Making the Wheel Turn

The instruction should be something like:

People on the outside please stand up. People on the outside please move one position (or one seat) to your left.

It is often good to give people on the inside a new instruction about a variation in the drill or dialogue (for instance, swapping roles or testing memorisation by closing books, while the people on the outside are moving). Naturally if a dialogue is being practised as a drill it will be appropriate to reverse roles between those inside and those outside of the circle. Sometimes it is a good idea to rotate the circle before reversing roles as a way of ensuring that complete dialogues are practised regardless of where pairs got up to in the last round.

How regular to make the turns? No matter how innovative a classroom method - any procedure repeated without variation will bore students. Deciding when and how often to make the whole class move is a little like deciding what someone's pulse should be. The teacher-co-ordinator's job should be to harness the prevailing rhythm of the class rather than impose one. That said, attention to pace can breathe life into any classroom activity. Sometimes students race, sometimes students are sluggish. Changes in pace can shift attention from fluency to accuracy or vice versa, from sound to meaning or vice versa.

I recommend for most purposes not allowing a round to last more than about three minutes. There should be some new input in the way of instruction - change a condition, a tense, whatever - at least every second turn, so that students never perform an absolutely identical role more than a few times. For beginners or in the case of a particularly challenging dialogue (or if the panauricon is being used for the specific purpose of memorising dialogue for a play) it may be desirable to have many identical practices. But a rule of thumb should be that interest is a key motivator and that repetition is of its nature deadening. 'Repetition is the rust of sacred verses' says the Dhammapada (Buddha's teachings, p. 48, 1995).

The purpose of the panauricon is to liven up the necessarily repetitive work of language learning. Memorising a dialogue (any words in fact) is much more fun as a social activity. Within bounds one could say that the more people involved the more fun it will be. After all language is an inherently social activity. As with any method - however ancient, however innovative - good will is required to realise motivation in effective classroom practice. The most exciting of materials, the most thrilling of instructions, delivered leaden voiced will fall on perhaps not deaf but certainly uninspired ears. Likewise the most thrilling of tasks repeated without variation will not only become dull but will by association give a boring feeling to whatever is being learned.

So when and how (on what conditions) to make the wheel turn is really the key to the success of the panauricon. The beginning of each new round is an opportunity for the global adjustment of the game. Wheels are known for their tendency to inertia and the moment of movement (the teacher-centred moment) has to deal with whatever resistances are building up in the circle. The direction to move has to inspire students. It has to give them a reason to pursue the adventure to its next stage.

An Example

To see how this would operate in practice with something more complex than practice of a set dialogue - let's take for example an elementary level lesson about likes and dislikes, asking for and asserting preferences. One can start with some kind of dialogue to drill or even baldly with a few key structures. Drill the whole class:

• Which do you prefer, x or y?
• Do you prefer x or y?
• I prefer x to y.
• I like x better than y.

Start with two or three comparison pairs about which students have to decide: eg fast food or Chinese food, planes or trains, Coke or Pepsi.

Then on each round, or as students become comfortable with the task so far, add more to the list of information demanded: eg throw in one or two new comparisons each time or throw in a cause question (Why do you prefer Coke to Pepsi? Because x is more/less z than y. Do you always prefer fast food?)

The rounds may begin to take longer or it may be possible to expect students to do more and more in the same time. Much depends on the prevailing level of motivation. With highly motivated students the exercise can be run as a co-operative speed game (Who can get through these questions and answers in one minute?)

The principle (as in the "Presentation - Practice - Production" teaching in general) in this kind of task building use of the panauricon is to move from simple to complex, from a slowed down model to a near native speed interaction and from 'someone else's' words to words which feel like one's own. Making the language used more real - that's the general direction in which practice moves the learner. Or at least by stages the teacher should manage to make the simulation 'feel' more real.

Shaking Things Up

For ringing in the changes there is no need to repeat identical instructions at the beginning of every new round. When there is to be no variation from one round to a next then a handclap or reversion to a musical accompaniment (paused during the discussion) would provide and adequate signal. On the other hand if students are enthusiastic about their discussions it can be difficult to rouse them. Mechanical signals (such as those of a clock or music) can help to reduce feelings of unfairness about the timing which some students might have if they finish earlier or later than the class in general. Timing is the key to maintaining a viable level of enthusiasm in the classroom. A musical chairs ambience helps to give the classroom a fun feel.

The panauricon really models in sharp relief an essential criterion of successful classroom practice: that is the constant necessity of achieving a balance between routine and innovation. Successful learning depends on the comfort of expectation - knowing what comes next. And paradoxically successful learning depends on having expectations disturbed - after all learning is about novelty, about the getting of new knowledge, at least knowledge which is new to the learner.

Apart from variations on rounds arising from changing instructions, varying conditions or circumstances, adding new problems, etc.; there are some other physical means by which the class can be shook up. The teacher moving around the outside of the circle would be such a change. The teacher taking a place in the circle - perhaps having a student give instructions from the centre - would be a truly teacher decentring way of using the panauricon. Asking students to physically swap chairs with their partners gives the people who were on the inside of the circle the opportunity to do some of the moving and in a long class could serve as a kind of half-time marker.

Shifting modes of interaction while still sitting in panauricon formation can again liven things - for instance the marked shift from repetition to freer dialogue, from pairwork to individual work (make your own individual list, make your own questions, your own topics, or even dictation: write this down), from outer to inner communication (a moment's silence for reflection or to hear a dialogue in one's head) - any of these 'digressions' from the main pattern practised will make that main pattern more meaningful to participants.

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