17.4.2. Mental engagement and actual occupation

At the risk again of oversimplifying for the sake of clarity, we can identify two main types of involvement which could be described roughly as mental engagement and actual occupation.

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We can see the difference between these two forms of involvement by comparing two activities. The first is a guessing activity, which can be used to provide meaningful practice of any phrases or words the children are learning. In this particular example it is intended to provide practice asking questions using ‘going to’ + places. The teacher has 5 prompt-cards showing places, e.g.: library, stadium, post-office, theatre, computer club, etc.

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The children are already fairly familiar with the words. They have already practised repeating the words after the teacher and are now able to produce the words by themselves if the teacher just holds up the cards without saying anything. Now comes the meaningful practice.

Guessing: To practise ‘going to’ + places

• The teacher gives the cards to one child who holds them so that the other children cannot see which card is at the top of the pile.

• The teacher starts the guessing:

Teacher: Are you going to the library?

Child: No.

Teacher: Are you going to the post-office?

Child: No.

• The rest of the class joins in the guessing. When someone guesses correctly, another child chooses a card and the guessing process starts again.

In order to do this activity the children have to remember which five places are on the cards. They have to recall and produce the phrases and they have to work out by the process of elimination which card their classmate must have chosen. So they have to think. The activity also engages their emotions. It is fun. They are eager to choose right. In this form then, the activity is mentally engaging in several ways. That is why children respond to it so well and why similar activities are very effective and popular.

This kind of mental and emotional engagement contrasts with actual occupation. Compare the guessing activity with what happens when we ask children to copy out a list of words. Copying is not mentally engaging. It is true that the children have to concentrate in order to copy accurately, but they do not have to think very hard. Copying is involving in a different way. It is actually occupying. Each child is physically doing something. It is also usually an activity where all the children in the class are simultaneously doing something. This contrasts with the guessing activity when only one child is speaking at a time, although we tend to think of it as a ‘whole class’ activity because the teacher leads it from the front. Again it will help to make yourself a list, this time of types of work which create engagement and those which actually occupy the learners.

Mentally engaging	Actually occupying
Games Puzzles Imagining Competitions Talking about themselves ...	Reading aloud Writing Drawing Repetition ...

When we identify these stir/ settle or involvement elements in this way we have much more chance of avoiding a language lesson which is too rowdy or one which is too soporific. We thus have a way of making sure through positive action that the need for an interactive classroom does not automatically lead to restless and silly behaviour, even when the classes are big. This is so because the teacher can choose a style of work that in terms of its stir/ settle potential suits a particular class or occasion. The teacher is also in a position to increase children’s involvement by adapting activities so that, if possible, they offer both mental engagement and actual occupation, preferably of the whole class at the same time.