Teacher Discussion Forums

Take a look at these classroom exercises suggested by Mario Rinvolucri, one of the foremost methodologists and teachers in the world of ESL. Would you be willing to do any of them in your classes? If so, what do you think your students would gain from such exercises that they couldn't from more "tame" exercises? If you would never present such exercises, why not?

Example 1
Set this homework: "Each time you switch an electrical switch on or off, notice how you are feeling and what you are thinking about." Then, in the next class, ask people to report in small groups on the switchings they remember.
(I learnt this Gurdjieff idea from my colleague Simon Marshall.)


Example 3
Ask the students to work individually and to make a list of emotions (eg fear, reverence, anger, jealousy, joy, surprise, alarm). Ask each person to cross out any of these emotions he or she has not experienced. Then pair the students and ask them to tell each other of times when they have experienced each of the emotions they have not crossed out. Also ask them to tell each other which sensory channels they link with each emotion.
Next, ask the students to work individually and write a page about their experiencing of one of the emotions. Then group the students into fours to read each other's compositions.

Example 4
Bring a dozen resonant objects to class. Before you lay them out, ask the students to close their eyes. Strike each and ask the students to describe the qualities of each sound and to guess the substances struck.If you want to get your hands on more activity ideas like these, have a look at On Love and Psychological Exercises by A.R. Orage.

http://www.clarity.com.hk/teaching-supp ... olucri.htm

Well, let's start by saying that Mario Rinvolucri may be (in)famous, but he doesn't have to be 'one of the foremost methodologists and teachers in the world of ESL' to everyone, even if the speaker there feels he really is.

In all fairness, however, there are at least a couple good ideas to be found in his books, and as for his one, in a way I admire teachers like him who can think up and fearlessly present or spin stuff (crap?) like that, and you could argue that it is a good way to "affectively" elicit a bit of vocabulary that some students might never have encountered, thought of, or thought about. Tall trees from small acorns grow, with enough froth from the teacher and tears (from falling about and laughing hysterically at the suggestion?) from the students.

BUT if it is not made very clear to the students that people do not, in fact, hesitate much before turning on a light, and that nobody, certainly not outside of ESL classrooms, sits around seriously discussing "switching" and their thoughts about it*, then I really think such "methods" are verging on fraudulent if they claim they are teaching English - English to what ends? Communication from what starting point? Nobody using those methods is going to make it clear to the students because they fear the question that the students would then almost certainly start asking (even if the students didn't immediately and from then on always object to the sham): 'Well, why don't you just teach us how people really talk, then?'. Many teachers fear that question, especially the "just", because answering it would mean an end to their comfortable careers and easy existence.

Even a moment's reflection will tell you that what actually people say in connection with the topic of lights is not to do with e.g. the environment (one of the likely "thoughts" that Mario's activity will produce), and if the environment really has to be a hot topic somewhere in the course, perhaps it would be best mentioned in relation to collocations such as 'protect' (and I would probably prefer only in incidental relation to 'protect', if I had discovered that environment was a common collocation and thus a good potential context for 'protect', but the topic is not one that I would more or less directly foist upon my students, I mean, we can all see where Mario is headed here, right? Save the whales, save on thinking about what English the teacher should be thinking of, and thinking of before the class, not always just in it and in response to a student's faltering and perhaps faulty suggestions).

The next activity, about emotions eliciting memories, has a lot of potential, but again, not much thought is being given to possible problems with language. I mean, just what does "reverence" mean? Will all the students who don't understand it necessarily be any the wiser after hearing another's story? And will the tellers themselves be showing a proper understanding? To be sure people that knew the meaning of complex emotions, you could of course ask one person at a time to tell the whole class a story (so that you can hear it clearly), but you might then be in the awkward position of having to correct them if they hadn't, in fact, showed much understanding in their telling.

So, this isn't perhaps the best way to "teach" potentially complex words, it could be encouraging students to run before they can walk, and maybe try to outdo each other, and as in the first activity, is not made clear that people do NOT always state (just) an emotion word and only then relate a story, often it will be vice-versa, and then, the emotion is not always made explicit or, if explicit terms are mentioned, they will be provisional and could well be negotiated or rejected in the natural process of the telling itself (and not by a red-faced teacher after all is "said and done").

Here is a point where the teacher at least should be looking at real discourse and trying to formulate realistic aims that will result in some genuine learning, if we get too ambitious then little may come of it (that's not to say that some classes can't and don't benefit from "fluency" activities, but even these high-level students might "like" to take a look at some real discourse from time to time, instead of always having to invent it themselves moment by moment, immediately after which it is usually lost forever and cannot therefore be subjected to any analysis itself).

Example 4, "interesting", but again, where is the language the students need to "respond" to sounds? Do they just say the noun they think ('bell?'; 'stuffed lucky hamster keychain'? Oh sorry I thought that by "resonant" he meant ones that would resonante in people's minds long after seeing them or hearing anecdotes about them, rather than simply in their ears for only a short time )? How is the guessing to be linguistically expressed, exactly? Is there a dialogic process applicable to REAL situations outside the classroom that is here being missed (A: What the **** was that?! B: Maybe MR letting off wind? vs. Teacher: What's this? <<BONG!!>> Student: Bell? Teacher: Make a question! Student: Ah, sorry...is it a bell?)? I'm sorry if I appear condescending, but usually even the most basic of basic questions simply are NOT being addressed by the methodology (and where is the APPROACH, linguistically?!).

You must admit, the risk is there of, certainly less experienced or less thoughtful teachers taking what they presume is a well-thought out but actually rather glib set of instructions and using a Simple Present basis for sounds, when Simple Present might (if we liked the "idea" of a guessing game) more involve a present giving exchange (A: I hope you like it. B: Ooh, what is it? Hmm, is it/could it be (impossibly expensive item, joking, hence the 'could' just then as opposed to a more straightforward 'is', not that 'is' is necessarily "wrong" here, but do people really use 'is' that much to ask about presents they could just as easily open? Wouldn't to do so, in a less jokey way than 'could' affords, risk offending the giver if the "guess" were wrong? Hmm)... [?Can it be...]). But then, I suppose the activity stockings are already filled to overflowing with variations on the tired, old and linguistically undemanding, no-brainer of a 'What have I got in my hand/in the bag? Is it a pen? Is it a pencil?' routine, bet the adults love that.

* What more can there be apart from, 'Electricity is wonderful invention', 'I must switch this off as soon as I'm done and save electricity', or 'This can't be doing the environment much good, maybe we should just sit in darkness until the sun comes up like animals have to', to arrange them in an airy-serious order? To try to elicit more could get painful, unless "humanistic" classes actually like getting into the very human concerns of what goes on when the lights go down - 'Leave the lights on, honey, I want to see you doing it! Teaching in the full glare of fluffyhamster's spotlights, that is'.

fluffyhamster wrote:Well, let's start by saying that Mario Rinvolucri may be (in)famous, but he doesn't have to be 'one of the foremost methodologists and teachers in the world of ESL' to everyone, even if the speaker there feels he really is.

In all fairness, however, there are at least a couple good ideas to be found in his books, and as for his one, in a way I admire teachers like him who can think up and fearlessly present or spin stuff (crap?) like that, and you could argue that it is a good way to "affectively" elicit a bit of vocabulary that some students might never have encountered, thought of, or thought about. Tall trees from small acorns grow, with enough froth from the teacher and tears (from falling about and laughing hysterically at the suggestion?) from the students.

BUT if it is not made very clear to the students that people do not, in fact, hesitate much before turning on a light, and that nobody, certainly not outside of ESL classrooms, sits around seriously discussing "switching" and their thoughts about it*, then I really think such "methods" are verging on fraudulent if they claim they are teaching English - English to what ends? Communication from what starting point? Nobody using those methods is going to make it clear to the students because they fear the question that the students would then almost certainly start asking (even if the students didn't immediately and from then on always object to the sham): 'Well, why don't you just teach us how people really talk, then?'. Many teachers fear that question, especially the "just", because answering it would mean an end to their comfortable careers and easy existence.

Even a moment's reflection will tell you that what actually people say in connection with the topic of lights is not to do with e.g. the environment (one of the likely "thoughts" that Mario's activity will produce), and if the environment really has to be a hot topic somewhere in the course, perhaps it would be best mentioned in relation to collocations such as 'protect' (and I would probably prefer only in incidental relation to 'protect', if I had discovered that environment was a common collocation and thus a good potential context for 'protect', but the topic is not one that I would more or less directly foist upon my students, I mean, we can all see where Mario is headed here, right? Save the whales, save on thinking about what English the teacher should be thinking of, and thinking of before the class, not always just in it and in response to a student's faltering and perhaps faulty suggestions).

The next activity, about emotions eliciting memories, has a lot of potential, but again, not much thought is being given to possible problems with language. I mean, just what does "reverence" mean? Will all the students who don't understand it necessarily be any the wiser after hearing another's story? And will the tellers themselves be showing a proper understanding? To be sure people that knew the meaning of complex emotions, you could of course ask one person at a time to tell the whole class a story (so that you can hear it clearly), but you might then be in the awkward position of having to correct them if they hadn't, in fact, showed much understanding in their telling.

So, this isn't perhaps the best way to "teach" potentially complex words, it could be encouraging students to run before they can walk, and maybe try to outdo each other, and as in the first activity, is not made clear that people do NOT always state (just) an emotion word and only then relate a story, often it will be vice-versa, and then, the emotion is not always made explicit or, if explicit terms are mentioned, they will be provisional and could well be negotiated or rejected in the natural process of the telling itself (and not by a red-faced teacher after all is "said and done").

Here is a point where the teacher at least should be looking at real discourse and trying to formulate realistic aims that will result in some genuine learning, if we get too ambitious then little may come of it (that's not to say that some classes can't and don't benefit from "fluency" activities, but even these high-level students might "like" to take a look at some real discourse from time to time, instead of always having to invent it themselves moment by moment, immediately after which it is usually lost forever and cannot therefore be subjected to any analysis itself).

Example 4, "interesting", but again, where is the language the students need to "respond" to sounds? Do they just say the noun they think ('bell?'; 'stuffed lucky hamster keychain'? Oh sorry I thought that by "resonant" he meant ones that would resonante in people's minds long after seeing them or hearing anecdotes about them, rather than simply in their ears for only a short time )? How is the guessing to be linguistically expressed, exactly? Is there a dialogic process applicable to REAL situations outside the classroom that is here being missed (A: What the **** was that?! B: Maybe MR letting off wind? vs. Teacher: What's this? <<BONG!!>> Student: Bell? Teacher: Make a question! Student: Ah, sorry...is it a bell?)? I'm sorry if I appear condescending, but usually even the most basic of basic questions simply are NOT being addressed by the methodology (and where is the APPROACH, linguistically?!).

You must admit, the risk is there of, certainly less experienced or less thoughtful teachers taking what they presume is a well-thought out but actually rather glib set of instructions and using a Simple Present basis for sounds, when Simple Present might (if we liked the "idea" of a guessing game) more involve a present giving exchange (A: I hope you like it. B: Ooh, what is it? Hmm, could it be... [?Can it be...]). But then, I suppose the activity stockings are already filled to overflowing with variations on the tired, old and linguistically undemanding, no-brainer of a 'What have I got in my hand/in the bag?' routine, bet the adults love that.

* What more can there be apart from, 'Electricity is wonderful invention', 'I must switch this off as soon as I'm done and save electricity', or 'This can't be doing the environment much good, maybe we should just sit in darkness until the sun comes up like animals have to', to arrange them in an airy-serious order? To try to elicit more could get painful, unless "humanistic" classes actually like getting into the very human concerns of what goes on when the lights go down - 'Leave the lights on, honey, I want to see you doing it! Teaching in the full glare of fluffyhamster's spotlights, that is'.

Wow! That's a lot to digest, so let me think on it.

For now, I have only one question.

'Well, why don't you just teach us how people really talk, then?'.

Can you tell me how people really talk?

The problem I have with Rinvolucri's asking us to use such exercises, ones that were originally intended to get humans to study how unconcious they were in their daily lives and, as Gurdjieff often said "in a state of sleep" all day long, is that he doesn't consider how integral such actions are (like ]being aware [/i]of oneself and one's thinking when switching on a light) to the whole system of Gurjieff's teachings.

Here is an extract that shows a little of the underlying thinking behind the "lightswitch" exercise above:

Limit of Consciousness

from Ouspensky's "Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution," pp. 19-20



I shall try to explain how consciousness can be studied. Take a watch and look at the second hand, trying to be aware of yourself, and concentrating on the thought, "I am Peter Ouspensky," "I am now here." Try not to think about anything else, simply follow the movements of the second hand and be aware of yourself, your name, your existence, and the place where you are. Keep all other thoughts away.

You will, if you are persistent, be able to do this for two minutes. This is the limit of your consciousness. And if you try to repeat the experiment soon after, you will find it more difficult than the first time.

This experiment shows that a man, in his natural state, can with great effort be conscious of one subject (himself) for two minutes or less.

The most important deduction one can make after making this experiment in the right way is that man is not conscious of himself. The illusion of his being conscious of himself is created by memory and thought processes.

-------

Back soon.

When I read Mario Rinvolucri's Grammar Games I found some activities that I liked, others where I thought "huh?" (with big rising intonation). However, when he came to my college to demonstrate some of his ideas they actually made a lot of sense and you could see how they'd work in real life. Unfortunately it was a few years ago now so I can't give specific examples

Where Rinvolucri is, I think, spot on is that he tries to think of activities that would engage the type of student that one wouldn't normally think of as a good language learner. As teachers, the temptation is to always do the activities that worked for us - since we were good at sitting still in the classroom, doing grammar exercises and listening to the teacher, there's a danger that we can assume that that's how one learns a language so that's what we do with our own students and those who respond well become our "good students", those who don't get written off. I was guilty of doing this myself for a long time.

At the session I refer to, Rinvolucri asked us about the students who can't sit still and listen for more than a couple of minutes, who need to be physically active or are just more "touchy feely" than intellectual. While you may find some of his activites suspect, give the man some credit for trying to find ways of engaging all his students, and try out some of his stranger ideas - you might just be surprised. If they don't work then, hey, it's only one session. You can always resume normal service next week.

lolwhites wrote:When I read Mario Rinvolucri's Grammar Games I found some activities that I liked, others where I thought "huh?" (with big rising intonation). However, when he came to my college to demonstrate some of his ideas they actually made a lot of sense and you could see how they'd work in real life. Unfortunately it was a few years ago now so I can't give specific examples

Where Rinvolucri is, I think, spot on is that he tries to think of activities that would engage the type of student that one wouldn't normally think of as a good language learner. As teachers, the temptation is to always do the activities that worked for us - since we were good at sitting still in the classroom, doing grammar exercises and listening to the teacher, there's a danger that we can assume that that's how one learns a language so that's what we do with our own students and those who respond well become our "good students", those who don't get written off. I was guilty of doing this myself for a long time.

At the session I refer to, Rinvolucri asked us about the students who can't sit still and listen for more than a couple of minutes, who need to be physically active or are just more "touchy feely" than intellectual. While you may find some of his activites suspect, give the man some credit for trying to find ways of engaging all his students, and try out some of his stranger ideas - you might just be surprised. If they don't work then, hey, it's only one session. You can always resume normal service next week.

Some time ago I taught English classes to Buddhist monks,who were living in London for a year or so. I tried a couple of Rinvolucri's exercises on them. They found no problem doing them nor did they question the reasoning behind the exercises. Since that time, there have been the few students (non-Buddhist) who have really taken to some of Mario's exercises and others who have rejected them outright. I agree that ESL tends to concentrate too much on the ideal bum-on-seat-hands-on-desk student and limits those who cannot cope in such an environment.

But still, one has to sift and carefully select from Mario's offerings specifically because many of his exercises only work when Mario leads them.

Five years ago, In Hamburg, I had a 50 year-old German banker in class who had been forced to return to learning English at that late age because his new boss was American and didn't speak German. He spent the first five classes hiding behind other students and messing with his Palm Pilot and mobile each time I looked to him to respond to questions.

One day, I asked him to meet me after class and got him to talk about his hobbies. He mentioned a passion for sailing and that he had a small yacht on the city lake. I aksed him if it was OK to do an exercise with him where he would need to have his eyes closed and his mobile switched off and asked him to trust me. Somewhat tentative, he agreed.

I turned my back to him so he wouldn't feel observed. He closed his eyes and I asked him to remember the first day he took his yacht onto the water. I asked him to visualise the whole scene. Slowly, images came flooding back to him. I asked him to try to remember other sensory details and slowly he did. All this was related in either sentences, phrases, or single words and in the past tense.

I then asked him to describe the whole scene: putting the boat into the water, the weather, his companions, raising the sail and moving off, etc. I asked him to relate that all to me, still with his eyes closed, but now in the present tense.

To cut a long story short, he spoke more in that short five minutes than he had done in five lessons. He practiced two tense forms and one aspect.

---

Now that kind of visualisation exercise canwork well with the right set-up and a suitable (safeish) learning environment, but in a group class it can fall on the teacher's head like a ton of bricks.

I am a teacher trainer as well as a teacher and I would think very carefully about which trainees I would suggest such exercises to. I know I can pull them off when teaching, but I wouldn't say the same is possible for all teachers.

Back soon.

metal56 wrote:Wow! That's a lot to digest, so let me think on it.

For now, I have only one question.

'Well, why don't you just teach us how people really talk, then?'.

Can you tell me how people really talk?

Hope what I've said gets you thinking, like your post got me. Thanks for setting me off again.

The answer to your question, "in a word", is yes, I think so.

Some questions for you in turn: Why did you take and pose that question? (The original 'Wh- Q' was ultimately a rhetorical question, even if the student asking it is more dumb than angry ). Isn't the real question, 'Do people really talk (and as much as they actually could be/should be/need to be) in ESL classrooms?'.

Oh, I see there have been some more posts since metal's second one. I'll maybe get around to making further comments only when my questions back to metal has been answered, though (Tip: my own yes-no Q could also be simply answered in a word: 'No'. ).

Lolwhites, your comments in your second and third paragraphs are vey valid, and I don't mind using the kind of techniques that metal goes on to describe. I just find it interesting (and perhaps a little "dangerous") that people assume there is a lot of quality language learning or much of a linguistic basis going on in "humanistic language classrooms" , and seem to forget that (in "my" communicative classrooms) a visualization technique shouldn't "just" be for warming up for a lesson or to get somebody doing the equivalent of linguistic push-ups, but might actually have a linguistic point in itself to explain its presence in the classroom (that is, have a lead-in or follow up to it that makes "conversational sense").

I guess in preparing for or visualizing my lessons, I am often playing a game of "associations" in my head, how can I get from topic A to B, and if a student introduces tangent 1, should I go back/press ahead to topic C, and if so, how do I do that (if it contains really essential, need-to-know language), in this class or the next? I am trying to expand on that whole 'A: Hey, I read a really interesting book on hamster-breeding the other day...B: I saw a hamster being fed to a tarantula once...C: Talking of tarantulas, there's a new guy on Dave's who likes scorpions' kind of flow throughout a lesson, then a week, then a course, and to me it gets broken every time a teacher claps their hands too loudly or the latest activity/worksheet/unit ends. There seems to be no attempt to make the unfolding and very real social relationships we have with our students be itself consistently reflected in the how we talk in the classroom beyond the greetings and farewells, it is only implicitly or halfway there most of the time, and that seems a real shame to me, so many missed opportunities. If we attempted to create the kind of classes I'm imagining here, I think we'd find there were plenty of feel-good, Rinvolucri-like vibes floating around without the need for cracking out 'some "serious" sh*t' (ganja, weed, grass etc) every five minutes.

fluffyhamster wrote:Oh, I see there have been some more posts since metal's second one. I'll maybe get around to making further comments only when my questions back to metal has been answered, though (Tip: my own yes-no Q could also be simply answered in a word: 'No'. ).

Could you try to be more specific with your questions? What is it you want answered?

fluffyhamster wrote:There seems to be no attempt to make the unfolding and very real social relationships we have with our students :

How can you be sure those relationships are so very real? Do you think the social relationships we have with our colleagues daily are always very real? I know my social relationship with my Mum is real, and even that took time to achieve, but students?

Just so you'll know, I'm following this thread with some interest, but not posting, because I don't know Mario Rinvolucri. I first heard of him on this forum a few months ago, when someone (who, I don't remember) was trashing him for being a crashing bore. But, though he is aparently "world famous", he's a new one to me. I guess I should get out more.

Larry Latham

metal56 wrote:

fluffyhamster wrote:Oh, I see there have been some more posts since metal's second one. I'll maybe get around to making further comments only when my questions back to metal has been answered, though (Tip: my own yes-no Q could also be simply answered in a word: 'No'. ).

Could you try to be more specific with your questions? What is it you want answered?

Typo alert! I just meant my yes-no question (singular) has been answered (and the Q, sans original italicization, is: 'Do people really talk (and as much as they actually could be/should be/need to be) in ESL classrooms?'.

<'Do people really talk (and as much as they actually could be/should be/need to be) in ESL classrooms?'.>

Where? In which country? In whose classroom? With which students? Under which curriculum?


I know they talk enough in my classroom - even too much at times. The question is not always about how much they talk, but about what. quantity is no guarantee of quality and talking is no guarantee of there being communication. Hearing is not always responsive listening.

I once taught singing and voice technique to a woman with Down Syndrome. She had quite a bad stammer when she spoke and was embarrased by that fact. She loved opera and dreamed of being an opera singer. I worked with her for 6 months on one song. At the end of the period she was asked to perform in a small show along with other disabled entertainers. She did beautifully, singing an opera song, and did not stammer once. She was overjoyed and expressed a need to continue her training.

The only problem came from the local Disabled Arts funding body. They expressed dismay and astonishment at what they called "so little achievement" in such a long period of work. The singer was satisfied that she had managed to control her stammer and had been able to entertain people - she had a lovely singing voice. The authorities wanted quantity and didn't give a hoot for quality or considerations of context.

LarryLatham wrote:Just so you'll know, I'm following this thread with some interest, but not posting, because I don't know Mario Rinvolucri. I first heard of him on this forum a few months ago, when someone (who, I don't remember) was trashing him for being a crashing bore. But, though he is aparently "world famous", he's a new one to me. I guess I should get out more.

Larry Latham

Why get out more when you can get in more?

http://www.hltmag.co.uk/sept04/cse.htm

A magazine that Mario is a great part of.

Nice little provocative article:

http://www.educa.rcanaria.es/tea/team1/24.pdf

And finally ...

What's better ...

A crashing bore or a Krashen bore?