Comfort Zones and Discomfort Zones

I mentioned on Saturday that last week had felt like a year. This week zipped by, and we’re already on the banana peel that inevitably leads to the midterm exam, the grand collective panic (worse for teachers than students, contrary to popular belief) before the final exams, and then, boom, it will be summer again… Then again, all this is subjective. When I mentioned this to one colleague, she replied that this week, too, had seemed like a year to her. If only we had a year’s worth of time….

In most classes this week, I really felt on top of things, and was particularly pleased that the mountains of extra materials I was whipping out in class were well-received by students. Today, though, the new comfort zone became uncomfortable again.

My Foundation Writing students finally went from merrily nodding and enjoying the discussions of planning and outlining an essay to implementing it, and for some their clarity seemed to melt like a sno-cone in the spring sun. My heart was tempted to sink as my hours of preparation seemed to become insignificant. Instinct thankfully kicked in, and I was able to circulate among the desks to keep students on track, returning to the board to clarify any common errors. What does seem to be working well, though, is that this essay format makes it possible for each student to work to his or her level. They are writing about whether television is a force for good or bad, and while some are struggling to attempt even one body paragraph, others have planned up to three. One ambitious student has taken on both sides of the subject, claiming her right to work to her own abilities. That is a sign of great hope, since it’s the first time that I have worked so actively to provide for differential learning. (Ever, I humbly admit.) Another carrot dangling is that all the essays will be collected in their final draft form and published in a booklet to be displayed on the college’s open day. It will be interesting to see what impact actual publication will have on the writing quality.

The Language Through Arts students are keeping me on my toes as always. In their second session of the week, we looked at five different ways to use visual arts in their classrooms, and the discussion went down extremely well, with high participation levels. After the theoretical work, I set up a self-access activity for each medium, having discussed the relevance of self-access areas. It was striking that, although they knew all the theory about learner independence, they hadn’t connected it with the self-access concept, which makes up as much as half of learner independence literature and practice. Not only that, but they also lost direction, even though we had discussed potential pitfalls of self-access, and they had a concrete outcome for the session: to make a mini-project based on one of the styles to use in their short film. In today’s third and last group, four students actually asked if they could leave the class, since the “lecture” was over! (The time wasn’t by a long shot.) There are a few implications here that I need to consider.

First of all, in all three these groups of high-achieving students, there is a very high level of theoretical knowledge. The students are remarkably attentive while I speak, but when a student comments, asks or even answers a question, there is immediate side talk. This tells me that the “lecture” format is still what they consider to be the center of class work. Ironically, they have been studying learner-centered teaching methods since their second year, but have seldom actually applied them. The culture of peer learning during such activities has not been established, and I will have to recalibrate for that.

The second implication is from the theory of learner independence, or learner autonomy. As mentioned above, self-access is a prominent manifestation of this movement, perhaps because it is more concrete. Failure of the ambitious self-access programs is often due to the lack of foundational training in learner independence, and students’ inability to use them. In my class, however, it may have failed because students felt the “work” was done, even though I had given an explicit outcome. For many students, I had to return to their groups and be quite insistent on their creating a product for their films before they left, and today the product was the only valid exit pass!

The third implication is particularly significant for me in this course. Although this course is intended to give credibility to teaching and learning language through the arts, the students’ attitude towards the practical aspects are clear proof of the credibility problems the arts have. In all three groups, students take the theory seriously (even though I provide articles explicitly as formative ideas for their own reflective process), but as soon as “making things” begins, the class scatters and very few students are on task. It could be just me, but I think there is more going on here.

There does seem to be a lack of clarity about the film itself, and the way I will tackle this, along with the problems with practical work this week, is by starting off next week with re-clarified parameters for the film project. The practical work next week will center on week-by-week planning of the project on the calendars in the first handout. From there we will move to the language focus of the film, then planning of the media, and finally characters, setting, plot and themes. This time, planning will include a storyboard- and idea suggested by my colleague Mark, and spot-on for this course. In the next session, we will look at scriptwriting, so students can feel their work taking shape. Perhaps asking students to submit their planning is the only way to get things done. Should I modify my own conception of learner independence to acknowledge that learners do need guidance?