A Note on Movement in the Language Classroom

Teachers often worry about mode-shifting from the point of view of an assumption that students will have trouble coping with a quick succession of arrangements, likewise that valuable learning time will be wasted in endlessly shifting from one mode to another. In fact the capacity of a class to see itself as a different kind of entity for different purposes is one of its most powerful learning tools. The self-conception capacity of a class is often underestimated, especially by education systems which, interested in preserving their own status quo, may have a tendency to stifle any kind of dynamism. This explains the neat rows I find in my 'communicative classroom' whenever the cleaners have had the opportunity to order the room 'as it should be'.

With a sluggish class there really is a danger that a lot of time will be wasted in shifting from mode to mode, that this will involve an inordinate amount of teacher talk and repetition of instructions. But where the will is lacking any kind of self-motivated activity will be difficult to achieve. At least if students come to associate language learning with movement, with something they do with their own bodies, there is the hope that they will break from certain 'spoon-feeding' assumptions which assure their passivity and limit learning potential.

The vague unanalysed feeling that things just ought to be the way they are is the enemy of progressive education. Just so, infectious entropy, to mix some metaphors, whether coming from above or below, really is the enemy of language learning. Intelligent students are able to conceive of their collectivity in varied ways. For the purposes of language learning it is often useful to shift quickly among these. Fluid communicative relationships between individuals, partnerships and groups in a class allow the members of a class to maximise the potential learning benefits they have to offer each other.

By regularly changing the membership of groups, by giving everyone the opportunity to speak with everyone else, we maximise the opportunity for students to develop a personality in the target language. This personality building process reifies the language for students because it gives utterances the opportunity to become meaningful rather than rote. It also acknowledges that the principal communicative resource in the classroom is the students themselves: their knowledge, their memories, their skills.

Panauric 'ambience' ensures an attention to tasks through the dynamism of regular movement and the teacher's seeming ubiquity. Thus two of the main and most difficult conditions of communicative Langauge teaching are met in classroom practice: the students really communicate with each other, the teacher is really available to help them.

Establishing a classroom which shifts easily and fluently from one mode to another (big circle, inside-outside circle, groups of four/ whole class, pairwork, groupwork) is useful in a number of ways and for several related purposes.

In this kind of classroom it will be easy to interrupt discussions with drill which is realised as individual practice - and not merely an everyone repeat after me routine. Thereby a teacher can make and give individual practice for global corrections and adjustments for errors or solecisms committed by the class in general. In this kind of classroom it will be easy to convert oral practice into creative production, thus helping students to take the key step towards internalising new structures and vocabulary in their own language practice

Movement and balance between fluency focused practice and accuracy focused practice will be easier to achieve and easier to maintain. There will be less likelihood of getting stuck in any particular mode or with any single focus at the expense of others.

From the point of view of developing students' logical and argumentative skills, the panauricon is a good way to encourage students to look at many different aspects of a topic, to extend vocabulary and structures associated with or useful for a particular theme. Cycling related discussions through groups can help students to think more broadly and more deeply about issues and their inter-relationships.

Where students are practising for an examination in which these kinds of thinking skills are required of them, the panauricon can help to simulate in practice with classmates the thinking which the student will have to do on her or his own in the examination. In this way friends can help each other in the exam. Each only has to remember the kinds of things that the others would have said, the personality which they would have brought to the topic or question.

The panauricon is also good for interrupting discussions with conversation drill and/or practice. By shifting from group to pair mode one can give students 'instant' practice at a difficult structure or exchange and simultaneously form new groups. Likewise a shift from group to pair mode can facilitate the separate contribution of ideas to a discussion, helping to ensure more equal contributions by group members.

By means of the panauricon expectations of movement are established in the classroom. A feeling of perpetual movement gives students an expectation of meeting new partners. Students come to expect of the classroom the kind of dynamism which fosters communication and communicative task-based learning, the kind of dynamism which characterises immersion in a context where things need to be done by means of the target language.

The panauricon is a useful technique for a variety of purposes. It allows teachers to frequently re-focus divisions of labour in the classroom, it is an effective mode shifting device and it helps to break cliques. It is an effective - because arbitrary in operation - device for shaking up whatever people dynamics may prevail in a particular classroom. In sum, the panauricon is useful for practice and production (drill and variation from drill), for pattern making and pattern innovation, for extending pairwor, for splitting students off into groups of four, for splitting groups of four back into pairs, for frequently creating new group, and in general for instilling a movement ambience into the classroom.

The Panauricon is Good for Memorisation

Despite argument as to value of memorisation or the degree of emphasis which should be placed on it, it remains undisputed that learning a language does involve a great deal of memorisation. Memorisation, often unfairly characterised as involving exclusively 'rote' methods, does demand repetition - of lexical items, of grammatical structures. Techniques which allow that memorisation to be painless, to become an unconscious process, must be of comfort to the learner. Any tool which makes repetitive practice more interesting or makes it seem more varied must be of use. Any method which brings material to be memorised to life through simulating its use in real or novel situations must likewise be of value.

Variations

Can the panauricon be done without a circle? Can it be done in a classroom with immoveable chairs? The author has had to do this often. This involves having students moving up and down two rows in a classroom, the two rows simulating a circle. Once this conception of the classroom is established then students can be moved by a simple instruction such as "Everyone on the left please stand up. People on the left please move one position forward."

Another alternative where space is a problem is to set up two rows of chairs facing each other at the front of the classroom. Students then move along the row until they come to the end. One advantage of this method over the panauricon itself is that it is relatively easy (though unnecessary) to have students on both sides of the gauntlet moving simultaneously on each turn.

References

• Buddha's teachings (from the Dhammapada), trans. from the Pali by Juan Mascaro, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1995.
• Dewey, John, Dewey on Education, New York: Columbia University Teachers College Press, 1959

The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. V1, No. 1, January 2000
http://iteslj.org/

Twitter