ELT News Think Tank

This Month's Think Tank Panel

Marc Helgesen

Peter Viney

Chris Hunt

Panelists: Marc | Peter | Chris
Date: January 2004

Topic: "What are some proverbs that you live and teach by?"

Marc Helgesen

It's the new year. A good time, perhaps, to reflect on our own teaching and some of the beliefs behind it. Often, our beliefs are summed up in metaphors and stories. Are these proverbs or clichés? I don't know. It probably has something to do with how often we really think them through. And how often we actually act on them.

“Sometimes, especially when teaching beginners, we forget how much our students really do know.”

Like a lot of people, I keep a few proverbs and quotations posted where I will see them often. Some people use their refrigerator door. I used to know a guy who posted words of wisdom in his toilet ("Time to reflect," he explained). I keep mine over my computer.

In this column, I'd like to share a few of them with you.

"Students always know more than they think they know.
Students always know much more than the teacher thinks they know."
- Caleb Gattegno

That's important, I think. Sometimes, especially when teaching beginners, we forget how much our students really do know. They really are "whole people." I need to ask myself, every day, how I can incorporate their ideas and experiences in the lesson. What I can do in the classroom to respect them. It's got to be ongoing.

"We are what we pretend to be,
so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."
- Kurt Vonnegut

This says a lot about self-fulfilling prophecies. I try to keep it in mind for my students as well as myself. How often do I remind my students that they are making progress? How often do I point out that they are doing great? How often do I thank them for the way they are working together and helping each other.

I learned the Vonnegut quote from Tim Murphey. He also taught me a great way to use it in class. Dictate the quote to the students. Then try an "experiment" to see if it is true or not. Have the students mentally repeat the sentence "The world is a dangerous place." over and over to themselves for about a minute. They pretend/imagine it is true. They might want to close their eyes as they do this. Then they open their eyes and look around. They see what they notice.

Then have them silently repeat "The world is a safe, wonderful place." for a minute. They pretend it is true. Then they look around and see what they notice this time. It is good to have them discuss what they noticed. Of course, the world (or even the classroom) hadn't really changed much. The self-talk changed their feelings and what they noticed.

I'm sure a lot of authors have this biblical quote on their walls:

"Of the making of many books, there is no end."
- Ecclesiastes 12:12

At one level, of course, it is the positive, optimistic idea that we can keep writing and writing and writing. At the same time, many of us have been on at least one project where the quote seems to refer to a single book - the one that takes forever to get right. So you keep writing and writing and writing...

And even if you are not a writer, the book you are using is not finished. Your own way of modifying it - adapting the book to make it match your particular teaching situation and students, changing it to make it "your" book and not the author's. Those are all parts of creating the finished product. A key, perhaps, is to get that materials are never about the materials themselves. They are about the learners who interact with the lessons and with each other.

A couple of the quotes are less than serious: What reading teacher would disagree with this?

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
- Groucho Marx

And who hasn't shared Lily's feeling:

"Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain."
- Lily Tomlin

And then there's the red and gold badge proclaiming "To resist cultural imperialism is glorious" stuck next to a Hard Rock Café - Beijing pin.

We teach in Japan. As an ex-pat, there are a couple ideas I try to remember:

"No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place."
- Zen proverb

That may be especially meaningful for a Tohoku resident. The other quote talks to life's stresses. That could be a given class, your job, faculty meetings or just being in a different culture.

"You can't stop the waves,
but you can learn to surf."
- Jon Kabet Zinn

As a teacher, a lot of what I need to do is to continue to grow, evolve, change. Change my classroom routines. Try new things. Do old things differently.

And where do those ideas come from?

"Creative thinking may mean simply the realization that there is no particular virtue in doing things the way they have always been done."
- Rudolf Flesch

That's worth a think. Why do we spend so much of life - in the classroom and out - on autopilot? Why not try change -- just for the sake of change? Of course, spontaneous changes can be helpful and interesting, but I guess I am thinking more of planned change. Actually analysing what we usually do and planning and implementing something different. The analysis of our classes lets us go deeper. Something interesting about trying new things even with the familiar activities and routines that work well is that you actually learn about how and why you usually do things by changing them. That, if we are lucky, can lead to understanding. Sure, new ideas don't always work (if they do, we probably aren't trying changes with much depth). Which reminds me of something I came across in a temple in Thailand years ago:

"Our wisdom comes from our experiences
and our experiences come from our foolishness."
- Buddhist proverb

Finally, something I try to keep in mind whenever I see my students:

"The best things in life aren't things."
- Art Buckwald

Panelists: Marc | Peter | Chris

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Marc Helgesen, Miyagi Gakuin Women's College

Co-author of English Firsthand and Active Listening

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