[Teachldsseminary] CHAT: Article 'Less Teacher Talking, More Student Learnin'

[fvanroosmalen@gmail.com]

This is an article I found at:
http://www.tre.byu.edu/rel_ed_back_issues.htm, volume 6, #3, year 2005. It
is very interesting to read what this teacher learned during teaching
seminary to a Spanish speaking class, while she only knew a little about
Spanish.
 
Francisca, in the Netherlands.
 
 
Less Teacher Talking,More Student Learnin 
Kathy K. Clayton is a seminary and institute teacher in Buenos Aires,
Argentina, where she is serving with her husband, Elder L. Whitney Clayton
of the Seventy. 
 
Responding to a whim that I should have recognized as inspiration, I studied
Spanish intermittently at the Missionary Training Center for several
leisurely months in 2002. Because of an assignment my husband received in
the spring of that year, he and I and our fifteen-year-old son moved to
Argentina in August. Many of the English-speaking expatriates living and
working in Buenos Aires had left because of a recent economic crisis,
leaving our new post with only occasional North Americans scattered around
the seventeen-million-person metropolis. I immediately wished I had paid
better attention in the Spanish classes. 
 
I quickly found an able language tutor and began the arduous trek toward
linguistic proficiency, this time engaging in my studies with anxious
motivation. My humble but still daunting goal was simple survival in the
marketplace and some remote possibility of connection with the
non-English-speaking people surrounding me. A few days after we arrived,
with my husband away on assignment, our teenaged son and I navigated the
several blocks through our big-city neighborhood to the local chapel to
attend Sunday meetings, which happened to be stake conference. Surrounded by
handsome locals, we struggled to make sense of even a single phrase in the
fast-paced discourse. Seeking to find something of fun in our predicament, I
handed our displaced son a paper and pencil and offered to pay him a peso
for every ten words he could write and define from the mostly unintelligible
Spanish talks and prayers. At the end of two hours and with some desperate
teamwork, I owed him five pesos. We were in trouble. 
 
In spite of my best effort and eager pleas for a quick dose of the gift of
tongues, the Spanish came too slowly to my stubborn, half-century-old brain
tissue. I watched the more agile language acquisition of our teenaged son
with admiration and envy. Ah, to be fifteen again. Armed with a deep desire
to render myself a more useful contributor than I could be without the
ability to communicate more fluently, I continued to plead for heavenly
help. In January, after we had been in Argentina for only five months, I
received my answer. 
 
When the local Church Education director, Brother Curbelo, telephoned to ask
if he could stop by to speak with me, I thought little of it. We often
received visitors from the Church. I greeted him with the Spanish
pleasantries I had dutifully memorized and then sat down to do my best to
manage something of an appropriate conversation that didn’t require much
language production from me. A busy man, he didn’t expect long chitchat but
rather promptly got to the point. “Hermana Clayton,” he said, “after
prayerful consideration, we would like to extend to you the call to serve as
the early-morning seminary teacher for the ten youth residing in our
Belgrano Ward. The class meets every morning at 6 a.m. beginning on the
first day of school in March and continues until summer vacation in
November. Will you accept the calling?” My Spanish was limited, but I
nonetheless knew enough to offer an honest and spontaneous response: “¡No me
diga!” which essentially means, “You’ve got to be kidding!” He wasn’t. 
 
Resisting reason, I accepted. I had taught early-morning seminary for seven
years in California before moving to Argentina, so I was familiar with the
curriculum. I knew I had relied on discussing scriptures, telling stories,
sharing personal experiences, and other language-dependent activities to
engage students and promote learning. My skimpy Spanish would certainly
preclude the possibility of a comparable style of teaching, but I believe in
miracles and I don’t believe in refusing callings, so I responded with a
trusting but bewildered “yes.” A full year later, I learned that even the
bishop had felt uneasy about having the calling extended. In bishopric
meeting, he had asked all three members of the bishopric to write the names
of three people they thought might be legitimate to teach the seminary
class. The next week, the three men shared their names. All three had
written my name as number one. Bewildered, the bishop hesitated, saying,
“But she doesn’t speak Spanish!” The men continued the quest another week,
only to return with the same impression, so they extended the call. I’m sure
they were fearful for me and undoubtedly at least a little worried about the
spiritual growth of those ten youth, but they were eager to follow the
prompting they had received. 
 
During the next month, I memorized Spanish phrases, studied interminable
verb conjugations, clumsily read Spanish scriptures aloud, and prayed
mightily that this leap of faith would qualify me for the heavenly help I so
desperately sought. I pled that those faithful students would have by March
a teacher whose own deficiencies wouldn’t compromise their right to learn. I
didn’t want my barely emerging Spanish to become the focus of our hour. I
desired to be a useful tool, not a language-learning service project for
them. 
 
I have learned again and again that nothing we make available to the Lord
goes to waste. Whatever measure of competence or learning we offer for His
glory will surely be well employed. Before moving to Argentina, I had
completed a master’s degree in California in educational linguistic
development. The degree was designed to enable teachers to work more
successfully with non-Englishspeaking students. I had mistakenly assumed I
would use that learning to teach the multilanguage students who comprised
our California classrooms. Ironically, the material from that class became
the stuff of my preparation as I taught seminary in my own second language.
I was not employing the techniques to assist English-language learners;
rather, I was employing those techniques to enable myself as a
Spanish-language learner to work with my own limited language proficiency. 
 
The strategies included techniques that reinforced learning without
depending on sophisticated language fluency. In other words, I avoided
extensive teacher presentation and depended instead on student-centered
activities. My original motivation had been to eliminate my own need to
offer something I couldn’t—namely, a coherent lecture. In the process of
avoiding my own glaring weakness, however, I observed students rising to the
occasion to take more responsibility for their own learning as they made
greater contributions in class. I learned to prepare lessons that required
more participation and presentation by the students and much less
teacher-focused instruction. 
 
Among the strategies I found valuable were student journals. My own
unmistakable limitation caused me to depend more often and more quickly on
the masterfully expressed words of the prophets than I had previously done.
To supplement my Spanish, I regularly typed beautiful quotations from the
prophets and apostles then created short writing assignments to encourage
students to apply the concepts found in the quotations and the scriptures in
their own lives. The activities I prepared in advance and inserted in their
journals typically required about ten minutes to complete. They included
things like scripture analysis, such as comparing the sacrifice of Abraham
with Isaac to the sacrifice of the Father with Jesus, or tracing the fall of
David and recording the decisions he had made and the results of each.
During a portion of another lesson, the students completed a page in their
journals. The activity asked them to do a step-by-step analysis of the
solutions Moses found when he felt inadequate in his calling as prophet. I
listened to those ten Argentine students share their newfound insights in
dealing with feelings of inadequacy and lapses in confidence. As they shared
their understanding of Moses’s triumph over his deficiencies, I recognized a
pattern for myself. We all rejoiced and were edified together. 
 
Additionally, because I had no comfort zone to leave, I was happy to
experiment with diverse teaching strategies. We regularly enjoyed student
role plays, debates, and interviews. Those imaginative Argentine young
people committed themselves with the energetic gusto characteristic of their
culture as they played the parts of heroes and villains. The lessons of the
scriptures came to life via their dramatic demonstrations of the results of
both good and bad choices. I suspect that none of us will forget the
immensity of Goliath after having hurled imported North American
marshmallows at a life-sized cutout of that fearsome foe. The students
expressed spontaneous gratitude for the more manageable size of their
personal opponents. 
 
My motivation to find alternatives to my own inability to lecture prompted
me to research carefully the audiovisual resources of the Church. For
students to discuss and apply, short clips from general conference talks and
CES satellite broadcasts provided dependable sources of relevant, eloquent
counsel from Church leaders. Occasionally, a simple illustration from the
familiar Gospel Art Picture Kit became a beginning point for a student
activity wherein each member of the class assumed the role of one of the
people shown in the picture. Consistent with their assumed characters,
students answered questions about the part they had played in the scene, the
reasons for and results of their actions, and the impact their behavior had
had on others in the story. By adopting the role of someone other than
themselves, they understood the stories more intimately and from different
points of view. 
 
Because I teach seminary around the dining-room table in our apartment, I
originally had none of the standard classroom equipment in place to use for
visual aids. I promptly obtained a white board and easel that became an
extension of and supplementation to my own voice. I invested in every color
of white-board marker made in Argentina and then used them all lavishly to
prepare what became colorful outlines and activities for each morning’s
lesson. Those varied diagrams served as prompts for me and visuals for the
students. Class members filled in missing words to complete thoughts, drew
lines to connect similar concepts, decoded riddles to capture their
attention, and answered puzzling questions to make application. I have found
that all students, no matter what their age, like to draw on the board; and
occasionally, a student who is particularly artistic can achieve recognition
he or she would not otherwise receive. Lorenzo, a new member of the Church
who had difficulty reading, was a natural artist. His contributions to our
white board secured him an important place of respect among his new peers.
Additionally, those students who were visual learners learned more
comfortably with the help of the written aids. On our walls and furniture,
we posted word strips and displayed pictures, including photos of the
students themselves, to brighten the environment and supplement the
learning. 
 
My language immaturity was a constant reminder of my dependence on the
students for help with the instruction. I had no false sense of confidence
in my having all the answers or even possessing the ability to express well
the ones I did have. In a quest for class participation, I was motivated to
prepare the questions with much thought and prayer I hoped would encourage
the students’ genuine contribution to the learning. As they recognized my
honest need for their thoughtful participation, they rose ably to the
occasion and offered customized insights I would not have known how to
present in any language. 
 
Although I had expected my limited Spanish to minimize my ability to connect
with my class, my efforts to learn their language became an unexpected bond
between the students and me. Those teenagers, like teenagers anywhere, were
regularly amused by my errors, and they delighted in offering corrections
that were always a benefit to me. On one occasion, as I sought to initiate a
discussion of section 45 in the Doctrine and Covenants, I referred
repeatedly and with enthusiasm to “la Segunda Vista,” which translates to
something nonsensical like “the Second Sight.” With a characteristic twinkle
in his eye, Gonzalo, or Toti for short, interrupted. “Hermana, I think you
mean la Segunda Venida [the Second Coming].” He was right. I may have lost
something of the momentum of my presentation, but I gained a connection with
those students, who were amused by the obvious imperfections of their North
American teacher. I learned much from those young friends about creating a
house of learning as I received correction. We were unmistakably all
teachers and all learners in that class. 
 
Because of my imperfect Spanish, I had to listen more attentively to the
students’ questions and comments to be sure I had understood them as they
had meant them to be understood. I was less likely to jump to conclusions,
put words in their mouths, or listen casually to their comments than I might
otherwise have been. As a result, I understood with greater clarity the
things they expressed. They accommodated my learning by thinking through
what they desired to communicate, thereby clarifying their thoughts even to
themselves. I understood concepts more thoroughly and heard more subtleties
than I would have had I not been obligated to listen with profound
attention. 
 
Most important of all, because of my own unquestionable deficiencies, I
learned to depend daily and sincerely on heavenly help. I presumed no
ability to succeed without the assistance of the Spirit as my constant
companion. I trusted in the certain love of the Lord for those deserving
students, and I pled with earnest desire for essential supplementation to my
humble efforts that I might be able to reflect the Lord’s love and not
detract from it. Even as my Spanish has improved and my desperation has
subsided, my commitment to the student-centered strategies I employed has
persisted. I finished that first year of teaching seminary in Spanish, then
completed a second year, and am anticipating with gratitude a third. 
 
Ironically, my inability to speak fluent and voluminous Spanish became the
springboard for my learning to teach without depending on long teacher
lectures as the default mode of instruction. As I turned more to the
students and the Spirit as the essential participants in the class, I became
much more “the guide on the side” rather than “the sage on the stage.” We
were all instructed. 
 
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