This is part two of a series of interviews with Jack Millett. Part one, conducted in November, 1996 in Kyoto, was published in the October/November 1997 issue of TESOL Matters. The following interview report includes yet unpublished details from the first interview, as well as a second interview which took place in Kyoto in November, 1997.
Jack Millett is a teacher trainer at the School for International Training (SIT) in Brattleboro, Vermont. He has played a significant role in the development of the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program at SIT since 1971. For more than a quarter of a century Professor Millett has observed and educated teachers around the globe.
Can you tell us a little about your background in teacher-training?
In the early 1970s, I studied at the School for International Training (SIT), and I have been affiliated with the school ever since, though I left two times temporarily. Once was when I worked in Barcelona, Spain in the mid-1970s, teaching teachers about the Silent Way. Then, in 1981, I came to Japan for two years and directed the language program at Proctor & Gamble. I supported the teachers, did some teaching, and observed some of the instructors who were working there--they were rather special: Donald Freeman, Kathleen Graves, and Alice Hinds. In Japan, I also taught courses related to teacher training in the Silent Way at the Center for Language Learning, in Osaka. I've been back at SIT since 1983 working in the MAT program.
SIT is known for its emphasis on experiential learning. Can you tell us a little about how you train teachers experientially?
Yes. Let me give you an example of experiential learning which takes place in our Approaches to Teaching Second Languages course. First, we have our MAT students participate in a language lesson taught in a language they do not know, using a particular approach. In order to understand the approach, we have them work in pairs (or groups) to analyze what occurred during the lesson: how it was designed, what techniques were used, and what theories it was based on. In the whole group, they are asked to share their observations and analyses. We subsequently guide them in exploring these observations and analyses more fully by touching awarenesses that they didn't have, or that they hadn't yet expressed. These discussions are followed by in-depth reading of the theory behind the approach used in the lesson. In the final phase, we have them apply their individual understanding of the approach by designing and teaching an actual language class where they put theory into practice.
In an experiential program do you think it is essential that students have a written record of their experiences or reactions to their experiences?
In terms of an experiential learning cycle it is absolutely critical for students to keep a written journal of their thoughts before, during, and after each experience because it is one of the ways that they can reflect on their experience and then ground it. So by putting their reflections in writing, they are forcing themselves to clarify their understanding of the experience. It is possible to work without a written journal, but for deepening one's skill of observation, and for sorting out what is actually happening, it is necessary to record the experience in some way.
What are some of the common themes or areas that you work on when you supervise teachers?
Well, one of the challenges in teaching large groups is how to set a task for everyone--all of the time. The tendency is for people to relate to one person in the group, so they'll do something with one student, then another student, and then another, and the other forty people have nothing to do. But teachers have to become aware that there are things you can do to integrate other students.
For example?
One thing that often happens is when a student uses an "I" statement (e.g., "I went to Osaka yesterday."), you can always move that to a 'he' or 'she' statement. So you can ask other students in the room to be ready to tell what the other person said.
Many teachers think that this is boring, but it really does begin to make everybody responsible for what is happening in the class. Anything that students hear, that I say or other students say, the whole group is accountable for. I can also ask one individual to say something, or I can ask the whole class to report what was said.
Another way to keep the whole group accountable is to work with one person, one person, one person, then have others tell what has just been said. I, as the teacher, can follow this activity up by summarizing what was said. This shifts the energy so that it becomes a listening activity where students listen to me as a native speaker saying the same thing that has been said by the students. This puts it back out to the group but in a different way.
I can also recall what students said, but incorrectly. This really pushes their listening. I attribute what Kenji said to Yukiko, and play with the language and the content. I can also shift after getting six or eight responses and move to a dictation.
When you work with the whole group the interaction cannot be teacher to individual, teacher to individual, teacher to individual. That is just deadly. When you do this, you are inviting the rest of the people to tune out. Working the whole audience is absolutely key.
Another theme is getting teachers to look at their own energy or body language to see how it influences the group. Sometimes moving physically closer to or further from students can affect the interaction in the class. Depending on the culture, even if you just move closer to a student (or the group) the energy shifts--you often don't have to say anything.
For me, teaching is energy. If you are not attentive to the energy, the content will most likely go nowhere. Without attention to keeping the energy level up and the students focused, nothing really happens.
What do you do when you have a class and the energy is just dead?
Shift gears!
First, you have to recognize that the energy is down, whatever you are doing isn't working, so you stop it--which is the hardest thing for most teachers to do--to stop the activity and shift to something else.
But, you also can't stop unless you have a whole bunch of things to go to--a bag of tricks. For example, writing fits very nicely in Japan. Writing is a task where Japanese students have some strengths compared to some students from other countries. If an activity is not going well you can simply stop and have the students write about what you are doing for a few minutes--this gives a moment to regroup as well as putting their ideas on paper.
You can also shift from a whole group activity to a small group activity, but that only works if you have a group of students that care about the language a little bit so they wonﾕt speak just Japanese in their pairs.
So you keep playing the energy and think, "Do I shift it to another skill area, do I shift it to a small group activity, or do I shift it to a story, or a dictation?" Often you can take the same basic language or structures you are working with and create a quick story using them and students can spend time trying to retell it or mind-map it.
Teachers have to also realize that when things are not going well in the class that it is not really personal, it is not something against them. There is no one way to deal with these drops in energy or problems in the classroom, it has to fit you and where you are working. Very often teachers want the activity to work so badly that they do not want to let go of it and say, "This was a disaster--OK," and then move on. It is not simple to pull out of that and put together the next activity, but most of the time you can pick something that will work with your group.
Recently there has been a lot of talk about "community" in the classroom. Some teachers believe that before you can really have a good language class, you should first create a good community. How do you feel about this?
I think there are many ways to build a community in the classroom and if the instructor feels it is important, then she or he should work towards that goal, but it must suit the teacher. Several approaches to building community are to do it as you go along, to isolate and spend time building the community initially, or to do the two simultaneously. You can do it several ways, but it has to fit the person. I think it is important if the teacher knows what they are doing, in other words, if the clear purpose of certain activities is to build a community and that is what the teacher is watching and assessing. And at this point, the language is secondary--if students pick some up, fine.
Very often teachers have to finish a certain book or be at a specific chapter at such a date. It is a mandate set by their institution. Do you have any advice for them?
Yes, I understand this situation. Some institutions tell you that you must finish a particular chapter by this date--which I think is odd. How can anyone tell you where this group of students is supposed to be on one specific day?
So I advise teachers to take the textbook and pick something out of the chapter that they think is a main point, that is useful, and work on it with the students until they learn it. And then make the rest of it homework and/or reading assignments.
Students will not be any worse off doing this--they are going to learn what they will learn and they need the time to learn it. So in the end they will still only know a little bit, but they may know some of it very well.
Thank you very much for discussing your thoughts on teacher education.
You're welcome.
Reference
Johnson, W. K. (1997, October/November). Voices: Jack Millett. TESOL Matters,7(5), 20.