The Silent or Sleeping Learners: A Challenge to Teacher Development

The following is a study conducted by an English language teacher who has six years of experience teaching in an engineering college and three decades in an Arts and Science college at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels prior to that. The engineering classroom mentioned consists of sixty students with varying levels of competence in English. While a few of them enter college from highly sophisticated systems of school education, many of them are village-born-and-bred with only a smattering knowledge of English words and short utterances to their credit. How these learners passed their Plus 2 examination is a matter that astonishes every observer. Many of these learners have had their education in their regional medium and hence coping with the textbooks and the instructions offered in English is a serious obstacle for them as a result of which they prefer to sleep or be silent in the class. It is a fact, as Chaudron observes in Second Language Classrooms: Research on Teaching and Learning, that Asian students are reserved and reticent than their Western counterparts in general.

Why are the learners silent or asleep in the class? The above-mentioned teacher analyzes that the students are ‘de-activated.’ De-activated by what?

1. Their incompetence in the language.2. The fear of being ridiculed by their friends.3. The teacher humiliating them in front of others.

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The first group admitted that it is not possible for them to express in English as they have been educated in their regional medium. They wish to speak but words refuse to come out as they desire. So they prefer to be silent. Some of these learners are conscious of their ego. They don’t want to expose their incompetence in front of their friends or girl friends or boy friends. A survey was conducted and twenty per cent of them said they don’t wish to show their classmates their incapacity to speak. To quote just two low-proficiency learners: “Ma’am, I Tamil medium. Very worst English. Ma’am, I like English talking but no talking, ma’am. Please, I’m sorry (sic).” Another said, “My girl friend looking and looking. How, ma’am? My friends also looking how bad of me, ma’am (sic).” Yet another student said, “I’m good all subjects. Only English problem (sic).” The focus here is on students who are particularly weak in English.

Those learners de-activated by friends had valid points to make. They spoke about how their friends mocked them when they are questioned by the teacher. As soon as the teacher calls out a slow performer’s name, the other students know that he is not able to answer, and start giggling. When no answer is forthcoming, the teacher naturally repeats the question. The students giggle all the more. If the teacher waits for an answer, the enjoyment of the whole class is enhanced. As proof of this a low-proficiency student’s analogy is quoted, “My teacher asking questions. I no answer. Students laughing more. I a frog in snake’s mouth. Teacher is snake I think. I very fear snake teacher” (sic).

Sad to say, the de-activating process is often caused by

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the teacher who is supposed to activate the learners. A teacher’s partiality towards the brighter students is considered a reason for being de-activated. The class felt that a teacher knows beforehand that he won’t get an expected answer from a slow learner. And yet the teacher ventures to question him perhaps to slight him. “Why should he?” asked a brilliant student of a mechanical class. When the teacher gets no answer, he immediately asks the same question to a bright student who surely answers it. The teacher not only congratulates him but also stares at the slow performer as though meaning to say, “See! You idiot! What are you here for?”

Another more serious problem pointed out by the learners was that the teacher’s English was not comprehensible to them. Some teachers are so sophisticated or pretend to be sophisticated that when they speak, they cannot be understood. To put it in the words of a student who referred to his male teacher, “She speaking, I hearing snake sound” (sic). The lavish use of fricative sounds in English is perhaps the snake in the story. Another student opined, “My teacher very very fast, like super fast, limited stop” (sic). Yet another learner told this researcher, “I is Telegu medium. My language very sweet. English, very fearful language. Teacher’s English no good. I not understand” (sic). These comments by students may tickle English teachers but there’s no gainsaying the fact that teachers too create problems for the learners by their inability to speak loudly, incorrect use of grammar, harshness in the tone of speech, etc. thus hindering audibility, comprehension and a pleasing manner of

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articulation.“What are the methods used to activate the de-

activated learners?” was taken up by the researching teacher who came up with a five-fold solution: (1) Initiating a relaxed teacher-taught relationship in and out of the classroom. (2) Designing a game activity by which all students are made to participate. (3) Conducting small study-circles in the class to find answer to questions. (4) Asking students’ opinion for a question for which there is no right answer. (5) Adopting a ‘live-and-let-live’ attitude towards the learners.

1. Initiating a relaxed teacher-taught relationship.For a relaxed atmosphere, there should be a reasonably-strong teacher-taught relationship. Attempting a good relationship can be tried by every teacher in the following manner: (a) Learning the names of all learners and their characteristics. (b) Discussing the feelings and problems of a few of them. (c) Praising the work done with appropriate words and gestures. (d) Finding out their family details if they wish to speak about it. (e) Discovering their weak subjects. (f) Speaking about their ambition. The researching teacher made a particularly enthusiastic beginning one academic year by introducing herself to the class, narrating her experiences with students over the years. She says that batch jelled with her so well that she could make them perform to her satisfaction. This is a rare skill and should be tried cautiously.

2. Designing a game for all students to participate in groups.One of the teachers gave a list of numbers and asked students

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to find out the reason for giving the following numbers in that particular order:

88 11 54 45 97 79 62 26The students were expected to discuss for ten minutes in English and arrive at a group answer and an individual answer. The competitive spirit of the students was activated and the students of each group were found wracking their brains to excel the other groups. Then each group ascended the platform to give their group answer and also their individual answers which was the same in many cases but different in certain cases. Finally the teacher declared the winning group. Later the students said that standing in a semi-circle facing the class was in itself a matter of pride for them. Those shy ones also appeared confident in the group. The teacher noted that the low-proficiency speakers of English came out with broken sentences to prove their point to surpass their rival groups. Usually competitiveness generates fear or “debilitating anxiety” as Bailey records it (69). But experience has also proved otherwise. Instead of fear, it instills a kind of enthusiasm. As a result the students indulge in a competition to express themselves. The advantage of this method is that students are not aware that the activity is a method to expose their speaking skill. Unawares they struggle for the solution of the problem given.

3. Conducting study-circles to find out the answer to questions in their text.Students can be allotted time to sit in circles and do a difficult exercise. When the time given is over, one of them in each group gives the answer. The advantage here is that the leader

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who gives the answer is not afraid of doing it because it is not his personal answer but that of the group. Subsequently, the other groups ask him questions. If the leader is unable to answer their queries, he is supported by his group members. In this situation, there is an added benefit. All the group members get a chance to speak.

4. Asking students’ opinion for a question for which there is no right answer.Students should be activated to respond to questions for which there is no answer, or the teacher does not have an answer. If they are told that there is no right answer and that each student’s feeling is his answer, they are excited. The researching teacher asked the students of her class at the fag end of the period, “Who do you think will win the next Assembly Elections?” The result was that even those who could not speak were inspired to give their views. The son of an MLA who belongs to the Opposition Party was more vociferous than the teacher could ever imagine. “You see ma’am. I guarantee ------- will win,” he said. He was proved right. Even if he were proved wrong, the teacher should be happy that she could provoke the student to speak in English, and the student happier that he could speak in English.

5. Adopting a ‘live-and-let-live’ attitude towards the learners.

This teacher used to spend 5 to 10 minutes of the 50-minute period for asking questions based on the previous day’s portion. Students are reluctant to give the answers for several reasons: they don’t know the answer; they know the answer

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but are unable to express; they know the answer but don’t want to show off in front of their friends for they would call them ‘bandha;’ they have a fear whether they are right; if they are wrong, their friends would mock them; their girl friends would have no respect for them; etc. If the teacher gives more time for them to think of an answer, it may not be possible for them to answer because all the above-stated reasons continue to be the same for the next few minutes too. Moreover, if the teacher waits for an answer from a student, all eyes are fixed on him for making a fool of himself and wasting the time of the teacher and the students. Moreover a student who is given more waiting-time by the teacher for an answer is so disgraced that he decides not to attend that teacher’s class any more.

Activating a de-activated learner in the classroom can be done by planning a no-anxiety-classroom situation. A bright student who is weak in English suggests that the teacher should not: Frighten him by his questions or comments. Shoot a question at him unexpectedly. Make him uncomfortable in the class. Ask a question for which he does not know the answer. Force him to give an answer. Mock him if his answer is wrong.Allwright and Bailey are also of opinion that students are unwilling to talk because of their lack of confidence, and so these researchers are against forcing students to participate when they are not ready (144). Price ascertains that students are obsessed with the fear of making mistakes when they

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speak (105). The following are some tips to activate the slow learners?”

Understand that learners are afraid of teachers; hence, it takes time to wipe out their fear; no miracle can happen overnight.

Generate a friendly atmosphere for students to feel free to express themselves.

Realize that their problem is not incompetence or de-motivation but shyness and fear. e.g. “I very shy, ma’am” (sic).

Let them be what they are, express what they can, and gradually they can be activated.

Be patient with them.

Works Cited

Allwright, D. and K. M. Bailey. Focus on the Language Classrooms: An Introduction to Classroom Research for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Bailey, K. M. “Competitiveness and Anxiety in Second Language Learning: Looking at and through Diary Studies” in Classroom: Oriented Research in Second Language Acquisition. Rowley, MA: Newbury House, 1983.Chaudron, C. Second Language Classrooms: Research on Teaching and Learning. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.Price, M. “The Subjective Experience of Foreign Language Anxiety: Interviews with Highly Anxious Students,” in Language Anxiety – From Theory and Research to Classrooms

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Implications. Ed. E. Horwitz and D. Young. New York: Prentice Hall, 1991.

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