THE INSPECTOR CALLS
T.Elia, Senior Inspector Batinah South Region

I thought of this article after seeing some linguistically capable teachers (in fact some of them lecturers back home) finding themselves inadequate. Those who were able to handle Shakespere/ Keats with ease are now floundering with OWTE materials, while some not so capable colleagues are teaching nearly perfect lessons. I have therefore felt compelled to review our strategies and techniques. Let me, how ever, warn you that you may not find anything new in this article- my purpose is just to restate and air-condition what you already know.

 Stated below, as I see is a summery of pedagogical dichotomy. Strictly speaking the two sets are mutually complementary but to highlight a methodological tension that exists between A and B I have shown it this way. My own feeling is that language skills are best got when there is a definite bias in favor of set B. 

 The problem of the teachers I mentioned is one of teaching style. They are working under a handicap – a handicap of wrong bias. They are used to explaining things and that is exactly what they are doing. In other words they are throwing things to pupils but the pupils are unable to catch them. The pupils would like to ask the teacher for some help but they don’t know how to ( a majority fall in this category). They therefore turn tentatively to their neighbors for help fearing it might amount to copying. And when a question is asked they dummy up.

 -         What I would ask us to consider is that if by allowing group interaction we  can make these tentative attempts legitimate and instructive and make slow learners more open and less conscious of their limitations.

 Before we go any further we need to make a few hard pedagogical predictions like –

1.       Group work can provide a spontaneity of interaction which is absent in teacher – fronted activity.

2.      The interaction between learners can supply what they fail to get fro the teacher.

3.      The interaction will help them get the strategies needed for negotiating texts and not just finding a word or filing a blank.

-         During Feb.’96 I saw teachers teaching unit6 at 1^st and 2 Sec levels. The following were some task types.

-         Matching names with task descriptions

-         Referencing

-         Finding synonyms

 All these tasks entail the learners seeing the link between elements in a given text. And for handing these tasks the general strategy employed has got three steps:

1.      Students read the text.                                    – individually

2.      Teacher works on an example.                       – centrally

3.      Students do the task.                                       – individually

My observation is that the help te pupils are getting from those teacher – fronted sessions (step 2 above) is not adequate. And my feeling is that the leaner can ask ( and get help from) his fellow students what he can not ask the teachers. I would therefore like to bring a familiar but neglected step into the equation – between 2 and 3 above – namely:

              Pupils interact/discuss.                                – in groups of 4/5

 It is at this interaction the students will get to master the technique or thwe forge tools for negotiating a text, I believe.

 -         Two objections are legitimately raised here – and answered:

1.       It is time consuming, and

2.      At group interaction most talk is in Arabic.

The answers –

1.      Yes, it is likely to take up more class time initially, but once the learners get the hang of the strategy it will not take more than 2 or 3 minutes.

2.      I’ll give you that the students will use Arabic. But the discussion is on the technique of negotiation.

-         Seeing connections, linking elements in the text. They are in effect talking among themselves about the rules of the game as it were. It is therefore OK if they use Arabic. In fact the use of Arabic makes learners more at ease with themselves and their interaction comfortable. The learner may not be able to describe in English how he has arrived at the answers but he knows how to arrive at them, which to me is the whole point of exercise.

 A few points to consider in closing –  

1. The texts in OWTE materials are not to be seen as texts to be explained but language opportunities provided for the learners to acquire certain language skills. I the same way tasks are not to be see as mere exercises but as means of acquiring those skills.

2. A teacher providing explanation defeats the purpose of the text in the same way as he spoils the purpose of the tasks by providing answers o the bb.

3. As the learner grapples with the text, the focus is not so much on the answers to the tasks as on how he is arriving at them.

4. The point of issue is not the teacher’s ability to explain the text but the learner’s ability to explore (negotiate) the text.

 If you agree with these tenets, do you think group interaction can promote them?

 I can hear the rumblings!