The Language Teacher

Introduction

Many teachers face the recurring problem of large, unmanageable reading classes and unmotivated students. Through a recent experience, I discovered a successful way of overcoming both these difficulties and in the process creating a learner-centered classroom.

The Situation

In a second year reading class at a womenﾕs junior college, the syllabus had been decided: The students had to read a novel in the course of one semester; a set number of chapters per week were to be read as homework; and class time was to be spent in discussion of the content of the allocated chapters. The number of students in the class was 50.

Problems

It soon became apparent that there were some serious difficulties with the assumptions of the course designer. The major one was that the students would actually complete the homework assignments before each lesson. Indeed, in the first three weeks of the course it emerged that the percentage who had read all the required text was around 30% (and dropping weekly!) The second assumption was that it would be possible to monitor a discussion in a class of 50, even with the students divided into groups. Each week many students decided simply to opt out of participation, and showed up to class simply to sit and do nothing. The absentee rate was also high. Often, those who had prepared for the class were unable to discuss, as other members of their group hadn't read the material.

Solution

Following various unsuccessful attempts at student motivation, I tried a combination of peer-pressure and competition. Firstly, I asked the class to divide themselves into 10 teams, which would be fixed for the rest of the semester. Ideally, there would be five members in each team, although there was slight variation. The lessons took on the form of a weekly quiz-style competition. The task for each team was to complete a worksheet every week based on the material they were supposed to have read. The whole system was based on multiple-choice style questions (a medium with which Japanese students tend to be familiar).

Management

The worksheet was divided into 3 stages:

Stage 1: Answering set questions Ten multiple choice questions, written by me and based on the content of the appropriate chapters, to be answered as quickly as possible. As soon as the team believed the answers to be correct, a representative would bring her paper to me for checking. Each team had as many chances as necessary to correct wrong answers. A team had completed Stage 1 when all ten questions were answered correctly. The first team to have all ten answers correct received 10 points, the next 9 and so on.

Stage 2: Writing ﾔchallenge' questions Each team created their own multiple choice questions as a challenge to each of the other nine teams. Usually three questions were required. Each team member was responsible for writing her own copy of the teamﾕs questions on a separate piece of paper, thus creating five copies and allowing stage 3 to run smoothly (see below).

I checked over the completed questions and awarded points for creativity of ideas and appropriateness of the question. I also corrected grammar and spelling enough to ensure the question would be understood by the other teams, but this was not a priority. There were 3 possible points per question.

Stage 3: Answering other teams' questions As teams completed Stage 2 they exchanged papers with other teams and tried to answer each others' questions, bringing them to me for checking. Two points were awarded for each correct response. A bonus went to the creators of any questions that were incorrectly answered (which tended to serve as a motivator to each team to read the text with extra care in order to find something a little unusual). Some teams became particularly creative in writing the false multiple-choice responses. (There was no need to award any points for speed of reply in Stages 2 or 3 as working quickly meant the chance to answer more questions, and thus receive more points.)

Fifteen minutes before the end of the class was "time up" for the quiz part of the lesson. At this stage the day's scores were totalled and recorded. As an extra incentive, the week's winners received a small prize, such as candies or chocolate. The class ended with a chance for the students to review with me any questions that had been difficult to answer and to ask any further questions about the content of the novel.

Assessment

This was almost wholly based on the students' performance as a team, using the end-of-semester total team scores. I adjusted scores only minimally--for example, if an individual student was persistently absent or particularly hard working.

Success

At first, the same patterns of non-preparation were visible--some students (and in some cases whole teams) were conspicuously slow, mostly due to their having to read the assigned chapters in class before being able to answer any of the quiz. Other individuals were clearly not participating in their team's work. However, amazing changes occurred over the weeks. Consistently low-scoring teams suddenly began to score very highly. In their own words, they were motivated by pride and avoiding the embarrassment of always being in last place. Individuals who had repeatedly been non-participants began to come to class well-prepared, and became full team players, presumably out of team commitment.

Most rewarding was the improvement in the atmosphere of the classroom. The pleasure taken by the students in completing the task showed. From a silent classroom where most were unprepared, and therefore unable to participate, this lesson became a scene of active group cooperation and communication.