Can Laziness be a Motivator?
A few years ago, something deep inside me began questioning the basis for what I was doing in my classroom. My primary focus was Year 12 at the time, but it felt like I was doing little more than explaining and facilitating a textbook or worksheet. Now Year 12 can be a bit like that, you have deadlines to meet, the curriculum is crowded so there is a lot of content to get through. Even so, I did a bit of soul searching and concluded that I was more or less teaching the way I was taught, but adding my own flair to it. Now before I sound too ungrateful or ignorant, is there anything wrong with the way I was taught? Obviously not. The way I was taught helped me learn a second language and instilled a love of languages - and for this I owe all my teachers a huge debt of gratitude. I’ve had a moderate amount of success with the way I taught too, not to mention had a lot of great classes and students who seemed to like what I was doing.
I think all of us add ‘value’ to whatever method we use and some teachers absolutely thrive at developing original work for their classrooms, things like worksheets, booklets and fun games etc. I tried to do this for a few years when I first started teaching, but a part of the ‘crisis’ I was having was that this approach felt a bit like an ‘arms race’. I got sick of constantly seeking out resources (this is where the laziness part comes in) - I got sick of scouring, copying, printing, bookmarking, saving, ordering, downloading etc. You know how time-poor we can be, especially in the beginning years. If I could see something to help me on a topic, I was getting it. Again, this might just be a me-problem, not something anyone else experiences. You might be sitting there thinking, “well tough, that’s teaching” and you’re probably right too.
Whenever we hit a new topic, I had resources but I almost always sought out more. This all eventually helped me narrow down the question which was growing in my mind - what exactly was the basis for language learning was in my classroom? Because it was beginning to feel like my theoretical underpinning was going through textbooks, developing worksheets, thinking up tidbits about a topic and laminating small pieces of paper at 10 o’clock at night. Speaking of topics, they seemed to present their own problems as well since most of them were so dry. Even the “interesting” ones weren’t what I’d call compelling. You know the topics I’m talking about, the same topics (I assume) that are fixtures in basically every modern language textbook ever - Unit 1: This is ME! Unit 2: Meet my Family, Unit 3: My AMAZING Week!, Unit 4: TIME TO EAT! etc. Everything I wanted for my students seemed to be locked away behind years of these topics and mountains of vocabulary. Not to mention I felt locked into teaching some words and structures, regardless of their merit, as they would constantly pop up throughout the materials (I realize this is beginning to sound like an extremely long sales pitch, relax, its not).
I knew of some second language teaching theories from university, but they largely just remained “theories”, like I’d heard of people approaching language in different ways, but my experiences were limited. I’d applied more general educational theories in the classroom, but these felt like the answer to a different question. I tried studying up on the theories inside and outside of university, but whenever I broached the topic, the books I found seemed to focus on historical approaches and only offer broad theories on how it is done in modern teaching. Perhaps in my panic-induced, sleep-deprived state (I had a young kid at the time), in my attempts at study I simply missed or misinterpreted the information I was seeking. I really wanted to see what else was out there, something felt off, like a splinter in my mind. (BTW, in no way am I implying I am Neo, I can assure you I am the most average of people. This is just a setup)
Morpheus knew something was up though
At this point you may be wondering how ‘laziness’ comes into all this. It was in the title and I seem to only mention the things I’ve done, rather than not done. Well I was absolutely done investing any more time and energy into the way I was teaching, I was (and still am) far too lazy to keep up with that. For me, it felt laborious but not progressive (does that make any sense?). Not to mention, and I think this is the major point I want to make, so I’m gonna make it stand out:
I knew exactly when and how my students were going to progress and it was too slow of a burn. While the results were good, I knew it would take years and years of these topics to gain even the most basic of mastery. And even at the end of schooling, after the HSC/final exams, I couldn’t guarantee genuine fluency in my students.
That was a hard pill to swallow (get it?). I think at this point I arrived fashionably-late into something Krashen (2018) calls The 40 Years’ War. A war where everyone wins and nobody dies. Between building up student skills, by drilling vocabulary and structures, interacting with various texts, roleplays, games and listening tasks until the students learn them all. And another way, where students “picked up” the language, internalize it without studying the language directly. I’m lucky in that I feel like my school had programs which were/are quite progressive, walking a line between.
Oversimplification warning (I will warn people earlier next time): In a skill-building approach, students get to “ride the bike”, but only after they are effectively explained the mechanics of bike riding, like the picture below.
I came across this image when I first started down my rabbit hole, sorry I can’t remember where I found it. I have a strong feeling it is attributed to Dr. Terry Waltz though.
The other way, gets your students to sit on the bike, provides them training wheels (comprehension? sorry the wheels are falling off this analogy already), then you give them a push and they are riding. Riding bikes is FUN and it isn’t as scary when you have training wheels (I feel like a Ten Pin Bowling analogy might have worked here too somehow). Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with doing both or either and I imagine some courses utilize a combination of more than one approach.
There is a slim/remote/outside chance that this idea that I’m talking about may have some real ramifications based on the NSW Modern Languages K-10 2024. I was perusing the the NESA website trying to find out some more background information on the Syllabus when I saw this line written in the “Whole school considerations section”, it says:
While the second dot point is fairly clear, don’t teach about a language. What do they class as ‘teach about’ though? Since they’re talking about it at a school-wide level, I’m going to assume it is addressing those unfortunate schools which don’t have a qualified language teacher and they have a substitute filling the lessons as best they can. I suspect it is and it will likely be something clarified in a future training day (or may not even get a mention because I’m overanalyzing), but I find it an interesting inclusion.
Returning to what I was taking about, I decided about 5 years ago that I wanted to try and get the students on their bikes as much as possible - They could just ride with training wheels, I didn’t want to delay gratification. I went down a pretty deep rabbit hole and eventually I found something I liked to do, write weird little stories. I liked to see if I could lure my students into the story, scare them a little or make them laugh and in no way did any part of it feel like work - this is where the real ‘laziness’ part comes in. The whole process just seemed easier for everyone involved, it had less setup for me and less demands on the student, then eventually more dynamic output from the students and a warm fuzzy feeling for me the teacher.
A corny interpretation of you and your future students, perhaps.
So, for all the bike lovers out there, whoever you are, the training wheels are courtesy of Dr. Beniko Mason and her Story-listening technique.
