Abstract

Students from non English speaking backgrounds struggle to learn the language due to a variety of reasons. Though they are very good in their subjects academically, this lack of knowledge of the English language leaves them behind especially when they migrate for purposes of higher education or to seek employment. Many students who are first generation learners find English an alien tongue as they do not use the language at homes. The school is the only environment where language skills can be nurtured in a manner which encourages them to pursue learning the language. This paper focuses on whether English Language Teaching can look at constructing meaningful models and innovative solutions which will aid and encourage second language learners to achieve a reasonable degree of proficiency in English. Any language is learnt when a learner is immersed in an environment conducive to language learning. Can such an environment be created in schools and English language learning centres?

Keywords: English, language, learning, Immersive, space

Introduction

An aspirational India, like any other country in the world, wants to learn English primarily for basic proficiency, to learn the language that will help them move up the ladder of social success and also for achieving literacy. English has come to represent a symbol of people’s aspirations and proficiency in the language helps them to participate in national and international life fully. In a global world, English is seen as a binding force. English is taught in almost all schools and gaining proficiency in the language is seen as a passport to success in today’s world.

Students from non-English speaking backgrounds struggle to learn the language due to a variety of reasons. Their motivation levels are high initially but bogged down by practical difficulties they mostly give up pursuing their dream which remains unfulfilled. Though they are very good in their subjects academically, this lack of English knowledge leaves them behind especially when they migrate for purposes of higher education or to seek employment. Competitive exams call for English as a medium of examination. This is a major area where such students lag behind. Here is where the divide becomes more prominent. Their skills at social networking suffer and there is a fear that these learners might come to view themselves as worthless. Teachers in the rural hinterlands do not have adequate English language skills, so whom will these children from such areas look up to? Filled with self doubts, low on self esteem and lack of proper avenues which encourage them to learn, they are really a sorry lot. Many students who are first generation learners find English an alien tongue as they do not use the language at homes. The school is the only environment where language skills can be nurtured in a manner which encourages them to pursue learning the language.

Hypothesis

• Learners must be immersed in an environment conducive to language learning. Such an environment can be created in schools and English language learning centres.

Known as the real estate of learning, the available spaces in a school like the walls, doors, windows, stairs, pillars, corridors, foyers, visitor’s areas, outdoor space within the campus, garden area, the compound walls, the area in and around the wash rooms, canteens, staff room, in fact, every available inch of space can be developed as a powerful learning resource. Today, in every city and every town, space is at a premium and is put to good use, be it for residential or commercial purpose all over the world. Such being the case, why not make use of the available spaces within a school dynamically as a potent factor of influence in a child’s learning cycle? However, it remains one of the most underutilized domains of learning in schools as traditionally, schools expect serious learning to take place only within the confines of the classrooms. However, all that is set to change as educators make a powerful plea to transform the physical environment into learning spaces. Many schools in the country have already begun to integrate space into their educational programmes including language learning. This paper focuses on a study that was carried out to check the efficacy of learning English language using immersive spaces.

Objective of the Study

• English Language Teaching can look at constructing meaningful models and innovative solutions which will aid and encourage second language learners to achieve a reasonable degree of proficiency in English.

• Language is not learnt within the rigid confines of the four walls of the classroom

Immersive Spaces in learning

Space can be a powerful agent of change. Everything in the world around us has undergone change overtime. Why then should schools built around the traditional concept of teaching-learning remain unaffected by the winds of change? Learning is a lifelong process and cannot be confined within the four walls of a classroom. Therefore,

Can the school premises as a whole be used as a learning resource?

Can physical spaces be leveraged to provide an immersive experience to students?

Learning can take place anywhere, anytime, not just within the four walls of a classroom. Children should be allowed the freedom to explore spaces and through them concepts related to teaching. The great bard, Shakespeare, put it succinctly when he said,

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything.(562-564)

Studies carried out in this regard

1. Different types of learners and differentiated instruction methods are now recognized as necessary to bring about any meaningful learning experience in the learners. Carol Ann Tomlinson recognizes that there are students who vary as learners and this helps teachers and schools to provide specific alternatives that help students learn meaningfully.

(Tomlinson)

2. Learning should ideally be a wholesome sensory experience with all senses participating in decoding messages and processing information.

3. ‘Immersive design’ is a term coined by a British designer Alex McDowell in 2007. Designers who can create an immersive experience through the environment recognize the ability of space to make an impact on those interacting with them. The designer becomes an artist who can effectively use the environment and the space around to comfort, provoke, instruct or channelize the thinking of the viewers without a word being spoken. Space can communicate ideas, emotions and solutions. It can engage the viewer as it expands horizons of learning. It can serve as an agent for interaction, reflection and transformation. The most wonderful thing is the ability of space to prompt the viewer to ask questions, think imaginatively and consider new changes within. It thus promotes creativity, nudges exploration, and allows for correlation and unfettered articulation of ideas.

4. Immersive spaces come as a boon for children who are given to rich imagination, as they can engage them through self-directed learning and differentiated instruction. As it opens up new vistas, students explore concepts in a way a traditional classroom can never achieve. It inspires new ways of thinking thereby revealing a world of possibilities to present ideas and share knowledge. ‘A picture conveys a thousand words’ is traditional wisdom. Non verbal cues are stronger than verbal messages. Physical spaces can be converted to convey information in such a way that learners gain insights and are also transformed by the messages it conveys.

5. The term ‘built pedagogy’ captures the ability of space to define how one learns, teaches, acts or responds. Heralded as a new teaching initiative, it attempts to break free of the shackles imposed by physically restricting classroom spaces and seeks to explore the growing relationshipbetween architecture, environment and education. Torin Monahan, Professor of Communication at the University of Carolina first used the term ‘Built Pedagogy’ to refer to "architectural embodiments of educational philosophies." Space is designed ‘to shape the learning that happens in that space’. (Monahan)

It is a great endeavour to involve artists, architects, designers and engineers to think about the kind of learning environment that a school should have, for after all if the school has to produce quality artists, architects, designers, engineers and so on, inputs must be taken into account in the planning and execution stages. This kind of a marriage of minds and skills of industry experts with school administrators is what would bridge the gap between getting degrees and then making the students industry-ready, a huge problem that our country is now currently facing.

Method

The research for this paper was carried out from June 2017 to March 2018 in four schools across Karnataka, a southern state in India. All the schools are situated in rural areas where English is taught only as a second language during just one period in a day in the school.

The data so obtained was compared with two other schools labeled as School 1 and 2 where immersive spaces were left blank and not used for any learning purpose. For the purpose of the study one class (Class Six) from each of the four schools was zeroed in.

Table 1 provides the data of the sample schools taken for this study.

Sample Schools Taken for Study

Table 1

Schools using Immersive Spaces

School Strength

School A 29

School B 32

School C 22

School D 34

Schools NOT using Immersive Spaces

School Strength

School 1 26

School 2 37

Language Corners and Word Walls

One of the best ways to learn language is to make use of immersive spaces in the schools. The English language wall can serve as a wonderful resource in schools. High frequency words can be written on the walls and these would help students see patterns and relationships among words. This interaction between the space and the learner will help in building their linguistic and spelling skills. Reading whatever is written on the walls will help students to improve both reading and writing skills. Thus the space becomes an interactive tool, a very effective interface as students learn and acquire skills at their own pace. Weaving in games like ‘word search’, ‘words within words’ where students have to make a list of as many words that can be made from the master word and ‘Who am I’ add an enjoyable component to learning. Creating quiet reading corners fosters the habit of reading. Grammar walls can have displays on parts of speech, synonyms, homonyms, commonly misspelled words, idioms, and the like.

Activity 1:Class Workbook Project Vs Language Wall Project

Class Workbook Activity

Vocabulary Test with 50 words was given for Class 6 in July 2017 in all the four Schools, A, B, C and D.The teacher conducted the Vocabulary Test in each of the schools selected choosing the words from the lessons taught till then. For ease of comparison, only students who got all words correct, that is those with perfect scores were taken for the study. The same test was administered in August and September 2017.The following table (table 2) shows the record of students who got perfect scores in July, August and September 2017. There wasn’t any major change seen except that students who could remember by rote improved upon their earlier scores.

Table 2

School Class Strength July August September

School A 29 12 15 16

School B 32 13 13 17

School C 22 9 12 13

School D 34 11 14 14

Language Wall Project

In October the Language Wall Project was started in all the four schools. Another set of 50 words were taken up for Vocabulary Test this term. Students practiced the words on the Language Wall for a month and the test was administered. Students with Perfect Scores increased.In November the same test was repeated and more students were able to get perfect scores.Finally, in December the same test was repeated and there was remarkable improvement in the performance of students. Students who did not do well earlier improved their scores and seemed to get the spellings right. This was noticeable as in the earlier term the laggards were not able to improve their test scores inspite of learning them as a classroom exercise mostly by rote and practicing them in the workbooks. But when the same students were given the freedom to practice on the language wall they seemed to do the task enthusiastically and also inched their way to perfect scores slowly but surely. Table 3 shows the test scores of the students for the months of October, November and December 2017 respectively after practicing the vocabulary words on the Language Wall.

Table 3

School Class Strength October November December

School A 29 14 19 24

School B 32 16 23 29

School C 22 13 17 19

School D 34 18 25 31

The scores can be depicted in the form of a Bar Graph as shown in figure 1. The chart clearly shows the progress of the students in all the 4 schools from July to December before and after using the Language wall.

Figure 1 (Look at the end)

Research Finding:

1. There is a progress in the writing skills of the students when a Language Wall is used. If the same procedure is followed in all the schools that is, allowing the schools to have language walls and giving time for the students to practice on their own, students will be able to gain mastery over the vocabulary words and achieve success over a period of sustained practice. The entire class will be able to achieve a perfect score eventually.
2. Different types of learners attend the classes. Students who are bad at rote learning sitting in the class may find this alternate method of learning beneficial as they can monitor their progress as they use the language wall resource which somehow holds their attention better than the traditional pen and notebook.
3. There is scope for their own peers to correct their spellings and this kind of peer support also motivates the slow learners to learn words better.

Activity 2:My Hobby-Gardening

Exercise given- Students were asked to prepare and speak ten simple sentences on “Gardening as a Hobby”.

For this exercise one school that is School C was chosen. In the month of July 2017, students of Class 6 were asked to take ownership of a patch of the school ground and grow plants in discarded plastic bottles. They planted the seeds and saplings in some bottles and watched the plants grow as shown in figure 2. The students observed the plants and with the help of their Science teacher learnt to label the plants according to the species. The English language class centred on the activity for many days and students learnt the spellings of the species of the plants and different activities connected with gardening and on one particular day in August 2017, students had to speak about gardening as a hobby.

Figure 2: Plants grown in discarded plastic bottles (Look at bottom of the page)

All 22 students participated enthusiastically and there was variety in their speech. 2 students spoke about the sense of responsibility they felt and how the activity made them responsible citizens. A majority (14) of them spoke about the processes involved in gardening. 3 students connected it to the topic wealth from waste. Their speaking skill improved as they tried new words and though the language was simple, in the ten short sentences they attempted, there was a willingness to use new words and not repeat what others spoke. 3 students faltered but did not want to give up and used their mother tongue to ask the teacher for the correct word in English. The same exercise was conducted in School 1. Here students were only given the topic- “My Hobby- Gardening” and asked to speak. Out of the 26 students, 19 of them memorized a prepared text and tried to speak by recalling what they learnt by rote. 2 students could not go beyond three sentences and that too with help from the teacher and peers. 5 students repeated the exercise the next day. The following representation, figure 3 captures the data of both School C and School 1 clearly and the findings can be compared easily

Figure 3 (Look at bottom of the page)

Research Finding:

· Speaking Skills of students improved when immersive spaces were used to provide authentic learning.

· Students cannot learn a language merely by memorizing a few words and sentences. Activity based learning helps them in learning English better as they try and speak on the activity they have conducted going beyond routine classroom exercises.

The Joy of Learning

We need to focus on the element of joy in schools. Schools, especially in the rural areas, woefully lack this crucial factor as they have never been looked upon as places where children can feel happy and carefree, away from the worries of the workaday world. The eagerness to learn gets multiplied if we were to bring in this essential ingredient into our learning process. A few jokes on the wall, a few brainteasers placed here and there, are sure to bring a smile on the tired faces of children (and teachers too!) Language learning occurs spontaneously in such an environment with all the students participating in mastering the skills of the language enthusiastically.

Activity 3:Using the Language Wall to improve grammar skills

Can puzzles, jokes and quiz help in improving the language skills of the students?

Sample class: School A with 29 students

Learning grammar using Language Train created on a board mounted on the wall which was named as the English Express.

Two trains facing each other were ready to chug out. Inside each coach of Train 1, a question was asked and answers were placed in the coaches of Train 2. Students had to choose the question and find out the correct answer from the coaches of the opposite train. For example, the word adjective was placed in a coach in the first train. Tucked into a coach of the other train was the word beautiful. Similarly, words for verbs and nouns were placed. Students played the game at their own pace and could refer to the key which was provided on one corner of the board to know the correct answers. This is a fun way to learn grammar by using the wall as a resource. The words were changed every week so that students would be enthused to play and use the wall resource regularly. The teacher taught grammar lessons on Verbs, Nouns and Adjectives in the months of July and August. In the test given in the month of September 2017, 24 out of 29 students got all questions right in the grammar test that was administered in the class.

In School 2, the same method of teaching grammar exercises in the months of July and August was followed but not reinforced by the English Express activity on the Grammar Wall. In the test given in September, out of 37 students only 17 students got all the answers right. The percentage of success can be depicted pictorially and scores compared as can be seen in figure 4.

Figure 4 (Look at bottom of the page)

Research Finding:

· Students learn grammar exercises effectively if teachers make use of activities beyond classroom and notebook exercises

The Inspiration Wall

We are aware that learning a language empowers the learner but it can go beyond the routine call of just fostering listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. Language can be used as a vehicle to convey something deeper, having far reaching implications on the learner’s personality. Can we explore the possibility of also infusing human values into the lessons with the ultimate aim of making the students better human beings through language learning? Thus, by promoting value education through language, learners grow intellectually, morally and emotionally. Immersive spaces can provide wonderful avenues for creating such situations where even as the learners concentrate on grasping language lessons, they are at the same time also absorbing human values that help them to become good citizens and good human beings which is extremely essential in the present times. This is also the mandate given in the National Curriculum Framework prepared by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to all schools in India.

Inspirational stories that motivate students can be added onto the language walls as learners learn language and also imbibe values. Special occasions like Independence Day and other festivals can be used to promote patriotism, unity of faiths and spirit of tolerance. Display boards conveying words of wisdom and proverbs and sayings can be created by the students in the art and craft classes and displayed on the walls outside classes or in the foyer as shown in figure 5.

Figure 5: Inspiring Posters on the wall (Look at bottom of the page)

Wash areas in particular which children visit regularly can be areas to carry out “Cleanliness and Save Water Campaigns” as can be seen in figure 6.

Figure 6: Space above the wash basins used to convey messages (Look at bottom of the page)

Activity 4:The Inspiration Board Project

Can English Language Teaching use content with human values in a simple and effective manner in the immersive spaces in schools?

Sample Class School B with 32 students

World Water Day was observed as Save Water Day in the school and the entire month of March 2018 was observed as Be Water Wise Month. Children of Class 6 were encouraged to participate in various activities to highlight the importance of saving water especially in view of the harsh summer months ahead. Children were asked to speak at least ten sentences on the various ways by which water can be saved during the Assembly session held every Monday during this month.

9 students volunteered to speak.

An essay on the topic ‘Catch the drip, save the trip’ was given. Only 4 students managed to write the essay although the teacher explained the meaning and tried to help them with the vocabulary.

Students were also asked to draw and colour on posters which would be mounted on a board displayed on the wall. Students participated enthusiastically in this activity and all 32 students were involved in this activity. Their creativity came out to the fore as they drew and coloured the drawings which very effectively portrayed the need to save water. They also wrote slogans which brought out the message effectively. Students participated wholeheartedly making it a whole class activity.

Figure 7 depicts the participation percentage of the students in the speaking, writing and poster making activity.

Figure 7 (Look at bottom of the page)

Research Finding:

• The activity reinforced that when they were asked to do activities outside traditional speaking and writing exercises, there was full participation and they did not mind filling up the board on the wall with their creativity.
• Pithy slogans and messages written on the posters by the students meant they were able to understand the significance of the topic and they also pledged that they would do their bit to save water. Another spin off of this activity was that they worked as a team in a spirit of friendship and cooperation.

Though the period of survey was very short to draw any definite conclusion, as this activity was spread over just a month, many important values like teamwork, creative thinking, responsibility and care for environment were brought out through such extra scholastic activities which will hopefully influence the students to become better citizens in the long run.

Conclusion

• The research carried out for preparing this paper was insightful and the following learning outcomes could be reached through this study proving the hypothesis right.
• Intense language learning happened subtly through the creative use of immersive spaces.
• All the schools where the study was undertaken reported unanimously that children have begun to look forward eagerly to such activities.
• Nothing can take away the benefits of traditional classroom learning but interspersing it with activities stretching beyond the classroom breaks the monotony and helps in children acquiring language enthusiastically.
• Students who are reticent in the class took part in the activities. Immersive spaces fulfil the needs of different types of learners to a certain extent.
• Students learnt to express themselves better and understood what it was to work as a group. Their social and communication skills improved as a result.
• Schools began offering space, increasing them gradually as they began to see tangible benefits.
• When teachers entrusted students with responsibilities, they carried them out with such dedication that indicated they were pleased at being given such adult responsibilities which they carried out by putting their whole heart into the activity to gain appreciation from the teachers so as not to lose the trust reposed in them thus strengthening the teacher student bond.

Works Cited

• Shakespeare, William. As You Like It, (2.2.562-564).George Mason University, www.opensourceshakespeare.org.Accessed 1Sept. 2017.
• Tomlinson, C. The differentiated classroom: Responding to the needs of all learners. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. 1999.www.ascd.org/publications/books/108029.aspx. Accessed 18 October 2017.
• Pink, Daniel H. A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. Riverheads Books, Penguin Group (USA) Inc., New York, 2005
• Monahan, Torin. “Built Pedagogy”www.torinmonahan.com Accessed 2 Sept.2017