The Teacher as Narrative: Moving from a Teacher-centered to Learner-centered Classroom

This post has two goals.  One is to introduce my interest in the teacher as narrative, and the second is to show how it can be used as a solution to one of the many challenges faced in the Turkish classroom.

One of the challenges I mentioned in the Turkish classroom is accustoming your students to a more learner-centered approach.  In reaction to this, I implemented a lesson template that started out with the teacher as the center of attention and, as the lesson progressed, moved to more student-centered activities.  This is nothing new, of course, but I’d like to share my general approach and give an example of how this might be accomplished.  As a caveat, I should mention that I used these lessons with classes that were 3 or 4 hours long.  I don’t know how many of you have a similar situation.  I have not tried it yet, but these lessons could probably be split over the course of 2 days if need be, or shortened versions could be used.

As ESL teachers, we are always using ourselves to help our students understand new words or situations.  Who hasn’t put their arms over their head and roared to elicit the word “bear” or played air guitar to get “rock star” , for example?  Teachers are always a little kooky and over-exaggerated in the class.  It’s part of our job. Using props is another great way to provide some context or just change the atmosphere in the class for a bit.  I’ll never forget my TEFL instructor walking into our class wearing a big witch’s hat as we did an activity on evil corporations.  I still use the activity today and have my own witch’s hat now.  Little things like this keep our classes animated, makes the students laugh, and provide a clear context all at the same time.

I think a lot of teachers probably stop at this point, but I think we can take it further.    I, for one, love drama in the classroom.  It’s funny, because I always hated acting in school and would always choose the part with the least lines.  Drama is great though, because it allows students to get up and move, act out real, meaningful situations, and to be someone else (which is not only fun, but also safer for many students).

Many of us are limited to the classroom setting.  Even if our schools allowed us to take field trips, we can’t go just anywhere and we have as yet to discover how to time travel.  Our next best option is to bring the desired place to the students, to help them imagine that they are really there.  This is where you, the teacher, come in.

Rather than just explaining the situation or the time with a few pictures or even a video, you can actually be a character from that time or place.  The teacher isn’t just the relater of a story, they actually are the story.  We are our own greatest resource here.  Adopt appropriate mannerisms, attitudes, and accents for your character.  Wear suitable clothing.  Bring in props, pictures, music, and videos.  It’s great fun and the students learn a lot.

You can be anything you want.  In the past I’ve done a hippie, a cowboy/redneck, a Pentecostal preacher, a kid working at McDonald’s, a survivor of the Triangle fire, etc.  The possibilities are endless.  Arguably my favorite is my hippie lesson, which you can find here for a more detailed example of how this might work.

The benefits of this are many:  students get the context immediately, they understand how or why certain phrases are used or who uses them, there is always an emotional response like laughter or sadness, and they learn about history and culture.

As a teacher it’s also interesting for you because you get to be someone else for the day.  This is a great model for the students and they realize that it’s alright to goof around or act in character.  It opens the door for other drama activities.

One benefit, that I think is especially important in Turkey, is that you can express or explain political views safely without students getting angry because they realize you are in character.  I’ve found that, even if I don’t hold a particular view myself, if I try to play the devil’s advocate in a discussion in class, some students will always get upset and assume that I’m attacking their views.  Not only does it allow you to voice controversial opinions, but it also provides an excellent model for the students.  If you give them role cards, they can safely voice opinions they might have been scared to otherwise because they are just acting in character.

Here is where you would need to know your students and you could give them (or design for them) a role card that aligns with their views on a topic.  Even if you’re not doing something controversial, it shows students that it’s ok to argue for opinions that aren’t necessarily their own.

Also, another really important advantage is that these types of lessons teach culture.  I am a huge advocate of teaching culture in the classroom and, from numerous surveys I’ve taken with my students in Turkey, the students also value this knowledge very highly.  In many ways, a culture is a language.  And, regardless of if the students ever talk to another native speaker of English, they will definitely be dealing with other cultures and they need to be aware of the sometimes extreme differences that exist between them.

Becoming sensitive to and aware of other cultures is an incredibly important skill for any global citizen, and why are your students taking English lessons if not to interact with other members of the global community?

Don’t be worried about knowing everything about your character either.  Even on things like the accents, I’m not the best, but I choose ones I can do reasonably well or I’ll just speak with my regular accent if I don’t think I can do it.  You don’t need to be an expert to do this kind of stuff.  I mean, it’s important to be accurate in some ways, but you’re only indirectly teaching culture here.  For example, my knowledge of Woodstock and hippies comes largely from pop culture.  This is the information the students need to understand to understand references to it.  You don’t need scholarly knowledge of the subject because the average Joe doesn’t have this knowledge either.  To enable our students to communicate, we simply need to give them what the average person knows about an event or sub-culture, that is, we need to give them what we know.  Choose events and characters you feel comfortable with.

Ok, so how does this connect to the demands of the Turkish classroom?  Well, it’s great because these lessons start off very teacher-centered.  You walk into class in character, in costume, and immediately all eyes are on you.  The students think, “Oh what’s our crazy teacher up to now?”  You can talk to the students casually for a bit and point out who you are, what year this is, and what you’re doing in their class.

Following this, I’ll generally have some kind of listening activity related to my character.  Once the students better understand who I am and what our topic is, I’ll open up a Q & A, so the students can fill in the gaps about the event or person.  This also allows you to demonstrate a lot of related language.  For the entire hour, the teacher is the center of attention like in a typical Turkish class, but the dynamic is obviously different.  The students are comfortable with the format, but they are aware that this is not a traditional class and things will be done differently here.

In the 2nd hour I will generally do a reading.  Here, again, the students are comfortable with an activity they are familiar with.  The only difference is that the activity is done in groups.  It’s the next step towards bringing the students to the fore.  Depending on how comfortable the class is and the time left, I either go over the answers with the students as a class (teacher-centered again) or I bring the class together in a circle with me outside it and the students have to discuss their answers to the activity (or whatever the task was) and explain how they came to those conclusions or why they completed the activity the way they did (student-centered).

Finally, the last hour is where the students run the class.  Maybe they can be reporters interviewing someone related to the narrative, maybe it can be a debate or a discussion, they can give a presentation, write a newspaper, create awareness posters, etc.  Again, the possibilities are practically endless.

As you can see, you start out with a very engaging, teacher-centered class, and slowly transition to a learner-oriented one.  The extremely large benefit of carrying out these types of lessons is that you are incorporating all four skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) around a single topic, so new vocabulary and grammar is constantly being recycled and strengthened in the students’ memories.

The hippies and Woodstock lesson I’ve provided as an example is more for intermediate students and up, but you can do similar activities with lower levels as well. A hippie in a lower level can focus on anti-war and you can do imperatives by making anti-war posters.  Anti-war chants are great for English rhythm practice.  As a cowboy you can teach students to do a simple line dance (body parts and ,again, imperatives) and do a fill-in-the-blank listening.  Many country songs are usually slow and easy to understand.  One I use a lot with lower levels is a kid working at McDonald’s.  They ask me simple questions about my job and then we role-play working there.  A couple students can be at the front and the rest will come up and place orders.  This is great for practicing polite language or structures like “I’d like…”, or “Can I have…?”

I know there are a lot of teachers out there that would be embarrassed to try something like this, but, believe me, it’s a blast and you get used to it.

The first time I did it I was extremely nervous as well, but then I really got into it.  And I can tell you from experience that the students enjoy it and get a lot out of it.  I find my students remember information from these type of lessons very well.  It can never hurt to try. We are asking our students to speak to us in a crazy moon language, the least we can do is push ourselves past our comfort zones as well.

So here is the lesson again:  Hippies & Woodstock.

I’d love to hear from other teachers who do something like this or from those of you who try this out in your classes.  Please leave comments or send me a message.  Thanks

5 Comments

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  By David, February 3, 2010 @ 1:41 am

  Nick,

  Wonderful inspiration for other teachers. I don’t think teachers do enough “role playing” or drama and we can’t be “kooky” enough. It’s all about contextualization (or a lot anyways…) and these kinds of lessons especially work well with young adults who are in that “fantasy” phase (Kieran Egan has researched this extensively – here’s his page http://www.educ.sfu.ca/kegan/).

  I used to do a radio show where each day, we interviewed a celebrity. Always the same questions which helped lower level students. Each day, a new student was the celebrity guest. Some students would dress up and it was wonderful and a great way to start classes (sometimes taking up a lot of time but that’s life – the hidden curriculum.).

  Maybe someone can remind me of the old series on TV (maybe BBC) where they interviewed historical personages – this would be wonderful to use in the class also.

  Thanks for getting me thinking dramatically!

  David

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  By turklis1, February 3, 2010 @ 9:59 am

  I agree whole-wholeheartedly David. I think drama is one of the most useful tools in the classroom, plus it’s a lot of fun. I generally don’t teach young adults, but this lesson and its ilk are unanimous favorites by my students. I always get a lot of positive feedback from them. Thanks for the article link.

  I really like the radio show idea. I use What’s My Line for an intro to this kind of thing. There are two segments: one for mystery celebrity guests and one for people with interesting jobs. Many of the shows highlights can be found on you tube. Here’s one of the ones I like to use http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd9CMW07ngE

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