Aspects of organisation

We found that organisational aspects took up vital lesson time. The first thing that had to be done to prepare for the group discussion in Exercise 2 was that the desks had to be moved around to facilitate the discussion. The learners normally sit in individual desks in rows in both classes. This is a practice in all the classes in the school to aid the teachers in maintaining control in the large classes. A few years earlier many teachers in our school had the desks in their classrooms arranged in various ways which promoted a more cooperative learning approach. However, when the number of learners they had to accommodate increased as a result of the increased learner to teacher ratio, all of them put the desks in their classrooms in rows again. Consequently, learners are not optimally seated for group work in order to maximise their learning experiences (3.7.3).

Moving the desks took between 5 and 10 minutes because the learners also had to decide whom they wanted in their particular groups. Moving the desks back again also took up time. Clearly management issues could usefully be included in the teacher’s book. Teachers have to take account of aspects like these in deciding what can be done within a certain period of time. Because the learners had not been in the school that long, we (the two teachers teaching the two classes) were reluctant to place learners in groups ourselves for the first few activities. When dealing with groups, we found that learners can object strongly to having to work with particular learners.

In both classes we were able to monitor learner discussion in groups by walking around the class as unobtrusively as possible. We found that this took up quite a bit of the teachers’ time when group work was in progress because groups would ask questions. Sometimes we had to carefully balance the need to monitor with the requests for help from some of the groups. In our reflections after the classes we frequently identified class management issues, such as the time it took to move the desks for group work and motivating some learners to take part in group work. Sometimes whole groups had to be monitored to ensure that they actually concentrated on the group assignments. We both felt that we lacked the necessary expertise to get the learners to work effectively in groups and to be more independent. In addition, material did not suggest ways of ensuring maximum learner

participation and the encouragement of learner accountability to complete the task in hand. Thus, unless learners are given clear instructions and set clear goals, much time will be wasted in the classroom. This loss of time will be aggravated, especially if the teacher is going to pace the activity according to the most reluctant learners.

One of the tenets of OBE is that learners should be able to work at their own pace (3.4). In the case of this module, no provision is made for this. I use two examples, the comprehension activity in Exercise 1 and the degrees of comparison exercises (Exercises 7 and 8), to support my point. Both teachers observed that the rate of progress differed greatly within the class. Some learners took 15 minutes to answer the 5 questions, while the fastest learners had finished the exercise in under five minutes. The differences in learner pace were again noticeable when dealing with degrees of comparison. At this point in the module some learners were not very interested in the exercises and one learner in my class just stared into space, the exercises forgotten, seemingly because of lack of interest. It is likely that at least some of the learners – especially those who progress more quickly – are aware that there is no need to give immediate attention to the work, since they will have ample time to finish.

As is clear from the above, the teacher’s book needs to take account of the organisational implications of particular activities and the need to create a classroom environment that is conducive to learner participation and the achievement of the relevant outcomes.

5.2.3 The role of the teacher

It has been noted that not only does the teacher have a greatly changed role in Curriculum 2005, (s)he also has a greatly varied one (3.7.2). What is particularly noteworthy here is that the teacher has to create the conditions in which the learner can complete the tasks and activities which will lead to the necessary knowledge and skills (Olivier 1998: 29). In order to do this, the teacher must analyse the needs of the learners, facilitate language learning events in the classroom, organise resources and at the same time be a resource, a counsellor and a group process manager (Richards and Rodgers 2005: 167). The teacher is thus “an active member of the learning community rather than an expert passing on knowledge” (Richards and Rodgers 2005: 110). Furthermore, the teacher “looks out for teachable moments” in preference to teaching a precisely predetermined script (Richards and Rodgers 2005: 110). The teacher will therefore spend quite a bit of time moving around the classroom, helping groups or individual learners as the need arises (Richards and Rodgers 2005: 199) and promoting interaction (3.7.2).

Of the exercises and activities in the module with specific instructions, five involve the teacher explaining or interacting with the whole class, seven involve activities in which the learners must supply the answers on their own, two are activities in which learners cooperate in pairs and two are explicitly group activities, all followed by teacher feedback. The rest comprise grammar exercises and no instruction is given as to whether they are to be discussed by the whole class, in pairs or in groups. Had the instructions contained in the teacher’s edition of the module been followed to the letter, most of the time in the classroom would have been spent with the teacher either explaining language structures or doing the grammar exercises in a whole class situation.

Right at the end of the module, however, there is what is arguably the most successful set of activities in the module. Not only are the activities (map reading, plotting a route by means of a listening exercise and a writing assignment) skilfully linked, but many possibilities for other linked and scaffolded activities and exercises are suggested, affording the teacher the role that CLT and Curriculum 2005 seem to require.

Learners need to employ various strategies while engaged in language learning (2.5) and teachers have to make provision for developing these strategies when devising tasks and assignments, and also while implementing these tasks and assignments in the classroom. Material also has to provide opportunities for learners to use their learning strategies. The successful learners have to be guided to become even more successful and the less effective learners will have to be carefully guided to become more successful. Ways will have to be devised so that less effective learners are encouraged to make more use of the strategies employed by more successful learners. Carefully devised and skilfully linked and scaffolded tasks and assignments would seem to be especially important in this regard (Carter and Nunan 2001: 226; Macaro 2001: 175; WCED 2000a: 25, 27)

It is, however, not just the changed role of the teacher that language learning material has to provide for. The role of the learner has also changed.