The thing with Teacher X: what's your current view?slimcodeNovember 16 2006, 15:34:49 UTC
Hard to tell from here, but I'm starting to think he made a cardinal blunder by opening up to the class in a way that he was never gonna be able to follow through on...
At first I thought, Great, here's someone who has the courage to experiment and innovate, and is willing/able to change.
But: he hasn't actually changed, has he? So that would make his big "cry for help" into something merely unprofessional and out of control. Pedagogically negative with immediate effect. It's not fair to students to foist upon them too much responsibility for the decisions about how to run the class.
Oh well... give it time, I suppose - time, and also MORE WORK (i.e., these further chats you're gonna keep finding yourself having).
In principle it's always a good thing for learners to get a chance to shape and influence the conditions of their learning. But there's a risk that this "consultation" could turn into irrelevant self-indulgence on the teacher's part.
The work of shaping and influencing the format should never take over from (or push aside) the work of actually learning.
For example: In my classes, at the start of class, we sometimes have a group discussion about furniture arranging; I have noticed that students like pushing chairs and tables around into new formations, to see if it helps the work flow. But they are practising their English as they're doing this, & we pick up phrases and idioms from the moves and the negotiations about lines of sight and clustering versus dispersal, etc. It doesn't turn into mere furniture-moving for its own sake, because we're not that desperate about the seating plan. In the case of Teacher X it sounds a little bit like he's too desperate about the pedagogical framework. I think you told him to relax, didn't you? Well, it looks like he didn't or couldn't do that.
At first I thought, Great, here's someone who has the courage to experiment and innovate, and is willing/able to change.
But: he hasn't actually changed, has he? So that would make his big "cry for help" into something merely unprofessional and out of control. Pedagogically negative with immediate effect. It's not fair to students to foist upon them too much responsibility for the decisions about how to run the class.
Oh well... give it time, I suppose - time, and also MORE WORK (i.e., these further chats you're gonna keep finding yourself having).
In principle it's always a good thing for learners to get a chance to shape and influence the conditions of their learning. But there's a risk that this "consultation" could turn into irrelevant self-indulgence on the teacher's part.
The work of shaping and influencing the format should never take over from (or push aside) the work of actually learning.
For example: In my classes, at the start of class, we sometimes have a group discussion about furniture arranging; I have noticed that students like pushing chairs and tables around into new formations, to see if it helps the work flow. But they are practising their English as they're doing this, & we pick up phrases and idioms from the moves and the negotiations about lines of sight and clustering versus dispersal, etc. It doesn't turn into mere furniture-moving for its own sake, because we're not that desperate about the seating plan. In the case of Teacher X it sounds a little bit like he's too desperate about the pedagogical framework. I think you told him to relax, didn't you? Well, it looks like he didn't or couldn't do that.
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Arr, him is tense.
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