Starting from the Stephen D. Brookfield’s idea (2015) that ‘to give helpful examples of new concepts, it helps if the teacher knows something of the student's world’ I decided to apply this learning concept in my Italian Book Club class. As a first-experience teacher the challenge was big because the students group was really restricted, around two or three people every time. In this way the possibility to develop discussions in the classroom or to motivate their critical thinking was difficult because of the limited number of people who could exchange ideas. Nevertheless, as Graham Nuthall (2007) stated,
‘Because students need to experience at least three different sets of complete information about a topic before it is embedded in their network of knowledge, we need to give them opportunities to revisit concepts’
I decided to merge these two concepts and to create something that could be involving, stimulating, and engaging but, at the same time, that could improve students’ awareness of the themes and the complexity of the book analysed.
I discovered how a movie inspired by a certain book could be extremely helpful to improve the students’ awareness of a certain historical period, especially in terms of habits, places and way of communicating. Since all my students were English and they had few information about life in Italy during the Second World War, the vision of a selection of scenes of the movie were extremely useful to better understand the general sense of the book. Furthermore, I found interesting making a comparison between the stylistic choices of the movie director and the way in which the narrative sequences were organized by the writer. I engaged the students through these two different means used to communicate the same story. Visual contents greatly stimulated the participants to the Book Club to find differences and similarities with the book, developing a discussion on the role and the aim of different typologies of linguistic technique and narrative choices.
To conclude, even though I was teaching a Book Club, I found the use of a visual means to reinforce some theoretical concepts about Italian literature and stylistic techniques incredibly interesting, helping my students, at the same time, to obtain a better and more immediate comprehension of the environment in which the story developed.
References:
Stephen D. Brookfield, The skillful teacher: On technique, trust and responsiveness in the classroom, (London: John Wiley & Sons, 2015), p.166
Graham Nuthall, The hidden lives of learners, (Wellington, Nzcer Press, 2007), p.161
Martina Borghi
This year I taught French language to second year undergraduate students. Every other week the students were required to prepare a short five-minute presentation on a French or francophone news article or radio broadcast in advance of the class. The idea was that the students would give their presentations in turn and would each think of a question to ask the speaker. The role of the questions was to check that the students were listening and ultimately to allow them an opportunity to practise their oral and listening skills. However, the students were reluctant to ask one another questions.
I recalled the idea of using Post-it notes being demonstrated in the ‘Teaching in small groups’ inSTIL workshop and so I thought I would try and adapt this idea to my lessons. In Teaching at University: A Guide for Postgraduates and Researchers, Kate Morss and Rowena Murray discuss the idea of using the Post-it note to measure students’ learning (p.26) and as a tool for giving feedback (p.48). However, they do not discuss the idea of using Post-it notes as a teaching tool.
I soon introduced the Post-it note to my lessons. The idea was that after a presentation, the students would write down a question to ask the speaker on the sticky note. I would then collect all the Post-it notes and re-distribute them so that each student in theory would have a different question to the one that they wrote down. I would then request each student in turn to ask the question written down on the sticky note. My thinking behind this was that it would remove the students’ worry of making a mistake or asking a ‘silly’ question as no one would know who wrote what question. The Post-it note technique also encouraged students to listen attentively to the presentations and to engage with the topic. I would recommend that anyone who encounters the difficulty of getting students to speak in class to appeal to small but mighty Post-it note. Other original ways of encouraging students to participate in class are discussed in 53 Interesting Things to do in Your Seminars and Tutorials by Sue Habeshaw and others.
Bibliography
Abigail Richards
I found of particular interest Michelle Barker's 'Teaching International Students' (2013), a book chapter that explores, amongst other things, a variety of issues that both teachers and students might have to face, including those associated with language proficiency and cultural adjustment. As Dunn and Wallace (2008) demonstrated, one of the first issues that students – and teachers – may experience is finding the pedagogy and curriculum at odds with prior learning experiences and educational traditions of their own culture. Since I am an international teacher who has to deal with both British and international students, I have to find ways of combining my different background with the needs of students from different countries.
Before running a seminar earlier this academic year, I was familiar with teaching in small groups, which is normally the standard teaching method adopted in Italian universities. Though, due to the small number of students who actually showed up in class, many of whom came from different countries, I had to try out something else. As suggested by Ryan (2000), working in pairs might be the best solution in cases such as this one. I divided the group into pairs by placing an international student and a British one side by side. In doing so, each student was compelled to discuss his or her ideas with the other one. Both could thus share vocabulary and come up with a joint answer. Moreover, as suggested by Cortazzi and Jin (1998), I increased the time I waited for replies, in order to give students more time to formulate an answer.
Teaching in small groups is an excellent way of stimulating and encouraging discussion in class, but this method sometimes gives students no choice but to try and speak. In an international context made up of few students, it might be useful to transform the small group into pairs in order to gain time and give students more opportunities to speak.
Resources
M. Barker, 'Teaching International Students', in University Teaching in Focus. A Learning-Centred Approach, ed. by Lynne Hunt and Denise Chalmers (New York: Routledge, 2013) pp. 199-213.
Teaching in Transnational Higher Education, ed. by L. Dunn and M. Wallace (New York and London: Routledge, 2008).
Ryan, J. (2000) Operating effectively as a teacher of international students. In J. Ryan, A guide to teaching international students. Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development (27-34).
Cortazzi, M. & Jin, L. (1998) Communication for learning across cultures. In D. Mcnamara & R. Harris (Eds) Overseas Students in Higher Education: Issues in Teaching and Learning. London: Routledge).
Stefano Serafini
I totally agree on the usefulness of pairs within small contexts, particularly when you get to “set up” the couples yourself (otherwise, from my own experience, the issue is that the students tend to always pick the same mate). Since you spoke about one aspect of diversity, I think that pairs are also beneficial to make students with disabilities feel more included (as opposed to groups, where a “democratic discussion” involving all the members equally can be more easily hi-jacked). For example, I'm thinking about students with dyslexia, who usually struggle more at keeping up with the rest of the class if they're not given their own time for thinking. Within a pair, they definitely have a greater opportunity for making their own reflections and they can also rely on their peer for making notes (so as to avoid writing, which is one of their weaknesses). Pietro Morlacchi, Classics
This year there were only seven students in my class and on average six students turned up every week. Due to the small number of students present each week, I also found pair work to be extremely useful. My class was composed of one male student and six female students. The female students would always sit in a row whilst the male student would sit in a separate row. To encourage diversity and dialogue within my group, I would choose the pairs myself which enabled students to work with a different peer most weeks. Abigail Richards, French