were not completely satisfied with. The second, called ‘The Old Lags’ Project’, asked teachers to invite their outgoing students at the end of a term to write a letter to an imaginary new student, explaining the difficulties they had found in learning English, and offering advice.
The replies to ‘Moaning and Groaning’ took us by surprise.
Teachers nationwide seem to be far less worried by such concerns as finding new and exciting ways to teach the present perfect or getting students to retain new vocabulary items, than by the atmosphere in the class and the chemistry of the group. By far the most common complaint was, as one teacher put it, ‘My group just doesn’t gel!’ There were many variations on this theme, for example:
– The same students always answer questions, quieter members can’t get a word in.
– No-one can understand what X says and the others laugh at him. Y is more serious then the others and is getting frustrated. Z has been here two terms and has seen it all. He’s bored.
– A refuses to work with anyone.
– Students are very bad at listening to each other.
– I have a ‘spirit-killing’ student who is bored with everything.
– I have a split-level class with language ghettos.
– Disappointing lack of interest in talking to each other and learning about other cultures.
– B wants to study grammar and the others don’t so he brings up grammar at the end of every lesson and then always doubts my explanations. The others get irritated by this.
– Student ‘passengers’ make no contribution to the group.
– C is only interested in hearing herself speak and seems jealous if the teacher’s attention is drawn to anyone else.
– They’re only concerned with what they want out of the lesson and show no feeling for their peers.
– They’re a really odd mixture.
– I can’t establish a co-operative feeling.
At a workshop for teachers following this survey, we asked teachers what it felt like to have a group that ‘did not gel’. They discussed their experiences and brainstormed a list of symptoms of ‘lack of gel’. They produced the following list:
– Students don’t listen to each other.
– They don’t laugh at each others’ jokes.
– They don’t make jokes.
– They can’t deal with problems: molehills become mountains.
– They stay in nationality groups.
– They are territorial; they don’t like regrouping.
– They are culturally intolerant.
– They don’t socialize outside the classroom.
– They are all sitting in silence when you go in.
– They make you dread teaching.
– They won’t work with each other.
– Nothing you do seems to work and the harder you try, the worse it gets.
– The more uncooperative they are, the worse you teach, the more uncooperative they are, and so on.
– There is often an ‘indigestible’ group member.
– They question everything you do and if you make a mistake they crucify you.
– They are teacher-dependent.
– They all want different things and won’t compromise.
– There is no trust.
This
