Four encounters that changed my teachingUniversidad de Sevilla 13th December 2014

The Inner Workbench:

Making learning moves visible

Adrian Underhill

demandhighelt.wordpress.com

adrianpronchart.wordpress.com

Outer and inner processes

Much of what happens in classrooms involves external, observable activity.

Such activity may or may not indicate learning

However learning is essentially an internal process

Teachers need to work with the internal as well as the external

To challenge internally we need to get inside –

This is the purpose of The Inner Workbench

Inner processes

We need to get into the world of the:

•Inner hearing•Inner speaking•Inner seeing (visualising)•Inner muscles•Also inner taste and inner sense of smell

•And the inner world of assembling, testing and rehearsing utterances

Mental arithmeticAs an example: Did you practice Mental Arithmetic at school?

This relies on and develops an internal process

Teachers can choose to explore that inner process or ignore it

We cannot directly see the inner moves. We have to make them visible.

This opens a whole new world of resources

Before and after muscles…

With language, the inner moves are amplified into outer moves through the movement of muscles that create sound, intonation, expression and gesture

So there is the world of inner language “before muscles”

…. the inner voice.

And the world of outer language “after muscles”

… the private voice and public voice

Practice without moving

Musicians and athletes make use of these two worlds all the time….The inner world in which they rehearse and prepare internally without moving a muscle

And the outer world where they work out and perform externally

Violinists may practise a piece without moving… seeing and hearing the notes with only the mind’s eye and the mind’s ear, thus activating the inner (neural) fingers without moving the outer fingers.

And the language classroom?Problem: our classroom methodology demands the Public Voice from the beginning. And processing in the Inner Voice loses out.

Research by Brian Tomlinson shows that L2 learners did not use the Inner Voice and if they did, and let it out as their Private Voice for experimenting and rehearsing the language, they ran the risk of being corrected.

Without the Inner Voice in L2 we cannot self regulate…

The IWB is not new, we use it all the time

But it would be new to study it, talk about it, and integrate it in our methodology and learning

Here is a game to illustrate:

You know this game

But I am changing the rules

The winner is not “how many you get right…”

But to win you have to …

Notice what you are doing internally while you play

Inner Workbench Activities 1

Hear a sound/word/phrase ONCE only

Then LISTEN to it INSIDE

Then SAY it aloud with the Outer Voice

Inner Workbench Activities 2

Hear a sound/word/phrase ONCE

Then LISTEN to it INSIDE

Then SAY it INSIDE

Then SAY it EXTERNALLY

Inner Workbench Activities 3

Now you say it inside AND then outside

You have a COMPARISON

How can this be helpful to the learner?

Inner Workbench Activities 4

Let’s do the same with another language

Hear once, listen several times internally…

Inner Workbench 5

Now recall a friend who speaks English well …

With your inner ear, listen to her/him speaking English …

Now choose a friend who does NOT speak English well

With your inner ear, listen to her/him speaking English…

Get your students to find personal ‘hero –speakers’ of English, movie stars, musicians, celebs etc . Need not be native speakers, and get students to hear, in their ‘mind’s ear’ the voices of these people speaking English. To establish an inner reference

Inner Workbench 6

Now I’ll say some more words once only, and you listen many times internally…

How many syllables?

How many sounds?

How many letters?

Where is the stress?

Inner Workbench 7

Count the sounds in these words….

What do you have to do… in order to do that?

IWB Activities 8

Scanning a text for a sound….

What do you do inside when you do this?

The Farmer and the Sky Women…

In the dark hour before dawn golden ropes dropped down from the stars, and sky women climbed down into the field and began to milk the cows.

As they filled their bowls they returned to the ropes and climbed elegantly back into the sky.

In spite of pinching himself repeatedly, incredulity prevented the farmer from running out from behind his rock and saving even the last of his precious milk.

Inner Workbench 9

Listen to this sentence:

How many words?

Highest pitch?

Lowest pitch?

Main stress?

Inner Workbench 10

Use the Inner Workbench when students prepare answers to questions

Compose and rehearse in the inner ear and inner voice, before speaking aloud

Give a clear instruction and give time…

Students improve fluency, reduce mistakes, invest in their creation

Inner Workbench 11

The Cake Shop experience….

you’ve been to this shop…!!

Inner Workbench 12

Compose a TRUE sentence of exactly 5 words.

It must be true for you now. Don’t write it down

Prepare and rehearse it inside.

Now say it aloud, delightfully!

Now rehearse your sentence in the following way …

Inner Workbench 13

How would you like to say it?

What tone, voice, meaning, feeling? Where are

the stresses, join the words, what intonation?

Practice it like that internally

Now say it aloud

IWB Activities 14

Take the same sentence…

Try this sequence: Inner ear inner voice mime it whisper say aloud

Now do the same in REVERSE

Inner Workbench Activities 15

The COURSE BOOK DIALOGUE:

BEFORE you listen, CONSRUCT the dialogue using the tapescript, in your inner ear

Link the words, add stress, intonation, mood, make it ENGLISH!

NOW listen to the recording: How does your inner version differ from external the recording?

Inner Workbench 16

Take a word your students MISSPELL

See it written in your mind’s eye

Imagine a pen in your hand.

Without moving a muscle, write the word with

your ‘mind’s pen’ and see it in your ‘mind’s eye’

Now, put the ‘mind’s pen’ in your other ’mind’s hand’

Write it again. Does it feel different?

Inner Workbench Activities 17

After a dictation

What was your best mistake?

Now INTERVIEW your best mistake:

“Hi mistake, where did you come from?

“How did you get here?”

“Will you come again?” etc

Tell the story of that mistake to the class

Inner Workbench Summary

1.SINGLE MODEL PLUS HUSH

2.PREPARE, REHEARSE, UPGRADE

3.INNER DRILL

4.SPELLING, GRAMMAR, VOCAB, PRON

Notes:

Allow time for inner responses and processing.

Requires some silence

Four encounters that changed my teachingUniversidad de Sevilla 11th December 2014

Thank you!The Inner Workbench: Making learning moves visible

Adrian Underhill

demandhighelt.wordpress.comadrianpronchart.wordpress.com