Adrian Underhill - The psychological atmosphere we create in our classrooms
Adrian works with
educators in many countries on professional learning,
humanistic education, interpersonal skills and storytelling in
organisational development. He is consultant and coach in leadership
development, and Training Consultant to the International Teacher Training
Institute at Embassy CES in Hastings UK (which offers specialist courses to
English Language teachers throughout the world).
Adrian is editor of the Macmillan Teacher Development Series of handbooks
for teachers and author of Sound Foundations: Living Phonology. Currently
he is vice-president of the International Association for Teachers of
English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL) and founder of the IATEFL Teacher
Development Group.
The psychological atmosphere we create in our classrooms
It has been said that "we teach what we are" or even that "we teach what is
going on in us at the moment" ( Postman, N. and Weingartner, C. Teaching
as a Subversive Activity. Penguin Books 1969). These provocative
statements seem to suggest that the way we are in our classes, the way we
feel, think and behave while teaching, can have an effect on our learners
every bit as important as the materials and techniques we use and the
syllabus that guides us.
Many teachers that I have worked with feel that this is possibly the case,
yet that their training courses, practicums, and teaching literature have
neither investigated these areas nor even recognised that such areas could
be investigated. This in turn makes it difficult for teachers to formulate
or articulate their often strong subjective impressions that their own
mood, attitudes and personal presence have a more profound effect on the
quality of learning that takes place in their classes than the techniques
and materials they use.
During pre- and in-service training courses I sometimes ask my trainees to
reflect on the teachers they themselves had when they were at school, and
especially to reflect on the ones they had found to be either outstandingly
good or outstandingly bad (from their own point of view). I ask them what
they felt were the key characteristics of those teachers and how they had
typically felt when working with them. The answers to these questions
usually have as much to do with personal and interpersonal variables (such
as warmth, respect, understanding, etc) as with technical variables (such
as teaching techniques, methodology, training background, knowledge of
topic, etc). Learners seem to know their teachers as much by the
atmosphere they create as by their name, appearance, age, or topic.
These informal impressions are in broad agreement with my own classroom
observations of hundreds of experienced and less experienced teachers. And
similar conclusions seem to be reached by teacher trainer colleagues I talk
to in almost any part of the world. The case can be summarised as follows:
Two similar lesson plans, both competent and appropriate, at the same level
and using the same materials, taught by two different teachers using the
same kinds of techniques, can have a quite different outcome. And the
variable seems to be the psychological learning atmosphere that is created
by that teacher, that also seems to be an extension of that teacher. It's
as if the learning atmosphere created by a teacher is as unique as their
own signature, and that whatever they do in the class the atmosphere is
going to be broadly similar.
Perhaps what I have said so far is nothing new, but the tacit conclusion
that the teaching profession arrives at is that all these variables are a
matter of the "teacher's personality", that personality is fixed and
unchangeable, and that there is little we can do about it except to offset
its effects with "personality proof" materials, techniques and curricula.
What perhaps is new, and there are many others saying this apart from
myself, is that these personal and interpersonal factors are not fixed,
that they can be brought to awareness, observed, talked about, reflected
on, practised and improved significantly. The only reason they appear to be
fixed is that trainers do not see them as part of the training syllabus,
that trainers themselves may lack these skills, or lack the confidence to
help others develop them.
I suggest that warmth and genuineness can be practised as much as can
dealing with errors, that empathy can be practised as much as can managing
task-based activities, and that negotiating with classes can be developed
as easily as can giving instructions All these things are susceptible to
change once illuminated by light of awareness.
These are some of the areas that I work on when helping teachers to develop
a more facilitative learning atmosphere in their classes: The quality of
their own listening; the quality of their own speaking; their attitude to
mistakes (both their own and their students'); their attitudes towards
themselves and towards their learners; and the politics of their
classrooms, that is their use of power and their willingness to share it
where appropriate and possible.
Here are some powerful self-observation questions that I have found very
helpful in my own development:
People not pupils
Can I interact with class members as people rather than as pupils, and can
I be more fully myself while also being a teacher? Can I listen not only to
the language produced by a student but also to the person behind that
language?
Faith in their ability
Am I willing to behave at least "as if" I have faith in their unbounded
abilities to learn, create, retain, explore? Can I value, and show that I
value, each person's effort as they make it, thereby encouraging them, not
with praise, but with a genuine and interested attention? Instead of
trying to please them can I make the conditions in which they begin to
please themselves?
Let go of "anxious helpfulness"
Can I be more concise and succinct in my speaking, reducing my torrential
prattle, leaving slightly longer pauses, and letting go of that anxious
helpfulness that can characterize teaching? After all, how helpful is my
help? The more I do what the learners could do for themselves, the more I
rob them of what they need to do.
Sharing power
Am I willing to share power where appropriate by inviting learners to
participate in discussion and decision-making about what is studied and how
it is studied? In granting their right to make decisions about things that
affect them can I also grant them the right to make wrong decisions? Or
can I only allow them to make the decisions I favour?
The good climate for giving and receiving feedback
Am I willing to listen, without needing to defend myself, to what they say
about their learning and what they think of the way I help them? Can I
regularly ask questions like: "How are you getting on? What would you like
to do differently? What could make our activities more memorable?" At
first they may not offer much since they are not used to such questions,
but can I show that I am willing to value whatever they do say, and
demonstrate that I too am a learner who is willing to take feedback into
account.
Raising self-esteem
Since we learn better when we are feeling OK about ourselves, can I try to
create a relationship between myself and the group in which they feel more
positive towards themselves, in which they feel recognised and secure, and
in which they can enjoy getting to know themselves as learners? And to
facilitate this am I willing to undertake the lifelong project of learning
to feel more OK with myself?
Relaxed alertness
Can I let go of unhelpful muscular and emotional tension in myself? Can I
be less anxious about the outcome of the lesson and more able to be "with"
what is happening right in front of me? Can I be less carried away by my
expectations, and spend less energy wishing certain things to happen, (eg I
wish you would hurry up, I hope you are going to be correct, etc).
Curiosity, playfulness, delight
Can I find it in me to respond to classroom events in a spontaneous rather
than a routine way? Can I be intrigued and curious about what may happen,
and then delighted by what does happen - whatever it is? Can I be a
student of learning even as I am teaching?
Gentle healthy humour
I don't want to be funny, or to make jokes that cover unease and cheapen
the atmosphere, but I do want to be open to the gentle, natural and helpful
humour that seems to bubble up when engagement increases and anxieties drop
away. Such humour may or may not be expressed by laughter, but it brings an
unmistakable lightness and can transform a lesson into a living event. How
can I relate to myself, and then to the class, in a way that will allow
this?
Adrian Underhill November 2001
If you are interested in Adrian’s work on pronunciation,
try this web address:
http://langue.hyper.chubu.ac.jp/jalt/pub/tlt/96/sept/pron.html