Managing Young Learners

How do you deal with a difficult student?

Never mind how full the glass is:  Picture a student who is unpunctual, unresponsive, undisciplined and generally uncooperative; he is also antisocial …. (and it is usually a ‘he’!) Every teacher’s nightmare! What do you do? How do you deal with him? Admonitions do not work and threats might backfire… It is said that the difference between optimists and pessimists is that the latter see the glass as half-empty, while the former as half-full. But maybe what we see when looking at the glass is irrelevant; perhaps what we should be doing is ask ourselves something else: never mind how much water is in there, the question is ‘How did it get there?’ Before you carry on reading here is Dan Heath arguing in favour of a different approach.

Case Study – Bobby’s story:  When Bobby appeared in front of the school counselor John Murphy, the latter knew he had a difficult case to deal with… Bobby was as problematic a 9th grader as they come… He hated school, he almost always showed up late, he was disruptive both inside and outside the classroom and naturally he was a regular visitor at the Principal’s office… His home life was a mess too… He had been in a number of foster families and he had been sent to a number of special facilities for children with behavioural problems.

Murphy had no power over Bobby; he could use neither carrots nor sticks – and he would only be able to see him for a few hours over a period of three months. Things looked desperate… Incredibly however, three months later, Bobby had changed beyond recognition! He was still not a model student, but he was far from being the ‘menace’ he used to be. What had happened?

Murphy knew that the one thing he did not have was the time for a full-scale investigation into the (probably multi-faceted) root causes of Bobby’s problems. So he started by asking him ‘Is there any teacher you don’t have a problem with?’ Bobby’s answer was he seemed to be getting along well with Ms Smith. When Murphy asked him why he replied vaguely that she was ‘nicer’. Yet this was not what Murphy wanted – he probed further…

After a while it transpired that there were a number of things about Ms Smith’s approach which seemed to work with Bobby: a) she greeted him when he entered the class, b) she gave him easier work to do (Bobby had some learning disability) and c) whenever she asked the class to do something, she checked to make sure that Bobby had understood what he was supposed to do.

So Murphy at last had something he could work with. He issued clear instructions to the other teachers: ‘Remember to a) greet Bobby, b) assign him easier work and c) check to see that he knows what he has to do!’ But that was not all – how would Murphy know that his approach had succeeded? He specified three criteria in advance: a) whether Bobby turned up on time, b) whether he completed work in class and c) whether he had to be disciplined.

Three months later, the figures spoke for themselves: he was much more punctual, his performance in class was rated as acceptable in 4 or 5 out of the 6 class periods per day (previously the figure had been 1 or 2) and the Principal must have missed him, since Bobby’s visits to his office dropped by a staggering 80%!! (Heath & Heath 2011)

Applications in the field of ELT:  So what can we learn from this case study? Are there any principles which may have wider applicability? I think there are – 5 of them:

Solution-Focused Therapy: Sometimes there is no point in looking at the ‘why’ of things because we do not have the time or because we would not be able to change things anyway. It might make more sense to see what works and try to clone success! (for more on SFBT see de Shazer et al 2007) I once knew of a student who played up because he craved attention, yet one of his teachers did not have a problem – in group work he always gave him the role of ‘leader’ or ‘coordinator’ of the team!

Clear Instructions: Getting people to change is often not easy, especially when they have lots on their plate or they follow long-established habits. To get them to move in a different direction, it helps if you give them clear, behavioural instructions (Baumeister & Tierney 2012). Something like ‘pay particular attention to Bobby’ would not have done – it is too vague. ‘Move Bobby to the front of the class’ on the other hand is specific.

Acceptance: Little things make a lot of difference. One thing is for certain – where we want people to cooperate (as in a classroom situation) coercive measures hardly ever work – they trigger ‘psychological reactance’ (Cialdini 2001). It helps enormously if students feel we are on their side. Acceptance is a key element (cf Rogers 2013). Greeting people signals acceptance, as does friendly eye-contact and an open body language. The other teachers’ attitude was negative because they saw Bobby as a source of trouble; unsurprisingly, he picked up on that and this triggered a vicious circle.

Individual attention: Our job is to try to create the right conditions for ss to learn. If we ignore a particular s because s/he needs special attention they may learn little (which is bad) or they may disrupt the class (which is worse) (see Dornyei & Murphey 2003). This means that a) we need to spot such cases early; b) it is a good idea to seek expert help for guidance/tips; c) it is vital that we know at least some things about, say, Dyslexia or ADHD and that we have some basic techniques up our sleeve; we may not be able to perform an operation, but we should be able to provide first aid!

Measurable criteria:  How do we know that a particular course of action has been successful? The human brain is vain and we may manage to persuade ourselves that we have solved a problem when in fact we have swept it under the carpet. For instance, a teacher might have found a way to keep Bobby quiet but without his learning anything. Murphy however did specify his ‘success criteria’ in advance so he could justly claim that his intervention had been a success.

The importance of being pro-active:  One last thing: very often we avoid dealing with a particular situation because we lack the time to form ‘a clear picture’ or ‘the perfect plan’. Yet all too often this time is a luxury we can ill afford. Instead, taking action creates its own dynamic (Murphey 2012). Doing things not only provides us with useful feedback about what is effective and what is not, but more importantly it creates hope – hope for the students who can see that we have not given up on them, and hope for the teachers who feel that this new approach might just work! The amazing thing is – it often does! 🙂

References

Baumeister, R. & Tierney, J. “Willpower” Allen Lane 2012

Cialdini, R. “Influence – Science and Practice”, Allyn & Bacon 2001

De Shazer, S. Dolan, Y., Korman, H. Trepper, T., McCollum, E. & Kim Berg I. (2007) “More than Miracles: The State of the Art of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy” NY Haworth Press.

Dornyei, Z. & Murphey, T. “Group Dynamics in the Language Classroom”  Cambridge 2003

Heath, C. & Heath, D. “Switch” Random House 2011

Murphey, T. “Teaching in Pursuit of WoW!” Abax 2012

Rogers, C. “Significant Aspects of Client-centred Therapy” CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 2013

Communication 1 – Maximising Effectiveness

‘How can we communicate effectively?’

Communication 101 – Mission Statements:  “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place” said G. B. Shaw the Great – and he was on to something… Communication should be simple. You have something to say – go ahead and say it! Yet time and again we find that our message can be ineffective, clunky and sometimes even incomprehensible. Take mission statements for instance; do you know your company’s mission statement? If you do, is it clear? Is it effective? Is it inspiring? Watch the amazing Dan Heath talking about the two criteria any good mission statement should meet.

OK – so now you know: it has to be concrete and it has to give a reason.  In what follows we take a look at four ways of making the way we communicate more persuasive. We will be focusing on how we ‘pitch’ what we have to offer to prospective customers, but the ideas discussed here are more generally applicable.

Over to you: Before moving on, let us stay with Dan Heath for a while. Chances are you do not know your company’s Mission Statement… Well, here is your chance to draft one yourself in the light of Dan Heath’s advice…

The Serious Side of Subjects: Naturally, you do not read all the e-mails you get, do you? But what is it that might make you open one e-mail but not another? Researchers have looked into this (Wainer, Dabbish & Kraut 2011) – in one study by asking participants to go through their e-mails using the ‘think-aloud method’. It turns out that subject lines are very important. Apparently, the best among them have to do with one of two factors: a) Utility – ‘Does this have something to do with me?’ (e.g. ‘Win a scholarship for the next IATEFL Conference’) or b) Curiosity – ‘What’s this?’ (e.g. ‘The one Web tool to rule them all!’) As Pink (2013) points out, research shows that these two do not mix well, so a successful subject line would have to use one or the other of the two approaches. A third key factor is Specificity. The more specific the subject is, the better. So a line like ‘Feedback and its importance’ is too ‘wooly’ compared to ‘Five top Feedback tips’.

Over to you: Imagine you want to send an e-mail to prospective customers/clients about one of the products/services of your company. How would you phrase the subject line in light of the above?

Terrific Tweets: All you Tweeters – take heed! Researchers set up a site (‘Who Gives a Tweet?’!!) and asked Twitter users to evaluate other people’s tweets (Andre, Bernstein & Luther 2012).. Their findings were fascinating; first of all, about 65% of all tweets were rated from neutral to bad (read: ‘not worth reading’; hardly surprising really, if Facebook posts are anything to go by!) Buy it was the specific findings which were the most interesting: Worst tweets: Complaints (‘Flight delayed’) / Me Now (‘Just woke up’) / Presence Maintenance (‘Hi all!’). But what about the best ones? a) Tweets asking followers to respond (‘What is the one trait a good teacher should have?’) / b) Info and links (‘Check out this amazing article!’) / c) Self-promotion tweets (provided they offer some useful info! – e.g. ‘Here is my latest clip on YouTube in the “Comedy for ELT” series’!)

Over to you: Pink says the best tweets are 120 characters long (so that others can re-tweet them). Think about your company. Can you create a 120-character tweet informing potential customers/clients about a new product/service your company has launched?

Pitching with Pixar:  Pixar is a huge success story in the field of animation entertainment. If your 13 feature films have grossed $ 7.6 bn, that means that you are doing something really well! And what Pixar does well is…tell stories! Stories have enormous persuasion potential (Heath & Heath 2008), which is hardly surprising since some researchers believe we are pre-wired for the story format (Gottschall 2012). So, let us see how Pixar does it. According to Emma Coats, a former Pixar employee, all Pixar films can be reduced to the same basic model: “Once upon a time …………….. Every day, ……………..  One day, ……………… Because of that,  …………….. Because of that, …………….. Until finally ……………..” (Pixar Touch Blog – May 2011). Yet this format is not only useful to film animators; we can use exactly the same template to tell people about what we have to offer!

Over to you: Think about your company – can you create a ‘story’ explaining how things can change for your customers/clients as a result of using your company’s products/services?

A Reason to Rhyme:  Look at these statements: ‘Life is mostly strife’ and ‘Life is mostly struggle’. Aren’t they virtually identical? And what about these two: ‘Caution and measure will win you treasure’ as opposed to ‘Caution and measure will win you riches’? Well, the message in each pair may be the same but there is in fact a difference. When subjects were asked to rate such statements on how accurately they depicted human behaviour, the rhyming statements got much higher marks!! This is yet another manifestation of the power of a phenomenon known as ‘fluency’ (= ‘ease of processing’). What we have here is a spill-over effect; amazingly, the ease with which we can say/process something makes us think that it is more accurate/truthful! (Mc Glone, & Tofighbakhsh 2000).

Over to you: Think about your company – can you create a rhyme which describes what it does or what is special about its products or services?

Last words – Don’t do this: What is wrong with this statement? “We are leveraging our assets and establishing strategic alliances to create a robust knowledge centre…(etc., etc.) – apparently this means: ‘We are consultants’! Time and again people try to impress their audience/readers by means of jargon, convoluted structures and over-elaborate language. The idea is that the writer/speaker will come across as knowledgeable and authoritative and his/her message will consequently seen as more persuasive. Research however shows that this often backfires; the processing difficulty spills over to the content which is perceived as less convincing! (Goldstein, Martin & Cialdini 2007) Here is one of my favourite examples – from an Art Gallery Programme: “…Each mirror imaginatively propels its viewer forward into the seemingly infinite progression of possible reproductions that the artist’s practice engenders, whilst simultaneously pulling them backwards in a quest for the ‘original’ source of referent that underlines Levine’s oeuvre’.” No comments… 🙂

[NB 1: For a printable version of this article (with Teacher’s notes and sample responses at the end) just click here].

[NB 2: This article was first published in the IATEFL BESIG Newsletter].

References

Andre, P. Bernstein, M & Luther, K. “Who Gives a Tweet? Evaluating Microblog Content Value” paper presented at the 2012 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Co-operative Work (February 2012)

Goldstein, N., Martin, S. & Cialdini, R. “Yes! 50 secrets from the science of persuasion”  Profile Books 2007

Gottschall, J. “The Storytelling Animal” Houghton Mifflin 2012

Heath, C. & Heath, D. “Made to Stick” Random House 2008

Mc Glone, M. & Tofighbakhsh J. “Birds of a Feather Flock Conjointly (?): Rhyme as Reason in Aphorisms” Psychologcial Science 11, no 5 (September 2000) pp 424-428

Pink, D. “To Sell is Human” Canongate 2013

“Pixar Story Rules (One Version)” Pixar Touch Blog (May 2011)

Wainer, J. Dabbish, L. & Kraut, R. “Should I Open this Email? Inbox-Level Cues, Curiosity and Attention to Email” Proceedings of the 2011 Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (May 2011)