ELT News Think Tank

This Month's Think Tank Panel

Marc Helgesen

Curtis Kelly

Peter Viney

Chris Hunt

Chuck Sandy

Panelists: Marc | Curtis | Peter | Chris | Chuck
Date: June 2005

Topic: "Can we teach our students to be happy? "

Peter Viney

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Happiness, Happiness
The greatest gift
that I possess
I thank the Lord
that I've been blessed
with more than my share
of happiness …

That was a hit record in Britain in the 60s for British comedian Ken Dodd, and ever afterwards he finished his stage show with a rendition of it. As a student, I spent an entire summer working on the Ken Dodd show, twice nightly. I did limelights for most of it, and later moved backstage, where one of my jobs was to escort Ken Dodd through the dark backstage area, up steps then down a staircase to enter for his finale after the rest of the cast had taken their bows … Happiness. He was so hyped up with his show that he fired jokes at me non-stop in the three or four minutes we were waiting, and he never told me the same one twice. Then on he ran, complete with tickling stick, a large feather duster, (This'll make you laugh, missus) to sing Happiness with a glowing smile.

I found it profoundly depressing, and still do. Being told that you've got to be happy is a gloomy thing. I would say however that watching a very popular comedian deliver the same lines twice every night successfully is a study in timing, pausing and assessing the audience that beats any course on communication skills or presentation I've ever attended.

“Fun is easier to incorporate in lessons than happiness, which I'd define as a more profound and gentler state.”

But let's look at happiness in the context of an ELT classroom, and I'm not going to take this at a deep or philosophical level. Happiness isn't necessarily the same as having fun, something I think is vital. Fun is easier to incorporate in lessons than happiness, which I'd define as a more profound and gentler state.

I disagree with Curtis on learning tension, because learning tension can be both fun and productive. My granddaughter is under two, and loves nursery rhymes. She also loves filling in words ­ she can't recite the whole things yet. Her favourite is Baa Baa Black Sheep, and she quivers from head to foot with excitement waiting to deliver the words "little boy" in the gap I leave before "lives down the lane." That is 'learning tension' and if activities are conducted with the right pauses and timing … back to our comedian … by holding the cue before you select a student to answer a question or respond to a drill cue, then you can see that little quiver of anticipation in adult students too. That tiny pause is the most effective technique of all. The little quiver from students (will I be selected?) is a fun quiver in a relaxed non-judgmental classroom, though it is a close relation of the genuine quiver of fear I felt in my English schooldays with harsh, condemning teachers.

The second is worry or stress, but the difference is not so much the degree of stress, aka learning tension, but the attitude of the teacher. My teachers were condemnatory and hostile, and that's what happens when you're teaching something you don't believe in. The jolliest classes with the happiest teacher will dissolve into gloom if you're plowing through tedious exam preparation. Following the last Think Tank, there was discussion on how you teach two full-length authentic set books a year (see the Message Board). The prospect immediately fills me with gloom. You have to have faith in what you're teaching to communicate it to the students.

Take competitive activities. Some say that competition is harmful to classroom atmosphere, because there are always losers. In an ELT context, too often the same people win and the same people lose. So while competition might motivate the winners, it demotivates the losers. This is a widespread argument. However, all over the world people compete in team games and competitions because they find that the tension, the quiver of anticipation, is fun, stimulating and exciting. So that is something you take on board. What you do is to vary the activities so that competition is only part of what goes on, and you vary the competitions so that the same people don't always win. In recent books, I've always incorporated lessons on the English of Math(s) with oral puzzles on math logic. I find it pleasing that the people who can do the maths well are often those who are weaker in English. It shifts the pecking order.

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