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The first lesson of any course sets the tone for the whole class. The
students size up the teacher and make assumptions about his/her
approachability, flexibility and personality. After 45 minutes of technical
details on the course, the students have identified the technical specifications
of the teacher, often correctly.
Unfortunately, the process is a bit one-way. The teacher is focused on
presenting an organized and comprehensive description of the course and providing
the relevant information. In the first hour, at minimum, the students sit
quietly and politely, with maybe a few questions from the more confident ones among
them. In practice, the teacher knows absolutely nothing about the students
except their names. They are literally a sea of faces.
I teach English to first-year engineering students from all departments
at the Braude School of Engineering in Karmiel, Israel. I have more than 30
years of experience and have learned that, regardless of the students’ age,
which in my case ranges from 18-30, learners that feel some connection with the
teacher try harder and have a greater chance to succeed.
Our task schedule is rather tight, especially with the war-shortened
semesters this year, in terms of the amount of material to be covered as we aim
to teach four skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. Notwithstanding
this pressure, I choose to dedicate the second 45-minute period of the first
lesson to student self-introduction, which can take 30-40 minutes with a class
of 30 students. I ask each student to state their name, what type of
engineering they are studying, where they are from and something that makes
them special, such as a hobby, skill or achievement. I always pose a short
question after each introduction regarding some matter about which I am
curious. I am aware that this activity is at the expense of a formal learning
experience, e.g., articles and sentence structure, but I do not regret this
choice as both the teacher and students receive far more benefit.
My benefits include:
1. It
slightly increases the chance I will remember their names although I tell them
on the first lesson that I tend not to retain names (unless the students has a
“special” personality or the name and face seem to match perfectly).
2. More
importantly, I catch of a sense of who they are in those few sentences,
including their level of confidence and skill, emotional state and general
personality.
3. I
quickly learn to appreciate and respect them as adults as I discover their
amazing achievement as such an early age. I have had students that won awards
in numerous sports, founded businesses and, in general, achieved more than I
would have thought possible in such a short time as an adult. I may know more
English than they do but they are far more talented than me in other areas. It
teaches healthy humility.
The students also benefit:
1. They discover the other students, especially
the ones outside their department.
2. They begin the process of believing
that that they can orally express themselves coherently in English. Granted, it
is a small step towards the final large presentation before the class. However,
for many, especially the more timid among them, this success leads to more
confidence.
3. It allows them to express themselves
as adult individuals and see how unique and talented they are. Chronical age
and emotional age are far from identical. By being treating as an adult, they
tend to take responsible for their actions, one of the key elements in
effective learning.
For these reasons, I invest 45 minutes of class time to get to know my
students, however slightly, as individuals. Learning is an activity that
involves two parties, a teacher and a student, not merely a distant figure
talking to the air. We are not alone, neither students or teachers, in this
process. It is for teachers, who have the power to set the tone, to create the
connection.
* Picture captions help the blind access the Internet.
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