17.4. Realistic English as the intended product

There are so many good language-teaching ideas in circulation that it is very easy to get carried away. It is not unknown for language teachers to be found cutting up little pieces of paper, or drawing flashcards at one o’clock in the morning. It may be worthwhile. Occasionally it is absolutely necessary but basically it is not a realistic or sane way to do our job.

It is also unreasonable to imagine that all language classes take place with about 15 children in a sound proof room, out of sight of colleagues. We cannot reasonably expect children to be angels either. If we encourage them to interact, to joke, to be creative and independent, then there will be times when they become silly. There can be few teachers who can swear hand on heart that they have never heard themselves say wearily, ‘OK. If you can’t be sensible about this (it’s usually something really good the teacher has taken hours to prepare) we’ll have to do something very boring.’ For the children’s sake and ours this is a situation to avoid.

Language classrooms are potentially noisy and demanding places. We need to be realistic in our expectations of the learners and ourselves. However, this does not mean that we should cynically expect and accept the second rate. It does not mean that we should reject the idea of pair-work because our classes are big, or not very able, or poorly motivated. On the contrary, being realistic should mean taking realities into account in such a way that good things can still happen. To see how this works, let us look first at how this approach to constructive realism relates to the matter of children’s behaviour in language classroom.

Schools may be one of the few places left where children can find quiet and sustained application to a task in hand. How can we reconcile this need to give the children periods of sustained calm and independent work with our declared intention to promote interaction and real communication? In other words, how can we be sure that interaction and communication do not simply lead to unproductive fragmentation and restlessness? This is particularly important when our classes are large and our classrooms are very cramped.

We can start by investigating two particular aspects of our lessons:

- the factor affecting stimulation activities in class and the one which makes them settle down;

- the involvement factor.

17.4.1. Stimulation vs. Settle down activities

You will find that some language activities stir a class. In a positive sense, ‘stir’ means that the activities wake them up, stimulate them. In a negative sense, it may be that the activities over-excite them or allow them to become unconstructively restless. There are other activities, which have the opposite effect. They seem to settle the children. To put it positively, that means they will calm a class down. The negative side of this is to say that some activities will bore the class into inertia.

If we know the effect of activities like this, we can plan lessons which neither stuck in dullness nor get out of hand in excitement. So it is useful to make you own list from experience of your particular class or classes. For example, most teachers find copying quietens children like magic. So does colouring. Competitions, on the other hand, make children excited and noisy.

Another way of looking at it is in terms of the different effects of different language skills. Oral work always seems to stir. Listening usually settles. You can equally well apply the same stir/ settle distinction to any typical and regular features of your teaching. For example, you perhaps have a routine oral exchange of several sentences with which you regularly begin a lesson. Ask yourself whether it basically stirs or settles. There may be occasions when it is not an appropriate start.

It will help to think of any classroom event in this way. What happens, for example, when you hand out books? If the answer in your experience is ‘stir’ then there will be occasions when you quite deliberately choose to delay the event until you have settled the class down. In order to have the freedom to adapt, we need to know the effect of what we do. So, either on your own or with a group of fellow teachers, you could make up a chart, which reflects your experience. For example:

Usually stirs	Usually settles
Oral work Competitions Lotto Doing plays Lego and bingo games...	Copying Colouring Listening (if they have something to do) Tests (if not too difficult) Being read to...

Notice that the headings say ‘usually’. This is because as soon as we start doing this, we find ourselves saying something like, ‘Well, oral work does stir but, in a funny sort of way, chorus work seems to calm them down’. Or ‘Pair-work makes them noisy so I suppose it’s a stirrer, but sometimes they get so absorbed in what they are doing that they settle’. Perhaps you find that listening to tapes settles them, but not if the recording is of a poor quality or if they can’t understand anything or if they have nothing to do while they are listening. This does not invalidate the concept of stir/ settle, but draws our attention to another related aspect. We need to look at the involvement factor as well.