The Fine Art of Job Sculpting

Tags

management, Motivation

[Tweaking your job to suit your personality]

Google had a problem. While the software engineers were happy with their creative jobs, other employees in jobs like sales or admin were less than happy. What could be done about this?

Organisational Psychologists hypothesised this was i) because people saw their job as something ‘fixed’ and ii) because they felt their job did not allow them to really be themselves. So they ran a workshop during which they encouraged employees to try to see their job as something flexible: was there something they could change perhaps? Or something extra they could do? The idea was to find ways to align their job with their own preferences or talents. People were prompted to explore various possibilities, and they did:

• …an artistic salesperson designed a new logo;
• …a financial analyst who preferred face-to-face interaction, decided to send his clients short videos instead of emails;
• …a sociable marketing executive redesigned her job to include event planning – although this was not part of her job description.

So, was the workshop a success? To check this, the researchers measured the participants’ levels of happiness and performance before and after the intervention. Six weeks later, there was a clear increase in both metrics compared to a control group.

Buoyed up by this success, the researchers ran another workshop. This time they encouraged participants to think of both their job and their skills as malleable. Again, they noticed the same spike in both productivity and well-being. In addition, participants were 70% more likely to get a promotion! (A. Grant ‘Originals’ – p. 25) The moral here is that we often tend to see our professional reality as set in stone, when in fact it need not be.

So what about us then? Having talked with countless colleagues in ELT, I know that many of us are not as happy as we could be at work. Well, why not try tweaking our jobs a little? For instance…

• …if you are an IT geek, you could volunteer to help design the schools LMS;
• …if you feel constrained by the coursebook, you could try introducing more fun elements in your lessons (e.g. short ads to go with the topics of the units);
• …if you feel you are always pressed for time during the lessons, you could set up a class on Edmodo or a special group on Facebook and encourage your students to share interesting stuff in their free time.

Your job is more ‘craftable’ than you think it is; if your reality is not what you would like it to be, change it.

The Moral: Your job is not set in stone; sculpt it to suit who you are.

The Power of Cute

Tags

activities, cute, Motivation

[The importance of using puppies and kittens in class]

Patrick Fagan was walking down the street one day when he saw a homeless person selling ‘The Big Issue’. As he himself says (‘#Hooked’ – p. 40), on such occasions, he almost invariably walks past. On that day however, he did not. Not only that, he bought the issue (£ 2.50), gave the man a £10 note and told him to keep the change! Why?

The answer was simple: Bob. Bob is the lovely ginger cat you see here, and he proved just irresistible. Here is the full story (ibid – p. 41): James Bowen was a homeless drug addict who decided to kick the habit, moved into assisted housing and started selling ‘The Big Issue’. One day, he discovered that a cute ginger cat had found its way into the house. He looked after it and the cat took to following him around. James named him Bob.

James also did some busking and he discovered that with Bob by his side, people would stop to listen, they would talk to him, interact with the cat – and give more money. At some point, a friend suggested that perhaps James should write a book about himself and Bob. James did. The book sold 2 million copies in the UK alone! So successful was the book that it was made into a movie! (Check out the trailer below).

You may say: ‘OK – what does all this have to do with ELT?’ Well, don’t you want your students to be engaged? Don’t you want them to wax lyrical about your lessons? Cute attracts. Cute is memorable. Cute presses all the right buttons. There is a reason why puppies and kittens feature so prominently in ads – we love them! Cat videos generated 1.6 billion views on YouTube (and that was in 2012!); the cat channel mugumogu has 750,000 subscribers… I could go on and on…

So how can we use the power of cute in class? Here are three ideas (I am sure you can come up with many more):

• Play this fantastic ad up to 0:34; get students to write what happens next, then play the rest of it ( https://bit.ly/3aIbXV4 ).

• Get students to practice listening, by playing the ‘Dear Kitten’ ad. You can find the clip and a worksheet here ( https://bit.ly/2Q8NWwV ).
• Ask students to prepare a presentation about their own pets – complete with pictures and videos.

Speaking about that last idea, one of my students is a lovely lady from Kazakhstan.  We have always had a good working relationship, but it had always been somewhat formal. Recently however, I happened to mention pets and she started telling me about her lovely puppy, Jason. That was it – she would not stop talking! Our lessons have never been the same since… 😊

The Moral: Use cute in class. Advertisers know what they are doing.

How to Change People’s Attitudes

Tags

Classroom Management, dissonance, Influence, Motivation

[The importance of cognitive dissonance]

Here is a question for you: I ask you to do a boring task – say turn around some wooden pegs for no reason at all. They I offer you a reward – either $ 20 or $ 1. Are you more likely to say you enjoyed it in the former or in the latter condition?

Naturally, your answer is wrong. 😊 Watch the clip below:

But there was a reason why you got it wrong; I left out an important detail. The subjects in the study were actually asked to lie to a third person about the nature of the task. The ones who got paid $ 20 thought: ‘OK, the task was boring, but they gave me $ 20, so that’s why I lied’. With the others though, this wouldn’t work; $ 1 was a trifling sum. So why did they do it? Faced with this internal conflict, these subjects actually changed their perception of reality: ‘Oh well – I didn’t lie so much; the task was quite interesting’. This is pure magic! 😊

Think about it: most of us feel that people’s beliefs determine their actions; Cognitive Dissonance argues that in many cases it is people’s actions that shape their beliefs! (‘The Advertising Effect’ – pp. 32-33). Here are two examples:

• We value more things we paid a lot for (‘It has cost me a fortune, so either I am stupid or this is really very valuable’)
• We think worse of people we have wronged (‘I spoke badly about him, so either I was unfair or he really is a b****rd’)

So is there a way we can use this insight with our students? Yes, there is. We do not need to try to persuade them that something is good for them so they will do it; we only need to get them to do something and then their brain will do the rest! Here are some tips:

• Ask students to prepare mini videos advertising the school / the teacher / the coursebook (‘If I said I liked it, it must be good’).
• Ask students to help you with the lesson (‘If I have helped the teacher, she must be nice’).
• Ask students to participate in a project ‘as part of an experiment’ (‘If I have spent so much time, I must be a conscientious student’).
• Ask students to volunteer for a school initiative (‘If I have volunteered, this means I value the work we do here’).

By the way, here is one last tip: people feel that more expensive medicine is more effective (‘If I have paid so much, the pills must be potent’) – so make sure you charge quite a bit for your private lessons. 😊

The Moral: Get people to do things and they will change their attitude too.

Going the Extra Mile

Tags

customer service, liking, Motivation, psychology

[How little things can result in huge reputational gains]

It is the middle of July, the Greek summer sun is bearing down on you mercilessly, so you head for your favourite bar on the beach. The barista greets you with a smile. ‘You know that weird cocktail you asked me for yesterday – the one I hadn’t heard of?’ he asks. ‘Well, I looked it up, found the ingredients and prepared it for you. Here it is. On the house’. Wow!

The world of Customer Service is full of little incidents like this one (taken from ‘The Power of Moments’ – p. 55). Imagine for instance being a CEO and flying off somewhere to receive an award in front of 2,000 people. Then at the very last moment you discover you forgot to pack a tie. The hotel manager who happens to be present simply removes his own and gives it to you. Fantastic! (‘The 12 Elements of Great Managing’ – p. 13)

And what about that employee at Nordstrom? A customer walked in saying she had bought something which she needed to give someone as a present, only they had forgotten to gift-wrap it for her. The employee immediately offered to do this for her. Nothing special here – except that the item had not been bought at Nordstrom but at Macy’s! (‘Made to Stick’ – p. 73).

Is there a lesson for us here? Indeed there is. Our students watch us all the time – and they talk about us. Whenever we do something unexpected, something special, whenever we go the extra mile, this registers immediately and can have a huge impact on our reputation.

Imagine for instance a parent calling the school saying that something has come up at home and she cannot pick up her child for at least an hour. Now imagine the teacher driving the child there on her own initiative.

Or imagine a teacher hearing about one of her students winning, say, a sports tournament and throwing a special party at the language school as a special treat.

What message would these actions send? That the teacher cares for her students not only as learners but as human beings as well. Think about how the students and the parents would see her – and what they would say about her. Think about how much more students would learn from a teacher they like. Then think about how these little things would change the teacher herself.

The Moral: YSeek out opportunities to shine.

The Art of Being Selfish

Tags

happiness, Motivation, psychology

[The unexpected link between happiness and altruism]

Try this with your students: ask them to write down a list of things that would make them happier, then put their pens down. Professor Tali Sharot did that with her students, then she smiled and said: ‘I bet none of you listed ‘being kinder’ between ‘earning double what I do now’ and ‘more travelling’. Brilliant! – Read on… 😊

Imagine you are a university student in Vancouver, Canada. One day at the campus, a nice young guy approaches you and gives you an envelope. ‘Here’ he says ‘This is for you’. This actually happened to quite a few people on that particular day. Inside the envelope was some money (either a $ 20 bill or a $ 5 bill) along with a little note asking people to spend this money by buying something for themselves until the evening. Others got a different message; once again they got some money (either $ 20 or $ 5) but this time the note asked them to spend it on buying something for someone else. Later that day, these people were contacted by phone. Sure enough, they had spent the money as they had been asked. The big question was: how were they feeling? To find out, read on or – better still – watch this short clip:

OK – here is what they found: i) the people who had spent money on doing something for others, were much happier at the end of the day;  ii) significantly, it was the act of altruism that mattered – not how much money they had spent.

I remember watching this clip again and again and thinking to myself ‘Wow! This is amazing! Why can’t we use this in class? Students will be using the L2 and they should end up feeling quite a bit happier into the bargain! Here are two ideas:

i)      Get students in groups and ask them to brainstorm little things they could do to make someone happier (e.g. write a little ‘Thank you’ note to their mother [or to your teacher! 😊 ] or do the shopping for the old lady next door.

ii)    Ask students to choose one of the ideas, actually do it and then write a little paragraph about what it was and how the other person felt. You can put these up on the wall (or on a Padlet wall) and students can try to guess who it was that did what.

The possibilities are endless! And while you are at it, you might want to share the following Dalai Lama quote with your students ‘If you would like to be selfish, do it in a clever way […] work for the welfare of others’. Respect.

The Moral: Get students to do things for others – and talk about it in English.

OK – What Happens Next?

Tags

curiosity, investment, Motivation

[The power of investment]

Watching football at the pub with the lads is a favourite male pastime in the UK – but James Lang and his friends thought they’d make the whole thing somewhat more exciting. Every Thursday, they would pick three matches and try to predict who the winner was going to be. The guy with the best crystal ball won a beer from each of the others. Then Lang noticed something interesting: he could remember these games a lot better than the others (‘Small Teaching’ – p. 42).

Why does this happen? Lang gives us two answers:  i) increased attention and ii) emotional engagement. If this is the case, then this is something we could certainly use in class. But has it been tested? Well, consider the following study (‘Stumbling on Happiness’ – p. 116): researchers got two groups of children together. They told the first group that they would ask them some general knowledge questions (e.g.  ‘What is the longest river in the world?’) and then they would give them a reward for their participation – either a chocolate bar, or the answers to the questions. Guess which reward the kids went for… 😊

With the second group though, they did things differently: they asked them the  questions first and only then did they offer them the choice of reward. To everyone’s amazement, this time the children actually eschewed the chocolate in favour of the answers! This is completely counter-intuitive; before the study, the researchers had asked teachers and psychologists to predict what children would choose, and everyone had said they would choose the chocolate in both conditions.

The moral: Getting students to invest in an activity by getting them to guess/predict something is a sure way to motivate them. So how can we do this? We could get them…

… to guess the answers to the questions before giving them a text;

… to complete half-sentences before playing an audio/video track;

… to guess what certain numbers might refer to, etc. etc.

Or you could just get them to predict how a story continues. Take these three ads for instance. You ask students: ‘Why has this happened? What is going to happen next?

• A boy is standing in front of his mother’s mirror carefully applying lipstick on his lips….
• A mother is taking her little daughter to school when she is stopped for speeding. Her daughter writes something on a piece of cardboard and shows it to the policeman…
• A man is playing with his daughter in the garden. In the garden next to theirs, a wedding party are posing for photos. Suddenly, the girl runs up to them…

When the students have written a few lines about how each story unfolds, you play them the clip below. Enjoy!  😊

The Moral: To generate motivation, get students guessing!

What can Put-Pocketing Teach us?

Tags

Classroom Management, demonstration, Motivation

[How demonstrations trump explanations]

A crowded place is a pick-pocket’s paradise. How do you get people to take better care of their belongings? Well, the obvious thing to do is to put up a sign: ‘Beware: Pickpockets Operate in this Area’. What happens when you see this of course is that you automatically tap your pocket to make sure your wallet is still there – which sends just the right message to any pickpocket who may be around! 😊

What to do? The Ogilvy team came up with a brilliant idea: why not employ former thieves and magicians to actually put things inside people’s pockets? And what they put in was a leaflet with a message saying that they too could have their stuff stolen and directing them to a site where they could get more info about what they could do. The results: for every 100 leaflets dropped, 93 people visited the site. Amazing! (Groom & Vellacott ‘Ripple’ – p. 38) Watch this clip:

So what can we, as teachers, learn from this? Well, I have often noticed for instance that when I give my students tips on how to write essays, their eyes glaze over. Sure, they can repeat back the information (‘Yes, yes, we know all this’), but I can tell it has not actually registered. So what I sometimes do, is I get them to read an essay telling them how great it is, and of course they agree. Then I start taking it to pieces by pointing out all kinds of structural and linguistic mistakes which they have failed to notice…  Now the message really sinks in! 😊

But the worst offenders are of course colleagues. I often encounter this attitude at PD events. ‘We are qualified, we are experienced – we know all this stuff’. So what I do then is I challenge them. I give them a short story which describes a lesson and I get them to see whether they can spot all the little things the teacher did well as well as the moments when he slipped up. And I am going to do the same with you now.

This particular story was shared more than a thousand times when it was posted on the British Council Facebook wall. It contains 14 interesting moments – both good and bad. You read the story, you make your notes and you compare them to the commentary underneath. If you get more than 10, you are really good. Enjoy! 😊

The Moral: A good demo can really drive your message home.

One Up on Nature

Tags

Motivation, supernormal stimuli

[Exploiting supernormal stimuli]

How could a beer bottle lead to the near extinction of the Australian jewel beetle? If you are thinking toxic chemicals or the destruction of the beetle’s habitat, you are on the wrong track. The answer is that the beer bottle was just too sexy! You simply have to watch this amazing 3-min clip:

So, there you have it: the perfect example of a ‘Supernormal Stimulus’: the bottle was just as orange as the female jewel beetle, but it was much bigger and it had many more dimples. Supernormal stimuli are things which trigger certain responses in the way that natural stimuli do – only much more so. Here are three examples:

·       We have evolved to find ripe fruit deliciously sweet, but fruit cannot compete against cheesecake which (in the words of Steven Pinker) ‘packs a sensory wallop’.

·      Men have evolved to find pretty women sexually attractive, but even top models cannot compete against the digitally enhanced images we are exposed  to today.

·       We have evolved to crave belonging and acceptance, but no social circle can compete against the social media which can deliver more pats on the back in the form of ‘likes’ in a single day than some people would normally get in a lifetime.

OK – so what does all this have to do with EL teaching? Well, in her excellent book ‘Supernormal Stimuli’ (p. 159) Deidre Barrett mentions one more type which is of particular interest to us: ‘humans were rewarded by nature for seeking novel, challenging problems and attacking them […] the intellectual curiosity generates its own ‘supernormal stimuli’ – problems more intriguing than real life’.

Think about sudoku puzzles or crosswords; these do not exist in nature and they can be extremely addictive. Of course, sudoku puzzles will not help you improve your English, but crosswords most certainly would. Here are three more ideas (answers below):

·       Logical puzzles: e.g. ‘A baseball bat and a ball, together cost $ 1.10; the bat costs $ 1 more than the ball. How much does each of them cost?’

·       Lateral thinking puzzles: e.g. ‘There are a carrot, a pile of pebbles, and a pipe lying together in the middle of a field. Why are they there?’

·       Riddles: e.g. ‘If I have three, I have three; if I have two, I have two, but if I have one, I have none. What is it?’

So this is the moral: use puzzles in class. Students simply love them – and the same is true for teachers. I often finish a presentation with some rapid-fire questions like the following: ‘How many times can you take 4 from 33?’ And my absolute favourite: ‘What do you sit on, sleep on and brush your teeth with?’ Enjoy! 😊

The Moral: For top motivation, use puzzles and riddles in class.

[ Answers: $ 1.05 and $ 0.05  / They are what is left of a snowman / Choices / All the months naturally! / a chair, a bed and a toothbrush of course! 😊 ]

How to Make your Lessons Memorable

Tags

emotions, lesson plan, Motivation

[The power of emotions]

‘My mother was feeling cold… so now I’m wearing a sweater’. I came across this tweet ages ago, yet I still remember it. Why? Because of its powerful emotional content. So what is so special about emotions? Actually, there are a number of things.

Nature has crafted two ways for us to process reality: there is the rational route and the emotional route. Then nature said: ‘You can think and debate about trivial things all you want; I will see to it that you have the right responses about the important things’. Thus it is that we do not get to choose whether we feel fear – or love – or jealousy. Feelings are nature’s way of telling us ‘something really important is going on here’ (‘The Influential Mind’ – p. 40).

There is another thing too. Nature wants us to remember these things – precisely because they are important. This is something that advertisers have always known of course. In his book ‘Brainfluence’ Roger Dooley (p. 241) quotes an interesting study: an analysis of 1400 ads showed that those with an emotional content were about twice as effective as those appealing to reason. Researchers attribute this to the fact that the former are processed subconsciously – that is, instantly, and that they are more powerfully encoded – in other words, they are more memorable.

Now if you reflect on language learning, I think you will agree with me that it is for the most part a cognitive exercise. No wonder most lessons are forgettable. So how can we introduce emotions in class? Well, there are a number of ways; for example, we could…

 …use a song, instead of the listening track in the coursebook;

 …play an emotional scene from a film, instead of that video interview;

…get students to bring in class and talk about an object that is really special to them.

Or you can use my favourite way: play an emotional ad in class. For instance, you can get students to predict how this story continues:

‘There is this group of old men in their 80s – they have been friends since their teens. Then they hear that one of them has died. So they meet at the funeral. They sit around the table, sad, silent, thinking about all the health problems they have. Then one of them comes up with a crazy idea…’  You get students to write 3-4 lines about what happens next. Then you play the following clip. Chances are they will remember this lesson.

The Moral: To make an experience memorable – just add emotion.

What can we Learn from Customer Service?

Tags

Classroom Management, Motivation, psychology

[Considering the ‘experience’ aspect of the lesson]

I remember when I first started reading ‘The 10 Principles Behind Great Customer Experiences’ by Matt Watkinson. It was like the scales had at last fallen from my eyes! It suddenly dawned on me that what our students are actually buying is the total learning experience of which the learning aspect is only a small part. Think: is food and cost the only thing you consider when going to a restaurant?

So what are these 10 Principles? And can they help us craft better lessons? Here is the full list. The principles are Watkinson’s (pp. 35-36) – the comments are mine.

Great customer experiences…

…reflect the customers’ identity. Think about how our learners think of themselves. For instance, it would be a mistake to stress a native-like accent if your learners are ‘Greek – and proud of it’.

…satisfy our higher objectives. Your students may be asking for Grammar, when actually they need communication skills. ‘People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole!’

…leave nothing to chance. So pay attention to detail. Seating arrangements. Lighting. Temperature. Decoration. Background music. Your own appearance. Every single thing matters.

…set and then meet expectations. Tell students what your aims are. ‘By the end of the lesson, you’ll be able to manage a short interaction on the phone’. Set goals – and then make sure you deliver.

…are effortless. Sure, we want students to push themselves when it comes to practicing, but the rest of the experience should be smooth. Routines help. It also helps if everything is ready and readily available – both in class and online.

…are stress-free. Confusion and uncertainty are the two enemies here. Give clear instructions – and check them. Inform students about assignments and exams – and make sure they get feedback and results as soon as possible.

…indulge the senses. Sure, a school is not a restaurant, but what about soft background music? And what about smell? Nightclub patrons danced longer in a scented nightclub – and later reported they liked the music more!

…are socially engaging. This single aspect can completely transform the lesson. Think: do your students really interact with each other at a personal level? Do the students feel as part of a group? Would they want to go out together after class?

…put the customer in control. How much autonomy do students have? Are they given choices? Do they get to work on projects where they get to organise themselves and take all the decisions?

…consider the emotions. If you want your lessons to be memorable think about the emotional aspect. A poem or a song perhaps; a film clip; a moving ad or a story. It need not be long: ‘For Sale. Baby shoes. Never worn’ (E. Hemingway).

Of course, for EL teachers not all of these elements are equally important. Now go through the list and see if you can identify the ones that really matter. Oh – and read that book too.

The Moral: Look at the lesson from the ‘customer experience’ angle.

It’s Like Magic!

Tags

Classroom Management, Motivation, psychology

[The importance of spill-over effects]

Q: How do you make chocolate taste sweeter? A: You make the blocks round! (Rory Sutherland – Psychology of Digital Marketing [27:00]). This is a perfect example of a spill-over effect. Here we clearly have a case of mental association, but what is interesting for me is how a certain quality (shape) colours our perception of another, completely unrelated one (taste). Here are some more examples. Try guessing the answers before looking at the key:

1. How can you make wine taste better?
2. How can you increase the effectiveness of painkillers?
3. How can you enhance the flavour of restaurant food?
4. How can you reduce the ‘pain of paying’?
5. How can you make someone appear taller?
6. How can you make someone warm up towards a stranger?

OK – time is up! Here are the answers:  1) pour it from a heavier bottle;   2) increase the price of the pills;  3) use calligraphic font in the menu;  4) get people to pay by credit card;  5) tell people s/he is a University Professor;  6) give them a hot cup of coffee to hold before introducing them to that person.

It’s like magic, isn’t it? Well, you may be surprised to hear that Psychology has revealed a number of similar effects that can be useful to us teachers. Once again, let us see whether you can get the ‘right’ answers:

1. How can you make an activity more interesting?
2. How can you make a session more memorable?
3. How can you improve the students’ evaluation of the lesson?

Naturally, there are a number of ways of getting these results, but here are some possible answers – did you get any?:  1) use game mechanics: teams – scoreboards – time pressure etc. (gamification!);  2) include an emotional element (e.g. a story, a song or an ad);  3) make sure you end with a bang (e.g. a joke, a quote or a fun activity).

‘Ah’ you might ask ‘but how can I get the students to like the whole course?’ Well, there are answers to this question too – at least three of them:  i) be likeable;  ii) be interesting or, if you cannot manage these…. iii) be beautiful. 😊

The Moral: Use spill-over effects to enhance your lessons.

The Valley of Disappointment

Tags

habits, homework, Motivation, strategies

[The importance of persevering in building learning habits]

In his excellent book ‘Atomic Habits’ James Clear makes some very interesting points about the nature of progress (pp. 20-23).

In most cases, when we are learning something, progress is much slower at the beginning (when we are building the foundations of learning as it were) and it gradually accelerates as we continue. Think about learning words for instance; initially, you have few other lexical items in the L2 to peg the new ones on to. Later however, you can link new vocabulary to all kinds of synonyms, opposites, similar words, collocations etc.

If one were to present this diagrammatically, the line you would get would be one curving upwards – it is exactly the same line as if your English keeps getting better at the rate of, say, 1% every week. And yet when we study, most of us expect our progress to be linear (‘I have put in so much effort – I expect to see some results’).

Look at this excellent diagram (James Clear ‘Atomic Habits’ – p. 22). Notice the grey area. Clear calls this ‘the valley of disappointment’ and it represents the period of frustration when we keep working at something and the results seem meager at best. This can go on for months and months. But notice what happens then: beyond a certain point, we experience a period of progress which just seems explosive and it is way beyond our expectations.

I have seen this time and again with my students: they study and study and complain about how poor their English is and then they travel to the UK and when they come back they are ecstatic ‘After the first few hours I started talking and talking so freely and easily and I just couldn’t believe it was me!’

So this is the moral here: choose a few learning habits and stick with them. Keep reading a few pages of that reader every day. Keep singing along to songs. Keep watching your favourite series with English subtitles. All this work is bound to pay off and when it does, you will be amazed.

The Moral: Stick with your habits even if you cannot see any progress.

A Lesson from Marathon Runners

Tags

goal-setting, goals, Motivation, strategies

[The importance of setting short-term goals]

On average, people who decide to take part in a marathon race, cover the distance of 42.2 km in around four and a half hours. Some are faster, some are slower, so if we were to create a graph of everyone’s performance, we would expect a normal distribution – something resembling a bell curve.

Yet this is not what we find. Have a look at the image below. You will notice that many runners somehow cluster just before the 3:30-hour mark, the 4:00-hour mark etc. How does this happen? The answer is that runners push themselves just that little bit harder towards the end, so they can tell themselves (and all their friends!) that they ran the marathon in less than three and a half ours, or less than four hours and so on.

So how do they manage that? Apparently, there are experienced athletes who have timed themselves repeatedly and run at such a pace that they know they are going to finish in a little less than 3:30 hours or 4:00 hours etc. These people are called pace-setters and they ran with big placards on their back, displaying their respective times. Ordinary runners who know their limits more or less, simply run behind the right pace-setter and so they do not have to worry about constantly checking their time. In this way, in the New York City Marathon, while 500 people finish with a time of 3:59, only 390 finish with a time of 4:01 (Adam Alter ‘Irresistible’ – pp. 95-97). Still not convinced? Here is what another study found. Watch this clip:

There is a big lesson for us here: whatever you do, when you set yourself a short-term goal you push yourself just that little bit harder. Why not use this insight when practicing your English? ‘I am going to try to remember the words from yesterday’s lesson, and I want to recall at least 15 out of 20’ or ‘I am going to record myself giving a mini-monologue about my job and I am going to speak without hesitation for at least 40 seconds’. This little tweak may well mean you perform 10% better than you would without a goal. It’s well worth it, don’t you think?

The Moral: Before doing an activity, set yourself a short-term goal.

Cleansing Cow

Tags

Classroom Management, interest, Motivation, warm-up

[The importance of lesson-opening rituals]

You know how when you visit some posh restaurants, they sometimes give you an acidic sorbet to ‘cleanse your palate’ – the better to appreciate the food later? OK – just keep this in mind.

Now imagine you have just walked into Denis Martin’s modernist restaurant in Switzerland. You sit at your table and the first thing you notice is a small cylinder with a cow on top of it. What is this?

Denis Martin had noticed that diners (businessmen for the most part) often failed to appreciate the dishes he so lovingly prepared because they were too preoccupied with work or other thoughts. Could there be a way of ‘cleansing their minds’ before the first course arrived?

So he came up with this strange object and placed one on every table. People just don’t know what to make of it – is it some kind of salt-cellar perhaps? At some point, someone picks up the object to look underneath, whereupon the cow lets out a doleful ‘Mooooo’. Before long, everybody else does the same and the room is full of giggling diners. And this is the cue for the staff – out come the hors d’ oeuvres. The cow is in fact a ‘mind-cleanser’! What a brilliant idea! (Charles Spence ‘Gastrophysics’ – pp. xiv-xv)

So, could we not learn something from Denis Martin? Do our students really appreciate the texts we find, the activities we organise, the time and effort we invest into putting together our lesson plans? Why not start the lesson by clearing their minds with a little story? Or an interesting ad? Or a joke?

The Moral: Start by cleansing your students’ mental palate.

Motivation – Peak Moments

Tags

moments, Motivation, peak

‘A moment can be worth a thousand minutes’

A hotel with a difference:  Imagine you are in LA and you are looking for somewhere to stay. Naturally, you turn to TripAdvisor and it is there that the ‘Magic Castle’ hotel catches your eye. It is not even a proper hotel – it is a building that was converted into one. The rooms are nothing to write home about, the facilities are fine but nothing really special. And yet… this hotel has the second highest rating based on thousands and thousands of reviews! What could its secret be? Well, I do not want to spoil it for you. I would rather let the great Dan Heath describe the place to you. Just watch this clip – then ask yourself this question: ‘Could I use a similar approach to motivate my students?’ Could it be that Rory Sutherland was on to something when he talked about ‘the centrality of peripheral elements’? (Sutherland 2011 – p. 31)

How can I make my lessons memorable?:  Could we learn something from the ‘Magic Castle’ – something that could help us improve our lessons? Heath and Heath argue that in most experiences (educational ones included) we are far too preoccupied with making sure things run smoothly – that no problems occur. This is fine, but nothing to post something on Facebook about. Instead they claim, we should make an effort to include ‘peak moments’ in these experiences. The justification for this lies in the way memory works.

Look at the first picture. Imagine the curve shows the course of a lesson. What we tend to think is that our memory keeps a record of everything and when we want to evaluate it, we work out the average of each point. Research by Kahnemann however shows that this is not so. What happens is that our brain compresses the memory, keeping just some of the points. In recalling the event, the brain is disproportionally influenced by ‘peak’ moments (good or bad) and by the way the experience ends. This is called the ‘Peak – End Principle’. (See Kahneman 2011 – ch. 35: ‘Two Selves’; To watch a short clip about these studies, just click here).

So what does all this mean for our lesson? In a few words, if you want students to rave about your lessons, make sure you incorporate some ‘peak moments’ in your lessons. How can we do this?

[NB: This post is based on a plenary talk I gave in Athens in March 2018. To go through / download the slides just click below].

Four Principles – Four Activities: Heath and Heath (on whose excellent book ‘The Power of Moments’ [Heath & Heath 2017] this whole article is based) single out four elements which can lead to great, memorable moments: Elevation – Pride – Insight – Connection. In what follows I describe each one briefly and I outline one activity for each of them that we can use with our students.

Peak Moments I – Elevation:  Some moments simply stand out from the others (think about fireworks or the moment the rollercoaster plunges down). ‘Elevation’ does not have to be something which is mentally uplifting; anything that rises above the drab and mundane can come into this category. Think about a gift with a dedication; or a little child’s drawing with your name on it; or simply watching a funny stand-up comedy clip. In the words of Heath and Heath: ‘Experiences which rise above the everyday. Times to be savoured. Moments that make us feel engaged, joyful, amazed, motivated. They are peaks’. Very often these are moments we might want to share.

How can I use this in class?: Anything that can break the monotony of the usual EL class can create such a moment. A mingling activity; a competition; singing along to a song; puzzles (think: ‘MindTrap’!); using jokes in class; a funny clip (see ‘Comedy for ELT’ on YouTube) or even an activity which presents students with an unusual challenge – like the one below (on the importance of incongruity for attracting attention, see Dutton 2010 – p. 234).

Activity 1: AQBL [To download a word document with all the activities, just click on this link].

Peak Moments II – Pride:  These moments are special because of something we have done – moments that capture us at our best. Think back to when you won a race for instance, or you created something beautiful or you gave a memorable performance. Alternatively, such moments can also be ones where others recognize our contribution – special award ceremonies, graduation ceremonies, the moment when we receive a certificate or even a simple ‘Thank You’ note from one of our students for helping him/her do well at a test. Once again, these are moments that we might want to share with others.

How can I use this in class?: Any activity where you ask students to create something themselves (rather than simply manipulate language) can potentially be a source of pride for them (see ‘The IKEA Effect’ in Ariely 2010 – ch 3). Projects fall into this category, as do mini presentations, the acting out of sketches, creative writing and activities like the one below.

Activity 2: A New Kind of Animal [To download a word document with all the activities, just click on this link].

Peak Moments III – Insight:  There are moments which capture our thoughts; moments when a realization hits us – when we experience an ‘A-ha!’ moment and we come to understand something that had puzzled us before, or we become aware of something new (why this should be rewarding is explained in Leslie’s excellent book ‘Curious’ – Leslie 2014). Such moments rewrite our understanding of the world. Frequently, they are the result of actual experiences, but very often they are things that we read – poems, stories, epigrams or anecdotes which move us or change the way we see things. The effect is stronger when there is an element of incongruity, when such texts are phrased in a strange way which highlights a hidden layer of meaning.

How can I use this in class?: Thanks to technology such material can be found everywhere today. TED talks, short videos on YouTube (e.g. ‘List 25’), mini sagas, surprising facts that students can research and present are all things we can use. I particularly like the ‘Stories of Mr Keuner’ by Brecht, but I have also found that using quotes is great too (see below).

Activity 3: Quotes [To download a word document with all the activities, just click on this link].

Peak Moments I – Connection:  These are moments which are special because they create some kind of a special bond between ourselves and others. Moments when we feel we belong, when we feel a strengthening of the bond with people we care about, such as celebrations, surprise parties or special outings. However, these can also be moments when we bring people closer to us by disclosing something about ourselves (hopes – dreams – fears – experiences) or moments when we discover that we share things in common with others. Anything that might facilitate this bonding, such as collaborating with someone or simply chatting about personal matters can foster this feeling of connection. (for more ideas on the importance of bonding and ways of getting people to connect, see the excellent Brafman & Brafman 2011).

How can I use this in class?: Any ‘humanistic’ activity fits the bill here though discovering similarities is obviously better. According to Brafman and Brafman (ibid pp 36-46), the more personal/intimate the information we disclose to others, the stronger the bond we forge with them. This can be a little sensitive, so simple ‘show and tell’ activities are perhaps best – like the one below.

Activity 4: Mobile Photos [To download a word document with all the activities, just click on this link].

One Last Activity:  This is a true story. Imagine you are on board a plane. At some point the voice of a flight attendant is heard on the intercom: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have a newlywed couple with us today…John and Leslie – raise your hands!’ And then he goes on to say something else…Once again I do not want to spoil this for you. Just watch this 1-min clip. Now think: Could we not use this activity in class? What about if a student is leaving? Or if a new student is joining the class? What if it is a special occasion for someone – or for the school? The possibilities are endless…. But how can we come up with such activities? Well, to paraphrase H. Schultz it pays to remember that ‘We are not in the language business teaching people; we are in the people business teaching languages’.

 

References

Ariely, D. ( 2010) The Upside of Irrationality. London HarperCollins

Brafman, O. & Brafman, R. (2011) Click. New York: Virgin Books

Dutton, K. (2010) Flipnosis: The Art of Split-second Persuasion. London: Random House

Heath, C. & Heath, D. (2017) The Power of Moments. London: Bantam Press

Kahneman, D. (2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow. London: Allen Lane

Leslie, I. (2014) Curious. London, Quercus Publishing

Sutherland, R. (2011) The Wiki Man. London: It’s Nice That and Ogilvy Group

Motivating Learners [An Integrated Skills Lesson]

Tags

integrated skills, Motivation, reading

The situation is simple and one in which I am sure we have all found ourselves in on many an occasion. I have a coursebook. I am supposed to do Unit 5 today. There is a text in it on page 78. How do I use it? How can I make the most of it? How can I help students learn from the language in the text? Are there any activities I can attach to it? [I do realise of course that this is not the right way to think about things and we should be starting with the learning objectives etc. etc. but let us skip this issue for the time being.] What follows is a lesson plans in 10 simple steps. I believe this concrete example can provide a useful model of how we can ‘tweak’ standard activities and supplement our coursebook.

[NB: This article is based on a (hugely popular) presentation. You can find all the slides below. If you would like to use this lesson with your students, you will also need a handout. Just click here].

Step 1 – Stimulating the students’ curiosity: Ideally, I would like to get my students curious about the text, but how? According to G. Lowenstein, curiosity is the ‘gap’ between what I know is out there and my own knowledge. If I can see something or nothing – I’m not curious; if I can see the vague outline of a shape, then I am! So the key is to give students some idea of the text – and get them to use their imagination to ‘join the dots’. So what we can do is set the context (very briefly), then give students some key words from the text and get them to make up a little story about the content of the text.

Step 2 – Getting students to invest: Now we can take things further.  To maximize interest, we need to get the student to invest by making some concrete predictions about the text. The more they commit themselves, the more interested they will be. One way of doing this is by selecting some sentences from the text (or writing some ourselves), cutting them in half and then giving students only the first part. They will have to use their imagination to complete them. Notice that this gives them some additional information about the text and this makes them even more curious. In addition, it also activates their mental schemata – which makes subsequent processing easier.

Step 3 – Fast reading: One of the skills we want to develop in our students is the ability to read fast, to read for gist without focusing on every word. For this I have found that ‘Cueprompter’ is an excellent tool, but we can just give students the text and tell them they only have 60 seconds to read it in. The aim is to check whether their predictions were right – to see how these sentences should be completed in the light of the information in the text. This gives students a nice focus task – a purpose for reading. Speed is of the essence here – you will see why in the next paragraph.

Step 4 – Slow reading: Now we want our students to read the text more carefully – but how can we get them to do that? The answer is the amazing activity ‘Hidden Message’. It is very easy to prepare. You type (or copy) your text. Then you write a sentence which is your ‘Message’ to your students. Then you take the words of this sentence and insert them into the text! When students do the fast reading task, they do not usually notice these extra words, even though they may feel the text contains some mistakes. Then when you tell them they have to re-read the text to find out what the message is, they are completely shocked! They just love this task! *

Step 5 – Creative writing: Now comes another surprise. At this point you reveal to the students that you have not actually given them the full text. Although it looks like the story is over, this is not the case. So they have to work together to write a few lines in order to complete it. What happened after Ann left school? Notice three things: i) the writing flows naturally from the previous activity  ii) the students have already read the text twice, so they have a very clear idea of the context, the characters, etc. it is easier to complete something than to write something from scratch; and  iii) the task is small and fast – it does not feel onerous (perceptions matter!).

Step 6 – Focus on Language: Now that students are familiar with the text, it is a good idea to focus their attention on language. How should we do that? Whenever I ask my students to highlight useful language, they invariably focus on  i) single words…  ii) …which they do not know. This is where the teacher comes in; we need to explain to students that  ii) …perhaps they do not need to know these words (they may be too rare) and  i) it is best to focus on whole phrases / collocations. What I normally ask my students to do is to highlight expressions which they can understand, but which they would not be able to use.

Step 7 – Vocabulary Revision: OK – this step is for the next lesson. How can we get students to revise vocabulary? One very simple way is to delete some words from the text and then project the passage on the board and get the students to fill in the gaps – without showing them the missing items. This  has three advantages:  i) students get to see these items in context (again);  ii) students realise that very often there are a number of words that could be used (which helps combat the misconception of the ‘one correct answer’ which tests perpetuate) ** and  iii) (crucially) it forces students to retrieve the missing items; retrieval is effortful but it is the key to retention.

Step 8 – Speaking – A personal response: Having finished with the reading, it is vital that we ask ourselves ‘Is there another activity which follows naturally from the text?’ In this case, students could perhaps act out the scene between Anne and Emma Pye. However, there is something better which makes use of the students’ personal experience. Students can imagine a novice teacher like Anne asking them for tips on what to do and not to do. Students have strong views about what they like and they dislike about their teachers and their practices and this would be an excellent opportunity for any teacher not only to get students talking, but also to gain insights into what values/traits they consider important in a teacher.

Step 9 – Homework: There are two problems with H/W:  i) we often leave it till the very end (when students are packing their things – as though it was an afterthought) and ii) we often fail to support students enough. Look at the slide with the e-mail however. It contains ‘tips’ given by another teacher (notice how this links it to the previous step). However, these tips are clearly ridiculous. Apart from the humorous effect, this task is a much improved version of H/W:  i) students have a model (which means they know exactly what they have to do) and  ii) students have the ideas – either from the previous activity or simply by reversing this ludicrous advice. Excellent!  🙂

Step 10 – Recap and ‘dessert’: OK – there are a number of points worth remembering here. For me, the key factor is the students’ own contribution, as can be seen in Steps 2, 5 and 8. The more students invest, the more likely they are to enjoy the session and to benefit from it. The teacher’s role is to ensure that students’ curiosity is aroused (Step 1) and perhaps to introduce an element of incongruity (Step 4) and humour (Step 9) so as to make the lesson more enjoyable. It also helps if the teacher has something funny / interesting for ‘dessert’ as it were. When I do this with teachers, the most common tip they come up with in Step 8 is ‘Get out of the job while you still can’. So I show them this video clip… Enjoy. 🙂

* NB:  i) You can ‘customise’ the message to make it more fun for a particular group: [ e.g. ‘Guys I hope you are going to do better in the next test!’ 🙂 ]  ii) You can produce easy or hard versions by inserting the words in the right or in the wrong order; in the latter case the students have to spot them AND reorder them (this is excellent for Mixed-Ability classes)  iii) You can make the task harder or easier depending on where you put the extra words (e.g. the word ‘being’ is harder to spot in the first phrase than in the second: ‘Just last year she was being a student’ vs ‘Just last being year she was a student’).

** NB: In fact, it is even better if you delete whole phrases (2-3 or more words). This is even more effective in getting students to realise that there are many correct ways of saying the same thing and it provides a good opportunity for vocabulary expansion. For instance, in the first sentence, if you leave out one word (‘Anne felt nervous as she …………. the classroom’) the options you have are ‘entered’ / ‘walked into’ etc.; however, if you leave out the last three words (‘Anne felt nervous as she ……. ……. …….’) then there are more possibilities such as ‘greeted her class’ or ‘was about to start her first lesson’ etc.

10 Additional Tips on Classroom Management and Motivation [3]

Tags

Classroom Management, Motivation

An annotated lesson: This made-up story is again meant to be an exercise. The idea is that you read through it and try to see whether you agree with the teacher’s decisions / practices. There are at least 10 interesting points in this short narrative. Can you spot them? If you agree with what John did, can you say why? If you think he has made a mistake, why do you think so? What should he have done instead? [NB: This is not meant to be a model lesson nor is John a model teacher; rather it is a collection of interesting moments from a lesson which help illustrate some good and some not so good practices relating to Classroom Management and Student Motivation].

[This is the third post on the topic; to see the first one, click here. To read the second one, click here].

John’s story: John walked leisurely towards his classroom. He was early. He glanced into the staffroom and there was Agnes, the DOS. ‘Is anything wrong?’ he asked her. ‘You don’t look your usual happy self…’ ‘It’s Mark’ Agnes replied. ‘He just called in sick and had 3 hours to teach later today….’ ‘Hang on; I know his schedule – that’s 17:00 to 20:00, right? I could stand in for him’ said John. ‘Oh, John’ said Agnes ‘You are an angel!’. ‘That’s what colleagues are for’ replied John smiling.

‘Hi everyone’ John boomed as he walked in. Everyone smiled and said ‘Hi’ – they liked John. ‘Wow Mary!’ John exclaimed ‘Nice tan!’ Mary smiled coyly. ‘And Paul – you’ve been working out, haven’t you? Well done! You look fit and you’ve lost weight too!’ Paul flexed his muscles striking a body-builder pose. Everyone laughed.

‘Excuse me sir’ said Catherine. ‘There was something I wanted to ask you about. Now that I’ve got my B2 certificate, do you think I should take the C1 exam as well, or should I skip it and go straight for the C2 test?’ ‘Well’ John said ‘There is no point in taking the C1, is there? Since you are going to take the C2 exam, why bother?’ ‘OK – thank you sir’ Catherine replied.

‘OK everyone!’ said John. ‘If you remember, for today you had to prepare to give a 60-sec mini presentation each. You have to describe to the class one learning strategy you use to improve your English and try to persuade us that it is effective. At the end, we will all vote secretly on which two were the most effective. As I have promised, the winner will get this amazing reader (John held up a book) OK – who would like to go first?’ [ …. ]

‘Right’ said John after everyone had finished. ‘Some great ideas there – well done. Now as homework, I would like you to do two things: I would like you to read an article of mine on ‘5 Effective ELT Strategies’. That’s based on a presentation I gave some time ago. I want you to read it and I want each of you to write a comment  about which of these strategies you think might work best for you’. John looked at Helen and Rose and winked at them; they winked back. John had given them two model answers and they had already posted them there.

‘But you know’ John continued ‘learning English is not just about conscious study. Your English improves every day – without you realising it. Think about the clips you watch on YouTube or the songs you listen to. Now, with the person next to you, I want you to make a list of 5 such ways in which your English gets better daily’. [ …. ]

‘OK – lots of good points here…. Now – another thing I wanted us to do today, was to have a debate. You know how the government are thinking about lowering the voting age to 17? Well, here is the idea – why not make it 15? In pairs, I would like you to debate this. But first – make notes of the arguments you are going to use. OK – you have 3 min to prepare’. [ …. ]

‘Good. I feel this has been a very productive lesson. Well done everyone. Now if you remember, last time we said that it is a good idea if we think back to the lesson later and try to recall what we did and evaluate what went well and what didn’t and whether there is one or more mental notes we need to make. So what I would like you to do when you get home is to make an entry into your journal. A short paragraph of 8-10 lines should be ok’.

The bell rang. ‘OK – class dismissed’ John said ‘but not before you have tidied up first!’ ‘Aren’t you forgetting something, sir?’ Catherine asked. ‘You said earlier that if we did well, you were going to teach us some essential ‘Survival English’ phrases in case we ever found ourselves in the US’.  ‘Ah, yes’ John said. ‘Watch this….’ *

Comments: There are a number of interesting points in this story. Some are obvious, some are less so and some are counterintuitive. All of them are research-based:

‘…I could stand in for him….’…: A very good idea. When we do things for others, they are bound to reciprocate in the future and this mutual assistance helps build stronger relationships between people. It is actually better if we do not wait to be asked and we offer to help of our own accord. And it goes without saying that help should be offered unconditionally. People will reciprocate in their own time (Cialdini 2001 – ch. 2).

‘…Wow Mary! – Nice tan!….’…: A mountain of research has shown that we like people who pay us compliments – even if we do not actually believe these to be true. Genuine compliments is one of the best and fastest ways to get closer to someone and make them feel good (Yeung 2011 – pp. 177-179). A good compliment means that at the very least you care enough about someone to have noticed something about them.

‘…There is no point … is there? ….’…: A mistake in my opinion. I am not saying that students should necessarily sit every exam there is, but it is important that they have a sense of progress; this acts as a reward. These rewards have to be frequent and piecemeal rather than rare and large As teachers, we need to make sure they can see they are getting closer to their objective. It is crucial for motivation (Levine 2006 – pp. 116-118).

‘…You have to describe one learning strategy ….’…: Excellent! Research has shown that there is a big difference between studying something for yourself and studying something so you can explain it to others; in the latter case, we activate different parts of our brain and as a result knowledge sinks in deeper! (Lieberman 2013 – p. 289) Do not take my word for it; just watch this fantastic short clip with Professor M. Lieberman (click here).

‘…the winner will get this amazing reader….’…: A big mistake. Numerous studies have shown that contingent rewards (‘Do this and you’ll get that’) are actually demotivating in the long run. Essentially, students start thinking (subconsciously) ‘If I have to be bribed to do this, then it is clearly not such an enjoyable activity’ (Pink 2010 – p. 8). On the other hand there is nothing wrong with offering a ‘surprise reward’ (‘Wow! This is an excellent story! Here is a sticker’).

 ‘…I would like you to read an article of mine….’…: This may look like showing off, but anything that sends students the message ‘Your teacher knows what s/he is doing’ can help enormously in increasing compliance and minimising discipline problems (Cialdini 2001 – ch. 6). Clearly, if students can see that the teacher writes articles for other colleagues or is a regular presenter in conferences they will trust him/her more. Hiding your credentials out of a sense of modesty is counterproductive.

‘…John had given them two model answers….’…: This is brilliant! There are many times when people want to do things, but they just do not want to be the first (e.g. asking Qs at a Conference, volunteering for an activity, or contributing ideas in an online forum). In such cases you need 1-2 people to act as catalysts by demonstrating the desired behaviour (you may need to recruit them in advance). The results can be amazing! (Ross & Nisbett 2011 – p. 223). Watch this clip. Then watch it again (from Ferrrier 2014 – p. 143).

‘…Think about the clips you watch on YouTube….’…: Another excellent idea! Apparently, simply making people aware of what they normally do can help them change the way they see themselves and hence their behaviour (Heath & Heath 2011 – p. 125). The idea is that telling people about the massive exposure they get to English these days, may well encourage them to seek this exposure and do this more deliberately and hence more effectively.

‘…I would like you to debate this….’…: A very interesting moment. Some colleagues are averse to debates preferring instead consensus-building activities. Research however shows that debates can be extremely effective at stimulating interest (Heath & Heath 2008 – p. 85). The reason seems to be arousal; heightened arousal feels good (which is why we go on rollercoaster rides). This excitement generated by debates, games etc. can spill over to the lesson and increase motivation (see Lewis 2013 – p. 27).

 ‘…a short paragraph should be ok….’…: A slip. While the idea of getting students to reflect is great, this is apparently the first or second time they will be doing this. A paragraph may be too much. When you want to change people, it makes sense to start small (Wiseman 2012 – pp 187-189). Once they get into the habit of doing something, they start seeing themselves in a different light (‘Oh! I’m a reflective learner!’). Then they can go on to write more.

The takeaways – 10 Tips:

Here are the 10 takeaways. Once again though – before reading them, see whether you can recall some of them. What are the principles? How would you have phrased them as tips for a colleague?

Reciprocity: Do little things for other people. What you do has to be unconditional and it is best if you offer to help yourself. Reciprocity strengthens our bonds with others.

Compliments: Pay people genuine compliments. Compliments oil the wheels of social interaction and lead to closer relationships.

The gain factor: Make sure that students can see the progress they are making. People need ‘milestones’. Regularly. Forget milestones – make that ‘inch-pebbles’ (Heath & Heath 2011 – p. 136).

Peer teaching: Get students to teach each other things;  i) they learn even more themselves and  ii) they come to see themselves in a different light.

Rewards: Avoid using contingent rewards as an incentive. They often undermine intrinsic motivation. (That said, it is ok to give the occasional ‘surprise’ prize).

Authority: Make sure your students know how good you are (qualifications, testimonials of expertise etc.). They are more likely to be disciplined and they will learn more.

Modelling: Sometimes you need someone to model the desired behaviour to ‘get the ball rolling’. Get students, colleagues or friends to provide this model.

The placebo effect: Make students aware of how much exposure they get to English through their daily activities; this can make them think of themselves as ‘active learner’.

Arousal: Use high-arousal activities (e.g. debates, competitions etc.) in class. They both motivate students and their excitement often spills over to the content.

Starting small: To get people to do something new, start small. Once they have taken the first small step, this will change the way they perceive themselves and they will do more.

Last words: I know I have said that before, but I will say it again: it is incredible how much better language teachers we can become by learning from looking for ideas beyond ELT. Many colleagues think that to improve as EL teachers, they need to learn more about the language, or linguistics, or methodology; I think this is only true up to a point. Once we can do our job competently enough, we need to look elsewhere. To paraphrase Howard Schultz (founder and CEO of Starbucks) “We are not in the Language business teaching people; we are in the People business teaching language” – that is quite a shift in focus.

[ * I know you are dying to watch that clip on ‘Survival English’. Here it is… 🙂 ]

References

Brown, P., Roediger, H., McDaniel, M. (2014) Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. Cambridge Massachusetts. Belknap Harvard.

Cialdini, R. (2001) Influence – Science and Practice. Massachusetts, Allyn & Bacon.

Ferrier, A. (2014) The Advertising Effect. South Melbourne, Oxford University Press.

Heath, C. & Heath, D. (2008) Made to Stick. London: Random House.

Heath, C. & Heath, D. (2011) Switch. London: Random House.

Levine, R. (2006) The Power of Persuasion. Oxford: Oneworld.

Lewis, D. (2013) The Brain Sell. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

Lieberman, M. (2013) Social. Oxford, Oxford University Press

Martin, S., Goldstein, N., & Cialdini, R. (2014) The Small Big. London: Profile Books.

Pink, D. (2010) Drive. Edinburgh, Canongate Books.

Ross, L. & Nisbett, R. (2011) The Person and the Situation. London: Pinter & Martin.

Wiseman, R. (2012). Rip it up. London: Macmillan.

Yeung, R. (2011) i is for Influence. London: Macmillan.

 

10 More Tips on Classroom Management and Motivation [2]

Tags

Classroom Management, Motivation

Another annotated lesson: This made-up story is again meant to be an exercise (to see the previous one, just click here). The idea is that you read through it and try to see whether you agree with the teacher’s decisions / practices. There are at least 10 interesting points in this short narrative. Can you spot them? If you agree with what Alex did, can you say why? If you think he has made a mistake, why do you think so? What should he have done instead? [NB: This is not meant to be a model lesson nor is Alex a model teacher; rather it is a collection of interesting moments from a lesson which help illustrate some good and some not so good practices relating to Classroom Management and Student Motivation].

Alex’s story: Alex felt really happy working in this school. Everything was neat and tidy, the boards were always clean, the equipment was always in working order and there were all kinds of posters on the wall – some with interesting or funny quotes, others containing useful language. When Alex walked into the classroom the class were busy chatting to each other as usual. He looked around and coughed so the students would notice he was there.

‘Thank you, sir!’ piped up little Andrew as Alex walked into the classroom. Alex smiled and winked at him. Last time he had surreptitiously slipped a little ‘Happy Birthday’ card between the pages of Andrew’s book. ‘Hey! Did you get your IELTS results, Mark?’ Alex asked. ‘Yes, sir’ said Mark ‘Amazingly I got a 7.5! I never expected such a high mark!’. ‘Well, of course you did well’ said Alex ‘Don’t forget, we had prepared thoroughly – esp for Task 1 which was your weak point. Well done’.

Alex turned to Peter ‘Hey Peter! Don’t forget you’ve promised to show me how to use Moviemaker after the lesson’ he said. ‘I mean – what’s the point of having teenage students if they don’t teach you all this new-fangled technology stuff?’  Peter smiled. ‘Right-o sir!’ he said. ‘Are we going to do another crossword like we did yesterday?’ he asked. ‘Of course we are’ said Alex. ‘I know you love them…’

‘OK – before that however, we are going to read a text about some amazing animals. This lesson has been voted by former students as the second most interesting ever! OK – listen to these statements and with the person next to you try to complete them in a plausible way’ Alex read aloud: ‘1. There is a snake that can ………; 2. There is a plant that can eat ………; 3. There is a lizard that defends itself by ….……’.  *

The class discussed the statements in pairs and wrote down what they thought was the right answer. Then Alex gave them the text so they could check their predictions. ‘Amazing, or what?’ asked Alex. ‘OK – as homework, I would like you to search the net and next time you come I want each of you to give a mini presentation on a really special animal’.

‘OK – can someone give us a demo? Just a mini-monologue on one of the animals you’ve just read about. About 30-40 seconds. Paul – what about you? I know you like presentations’. ‘I don’t know’ said Paul sounding uncertain ‘I haven’t practiced it…’ ‘Oh, come on’ said Alex ‘It’s not a test; ok – just stand here at the front. I’ll help you if there are any words you don’t know…’

‘All right’ said Alex, when Paul had finished. ‘Thank you Paul. It wasn’t bad considering it was the first time…. OK everyone. Remember: next time you can talk about whichever animal you want to, but I want you to practice. In fact, I would like you to record yourselves before the next lesson. You can use Vocaroo – just Google it – it’s dead easy to use; you click on the red button and record your voice. Then you can send me the link of the recording by e-mail’.

The bell rang. ‘OK – class dismissed. Before you go however, I want all pieces of paper in the waste-paper basket and the desks all lined up exactly as you found them when you came in’ said Alex. The class started tidying up ‘Sir, sir – you promised you would tell us a joke!’ said Mark. ‘Did I? Oh, all right then….’ said Alex. ‘Have I told you the one with the castaway? Well, there was this guy and he was on a flight to New York. And when they started showing the film on the plane, he had seen it on TV and he was so disgusted, he got up and walked out. Now – as soon as he lands in the water….’

[* Answers: 1. There is a snake that can fly; 2. There is a plant that can eat mice; 3. There is a lizard that defends itself by squirting blood! ]

Comments: There are a number of interesting points in this story. Some are obvious, some are less so and some are counterintuitive. All of them are research-based:

‘…Everything was neat and tidy,….’…: The physical environment we operate in has a huge impact on the way we behave. Countless studies have shown that people tend to be well-behaved in an orderly environment, cheat more in dim places and be less productive in an untidy room. By changing the physical environment we can send the right (implicit) messages to our students: ‘This is a place of work’ (Martin, Goldstein & Cialdini 2014 – p. 28).

‘…a little ‘Happy Birthday’ card….’…: Very good. Little touches like that signal to students that the teacher sees them as individuals – not just as learners or members of a group and students appreciate that (see also Watkinson 2013 – p. 160). You might say ‘OK – isn’t this a cheap trick just to increase our popularity?’ Actually no, because it also impacts on students’ performance, but there is another reason too – acting like this changes you in the long run (see the last point).

‘…we had prepared thoroughly….’…: A slip. Our brain has the tendency to mull over things it cannot explain. Once it finds a reasonable / plausible explanation, it just files away the experience. This is good – if the experience is bad. It helps us achieve ‘closure’ and move on. But when the experience is a happy one, why stop thinking about it? ‘Explaining’ can mean ‘explaining away’. It is good for bad things – and vice versa (Wilson 2011 – p. 60).

‘…Don’t forget you’ve promised….’…: This is called ‘the Franklin Principle’. We assume that the more we do for others, the more they will like us; this is not wrong, but there is a much better way – getting them to do things for us! It’s pure Cognitive Dissonance: ‘Either i) this is a great guy and I’m doing the right thing helping him or ii) I am stupid’. What do you think our brain would rather believe?:-) (click here for a short video on this – see also Lieberman 2013 – p. 266).

‘…This lesson has been voted….’…: Excellent! It is very important to ‘sell’ what we are going to do to our students. How can we do that? Well, we can explain the rationale behind a task etc., but research has shown there is another, more persuasive way: telling students that other students like it. The ‘others like it, ergo it is good’ is one of the most powerful heuristic our lazy brain uses. Why not exploit it? (Berger 2016 – chapter 1).

‘…The class discussed the statements….’…: Very good! All too often, when we have something interesting to share with our class we just go right ahead. But wait! Why not tease them a little first? Studies have shown that interest and motivation soar when we make students curious about what is coming next. Getting them to predict content can be as effective as it is simple. And this also works with mundane material! (Heath & Heath 2008 – p. 80) Watch this clip.

‘…Amazing, or what?….’…: Brilliant! Methodology aside, content does matter – a lot! According to Berger (2013 – ch.. 1) when we come across something interesting – funny – weird etc., we tend to share it as it translates into ‘social currency’ (it makes us look good). Students will go home and chances are they will share this with their friends – and they will look up information on other bizarre animals on the web, which means additional exposure to the L2!.

‘…Paul – what about you? ….’…: This is a mistake though. Studies have shown that being watched by others can stimulate us to great efforts and we can perform very well provided that the task is easy or we have rehearsed it really well. Conversely, if the task is hard or we have not practiced it, feeling others watching us can cause us to fumble and perform poorly, which may in turn undermine our confidence (Ariely 2010 – p. 44).

‘…it’s dead easy to use’…: Another mistake – and a common one too. Just because we know how to do something does not mean others do too. Such misjudgments happen all the time – esp when we are giving instructions or explaining something (Heath & Heath 2008 – p. 80). It is very hard to put ourselves into the learners’

shoes, but we should try. We need to explain demonstrate and then check understanding. Watch this amazing clip (click here).

‘…Before you go however,….’…: Excellent. This is a little thing, which can easily become a routine. But in helping keep the class tidy, the students are also sending a message – to themselves. It is Cognitive Dissonance again: ‘Why am I doing this? Nobody is forcing me. If I am doing this, it must be because the class / the course / learning English is important’. The way we act, gradually changes the way we think about things (see Cialdini 2201 – pp. 63-71).

The takeaways – 10 Tips:

Here are the 10 takeaways. Once again though – before reading them, see whether you can recall some of them. What are the principles? How would you have phrased them as tips for a colleague?

Surroundings matter: Make sure the learning environment sends the right message to the students (‘We take learning seriously and we expect you to learn’).

‘You are special!’: Try to make your students feel special; little things such as remembering special days or their interests can go a long way.

Explaining away: If a student has had a setback, find a plausible innocuous explanation so that they stop thinking about it. But if it is something positive, do not explain it away.

The Franklin principle: Get students to do things for you (and help you with class work etc). Cognitive dissonance means they will like you more.

Social proof: Telling students that their peers like something / do something regularly is far more effective than trying to persuade your class to do it. Use Social Proof!

Tease – then tell: Instead of directly giving students information, engage their curiosity by means of Qs / incomplete sentences / guessing games. Motivation will soar.

Social currency: Use interesting materials – things that your students will want to share with others (e.g. urprising facts, witty quotes, jokes, interesting clips etc.).

The spotlight effect: Performing in public can energise people, and boost their confidence and motivation – but for this to happen they need to be well prepared for the task.

The curse of knowledge: Do not assume that people have understood what you said or what they have to do. Check understanding and instructions.

Actions into beliefs: Get students to do ‘the right thing’; we assume that beliefs lead to actions but very often it is the other way round.

Last words: Alex is of course a fictional person, but if he existed I would advise him to go home and write a few things about the lesson in his diary. What went well? What difficulties were there? What could have been done better? What opportunities were missed? Of course, when something is fresh in our minds, we think we will easily remember it, but of course this is not the case. The faintest pencil can beat the best memory any day. Even Alex forgot he had promised his class a joke. But I didn’t; it was on my notes. Here it is. Enjoy! 🙂 ).

 

References

Ariely, D. ( 2010) The Upside of Irrationality. London HarperCollins

Berger, J. (2013) Contagious. London: Simon & Schuster

Berger, J. (2016) Invisible Influence. London: Simon & Schuster

Cialdini, R. (2001) Influence – Science and Practice. Massachusetts, Allyn & Bacon

Epley, N. (2014) Mindwise. London: Allen Lane

Heath, C. & Heath, D. (2008) Made to Stick. London: Random House

Lieberman, M. (2013) Social. Oxford, Oxford University Press

Martin, S., Goldstein, N., & Cialdini, R. (2014) The Small Big. London: Profile Books

Watkinson, M. (2013) The Ten Principles Behind Great Customer Experiences. London: Financial Times Publishing

Wilson, T. (2011) Redirect. London: Penguin Books

 

14 Tips on Classroom Management and Motivation [1]

Tags

Classroom Management, Motivation, psychology, story

An annotated lesson: This made-up story is meant to be an exercise. A chance for you to test yourself. Just read through it and try to see whether you agree with the teacher’s decisions / practices. There are at least 14 interesting points in this short narrative. Can you spot them? If you agree with what John did, can you say why? If you think he has made a mistake, why do you think so? What should he have done instead? [NB: This is not meant to be a model lesson nor is John a model teacher; rather it is a collection of interesting moments from a lesson which help illustrate some good and some not so good practices relating to Classroom Management and Student Motivation].

John’s story: John walked confidently into the classroom. He was feeling great. He was really looking forward to this lesson. As soon as he went in he noticed that Peter was absent. ‘Where is Peter?’ he asked his friend Mark. ‘Oh, he’s just sent me a message’ said Mark ‘He is on his way’. ‘I really like Peter’ said John ‘He is always so cheerful – he brightens up the classroom.’

Then John turned to the class. ‘Hello everybody’, he said. ‘OK – as you have seen, I have written on the board what we are going to do today. Now – have you all got your H/W? Great. I’m so glad you are not like last year’s C2 group… I’m telling you – it was a good day when half of them did anything….’

‘OK – as I recall, you had to write an ad for an imaginary product. Hope you came up with some funny ideas… Right – what are you doing there mate? (John turned to Paul who was busily messaging someone – Paul put it away) OK you collect your friends’ H/W and put everything on my desk – now!’ John said smilingly. Paul stood to attention and saluted ‘Yes, sir!’ he said with a grin and promptly did so.

‘Right’ said John ‘we are going to work on a mini presentation, because it’s one of the best ways to develop your speaking skills. OK – I want you to work in groups. Group A – Group B – Group C’. (John showed the students which group each of them belonged to). ‘Group A: Imagine someone asks you for advice on how they can practice their Listening skills on their own. Make a note of as many strategies as you can; Group B: do the same thing for Reading skills; Group C: do the same thing for Speaking skills. Off you go’.

John went around monitoring the groups as they worked, helping with language as necessary. At some point he noticed that Mary in Group B was chatting to her friend Kate in the L1, so he moved closer to their table. On the way he noticed that Mark in Group A was trying to get the others to divide up the work. ‘Well done Mark’ he commented. ‘You have great organizational skills’. Mark smiled.

The people in Group C seemed to have finished their list and they were already rehearsing. ‘Wow!’ John said looking at their list ‘who came up with all these points?’ ‘Jane’ said her friend Helen. ‘Jane, you are one of the brightest students I’ve ever had! Well done!’ Jane beamed.

‘OK’ he said. ‘ This is the idea. We’ll take turns. One member from each group will stand up and give some tips to the rest of the class. You have to give as many tips as you can and explain why these ideas are good. Time limit: 2 min. Members of the other groups – you have to make notes of the main points’. John checked his instructions and then gave them a demonstration.

‘OK’ John said ‘Who would like to start? What about you Paul?’ John knew Paul was a little shy. He patted him on the shoulder ‘I know you can do it’ he said.

When they had finished, John told the class: ‘OK – so today we have looked at different strategies which people can use to improve their English. What would you like to do as H/W?’ The class came up with lots of ideas – they eventually settled on a mini presentation with ideas for Writing Skills development. ‘OK’ he said. ‘Make a note of this. Now – how long is the presentation going to be? By when will you have finished it? Do you think you should write it down or work from notes? What if there are words  / phrases you don’t know? Please make notes now’.

‘OK – John said. That’s it for today. Don’t forget you are sitting a mock test on Friday. But I’m sure you are all going to do very well. Well, at least I hope you are going to do better than Greg – a guy from last year’s group. “I don’t think I deserved zero on this test!” He once told me; “I agree” I said “but that’s the lowest mark I could give you!” ’ The students laughed and left – they knew John had made this up; he always liked to end the lesson with a little joke….

Comments: There are a number of interesting points in this story. Some are obvious, some are less so and some are counterintuitive. All of them are research-based:

‘…he brightens up the classroom.’…: Positive gossiping is a great idea for getting people to like you. Peter is certainly going to hear about this and research shows that we feel closer to people who like us. Not only that, but through ‘spontaneous trait transference’ people tend to associate with us the positive qualities we attribute to others! (Wiseman 2010 – p. 57).

‘…I have written on the board.’…: According to Willingham (2009 – p. 65) most items in Teacher Evaluation Forms are redundant. There are essentially two dimensions: i) how likeable the teacher is and  ii) how organized the lesson is. By putting up the main ideas on the board, John has shown students that he knows what he is doing and has given them a sense of purpose.

‘…it was a good day … did anything’…: This is a blunder though. Numerous studies have shown that our actions are influenced more by what others (esp our peers) do and much less by what we should do. By saying such a thing, essentially John is telling the class that it is standard practice not to do H/W. He has just shot himself in the foot! (Levitt & Dubner 2014 – p. 116).

‘…what are you doing there mate?’…: Ooops another mistake; one of omission this time. John is trying to establish camaraderie by being informal (a good idea) but he fails to use the student’s name. Research shows that using people’s first names is astonishingly effective in attracting their attention and inducing compliance (Martin, Goldstein & Cialdini 2014 – pp. 34-35).

‘…put everything on my desk’…: A missed opportunity. The task sounds great – surely students have come up with some creative ideas. Why not put them up on the wall for all to see? Ariely and others have discovered that when we work on something and other people do not get to see it, this is seriously demotivating (Ariely 2010 – pp. 63-74). Never mind what Maslow says about ‘self actualisation’; we want our work to be appreciated. (Watch this clip).

‘…because … speaking skills’…: It sounds funny, but when asking people to do something (provided it is a minor thing), using the word ‘because’ makes the request appear purposeful and greatly increases compliance. People simply assume that you have a reason for saying such a thing – even if the reason you give is a silly one (‘I need to use the Xerox machine because I need to make some copies’). ‘Because’ works like magic! (Levine 2006, p. 149).

‘…someone asks you for advice … on their own’…: This is pure ju-jitsu. Incredibly, studies have shown that when arguing in favour or against something, we tend to be influenced by what we ourselves say – even if someone has asked us to do so! (Sommers 2013 – p. 157). Never mind language practice in class; John is hoping that by arguing in favour of these strategies, the students will come to adopt them themselves!

…so he moved closer to their table…: Mere physical proximity is a very powerful tool for maintaining discipline in class. Simply moving closer to the source of (anticipated) disturbance is often enough to deal with any misbehaviours. This was clearly demonstrated in the classic ‘obedience to authority’ study by Milgram. When the researcher was close to the ‘teacher’ compliance rates were much higher (Wren 1999 – p. 7).

…‘You have great organizational skills’…: This is very good practice. The idea is to catch your students doing something good, praise them and give them a positive personality label (‘You are so considerate / helpful / organised etc.’). People are vain creatures. When someone gives us such a label we like it and then we try to live up to it. The label acts like a self-fulfilling prophecy! (Abelson, Frey & Gregg 2004 – p. 169).

‘…one of the brightest students I’ve ever had…’: But this is a mistake – and a very common one too. Dweck has carried out numerous studies which demonstrate that praising intelligence leads to a ‘fixed mindset’ (‘You are either intelligent or not – so there is no point trying’). Instead, we should focus on praising effort and try to encourage a ‘growth mindset’ (Dweck 2007 – Watch this clip).

… He patted him on the shoulder…: This detail is easy to miss and yet touching is extremely potent. Psychologist N. Gueguen has conducted a great many experiments which show that lightly touching someone on the upper arm greatly increases compliance (Yeung 2011 – pp. 68-69). Not only that – as Dunbar notes, touching also generates positive feelings at a subconscious level (Dunbar 2010 – p. 63).

‘…What would you like to do as H/W?’ …: The idea here is to get students to come up with the suggestion that the teacher would like to make. Actually, it is not that difficult; in this case for instance, the H/W follows naturally from the course of the lesson. What is important is that we tend to value ideas a lot more when we feel we have come up with them ourselves (Ariely 2010 – ch. 4. Watch this clip).

‘…how long is this going to be? [etc] …’: Excellent. Setting goals is great, but there is no guarantee people are going to follow through. Scientists have discovered however that adding details to intentions helps enormously (Duhigg 2012 – p. 143). Getting people to think about how they are going to implement their plans makes the latter more salient in their minds and ‘smooths the path’ by making them aware of obstacles which might have caused them to give up.

… to end the lesson with a little joke …: This is extremely important. Some fascinating studies by D. Kahneman (2011 – ch. 35) have shown that when evaluating a past event, we do not work out some kind of ‘average rating’; instead our memory retrieves two salient points: ‘peak’ moments (good or bad) and how the experience ended. Rather than ‘fading out’, John chooses to end his lesson with a bang. And it is this that will colour the students’ memory of the whole experience. (Watch this clip).

The takeaways – 14 Tips:

Here are the 14 takeaways. But wait – before reading them, can you recall at least 8? How would you phrase the tips in your own words? [Reflection helps with retention – enormously! (Brown, Roediger & McDaniel, 2014 – p. 59)]

Positive gossiping: Say nice things about your students behind their back. Their classmates are bound to tell them and they will like you more.

A sense of purpose: Show students that you have prepared for your lesson and you know what you are doing. They will respect you more and they will learn more.

Social proof: Do not advertise undesirable behaviour (e.g. ‘People are always turning up late’). You are encouraging your students to do the same thing.

First names: Learn and use your students’ first names. We know it is important, but it is even more important than we think.

Making H/W public: Make students’ H/W public (esp if it is something creative). They will work harder and it is hugely motivating.

The magic word: …is not ‘please’ – it’s ‘because’! Use it often; i) your rationale may not be obvious and ii) the use of ‘because’ increases compliance rates.

Self-persuasion: Get students to argue in favour of desirable behaviours. They may think this is just practice, but in fact they will be influencing themselves!

Proximity: When you sense there is (or there might be) discipline problems in class, just move closer to the source of the trouble. It can be very effective.

Labelling: Catch your students doing something good and then label them positively. The label often acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Fixed mindsets: Avoid praising students for being intelligent. It leads to a ‘fixed mindset’ and it stops students from trying to get better.

Touching: Touch your students lightly. It can make them more amenable. (NB: I said touch them – not frisk them!)

The NIH bias: (NIH = ‘Not Invented Here’) If you want people to do something, get them to come up with the idea themselves.

Goal-setting: Get students to set goals for themselves and then get them to plan when, where and how they will accomplish them.

The peak-end effect: Make sure there is at least one memorable point during the lesson and if possible end on a high note. Do not just ‘fade out’.

Last words: I hope you found this exercise interesting. The idea is that the challenge plus the fact that these principles are woven together into a story will make all these points more memorable. Alas, I cannot take any credit for the idea; I pinched it (I’m sorry – I ‘creatively assimilated’ it) from Chabris & Simons 2010 – p. 229. I would be very interested in feedback as this is the first article of this kind I have written. Whatever you do, remember the last point. Save something nice for the end. It’s like dessert. Speaking of desserts, here is mine (just click here).

 

References

Abelson, R., Frey, K. & Gregg, A. (2004) Experiments With People. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

Ariely, D. ( 2010) The Upside of Irrationality. London HarperCollins

Brown, P., Roediger, H., McDaniel, M. (2014) Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. Cambridge Massachusetts. Belknap Harvard

Chabris, C. & Simons, D. (2010) The Invisible Gorilla. London: Harper Collins

Duhigg, C. (2012) The Power of Habit. London: Random House Books

Dunbar, R. (2010) How Many Friends does One Person Need? London: Faber & Faber 2010

Dweck, C. (2007) Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine Books

Kahneman, D. (2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow. London: Allen Lane

Levine, R. (2006) The Power of Persuasion. Oxford: Oneworld

Levitt, S. & Dubner, S. (2014) Think Like a Freak.  London: Allen Lane

Martin, S., Goldstein, N., & Cialdini, R. (2014) The Small Big. London: Profile Books

Sommers, S. (2013) Situations Matter. New York NY: Riverhead Books

Yeung, R. (2011) i is for Influence. London: Macmillan

Willingham, D. (2009) Why Don’t Students Like School?.  San Francisco, CA. Jossey-Bass

Wiseman, R. (2010) 59 Seconds. London: Pan Books

Wren, K. (1999) Social Influences. London: Routledge

The Effects of Expectations

Tags

Classroom Management, Expectations, Halo Effect, Motivation, Self-fulfilling Prophecy

“So it is (if you think so…)”

Fancy a pint? How would you like a glass of beer? It’s tasty, well-chilled, refreshing and, perhaps more importantly – free! (To quote Plato – ‘If you have to pay for your pleasure, then what kind of pleasure is that?’) In addition, you are also going to be given a choice! You can choose between beer A or beer B. Beer B, the ‘MIT brew’, is special and it contains a secret ingredient! You can taste them both and make your choice. Now think: would it make any difference if you knew in advance that this secret ingredient was in fact a drop of balsamic vinegar? Over to Professor Ariely now – just watch the video…

So what is the moral? Here it is: ‘Expectations Colour Experience’. How we perceive something depends on what we expect it to be like. And this doesn’t just have to do with food and drink…

How do we perceive people? Imagine you are a university student. You are waiting for the first session of ‘Introductory Economics 70’ to begin. Then somebody comes in and says that something has happened to the professor who normally teaches the course, so a stand-in instructor will deliver the lecture. The only thing is that, because the department would like some feedback, the students will be asked to fill in an evaluation form afterwards. By way of introduction, each student is given a slip of paper with some information about this lecturer. Naturally (as this was in fact a Psychology experiment – although students did not know it) there were two versions of this short bio. Here they are. Can you spot the difference?

A: “Mr Long is a graduate student in the Department of Economics and Social Science here at MIT. He has had three semesters of teaching experience in psychology at another college. This is his first semester teaching Ec 70. He is 26 years old, a veteran, and married. People who know him consider him to be a very warm person, industrious, critical, practical and determined”.

B: “Mr Long is a graduate student in the Department of Economics and Social Science here at MIT. He has had three semesters of teaching experience in psychology at another college. This is his first semester teaching Ec 70. He is 26 years old, a veteran, and married. People who know him consider him to be a rather cold person, industrious, critical, practical and determined”.

That’s right. The only difference is two words: ‘very warm’ as opposed to ‘rather cold’. Would that tiny detail make a difference? Of course it did. Students who had received bio A were much more positive in their evaluations later; they described the lecturer as ‘considerate’, ‘popular’ and ‘humorous’; it was as if the other students had seen a different person! They described him as ‘unsociable’, ‘irritable’ and ‘self-centred’. So much for independent thinking… 🙂  But that wasn’t all; this prejudice also affected the students’ level of participation. Among the former students two-thirds participated actively; among the latter, only one third made any contribution during the session! Apparently, two little words lost in a longish paragraph can nevertheless have a huge impact… Here is Professor Bloom explaining why this happens along with the very interesting concept of ‘Confirmation Bias’:

Expectations and ELT: So what does all this mean for teaching and ELT? It is clear then that as Professor Ariely says, very often what we expect to get is what we actually get. That means that we have a great tool at our disposal – we can influence students’ experiences before they happen! Here are four simple tips:

‘Sell’ your activities to your students: ‘And now, we are going to play an amazing game – this is one of my absolute favourites!’

Do NOT predispose your students negatively: ‘OK, I know most of you are not going to like this, but we have to do it because…’

Get your DOS or somebody else to ‘sell’ you to your new class: ‘OK guys, I am very proud to introduce you to Nick. Nick has …’ Do not do it yourself; research shows that it is far more persuasive if done by somebody else (have you noticed what happens before any speaker takes the podium in any great event? – see also: Goldstein, Martin & Cialdini 2007 – p. 81).

‘Sell’ your students to the next teacher: You may have the best intentions when you say ‘OK, Mary is a bit of a problem; she is weak and disruptive’ but in fact, this acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy (Rosenthal & Jacobson 1968). Instead, you can stress her positive points.

How about another drink? Expectations are extremely potent. In an unbelievable field experiment, students in a bar were given blue and red badges to wear on their wrists. Then they were given memory, reflexes and balance tests. Of course they did well as they were all sober. Towards the end of the evening, things were different however – people could remember less, their reflexes were slower and their sense of balance impaired. It was the same for both groups. The only thing is – unbeknownst to them, the blue group had been drinking non-alcoholic drinks throughout the evening! Yet they were just as ‘drunk’ as the others… 🙂 (Wiseman 2010 – p. 199).

 

 

References

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

Lee, L., Frederick, S. & Ariely, D. (2006) “Try it, You’ll Like It: The Influence of Expectations, Consumption and Revelation on Preferences for Beer” Psychological Science 17(12):1054-8.

Kelley, H. H. (1950) “The Warm-Cold Variable in First Impressions of Persons” Journal of Personality, 18, 431-439.

Rosenthal, R.; Jacobson, L. 1968. Pygmalion in the classroom. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Wiseman, R. “59 Seconds” Pan Books 2010