Paying attention to the process

Each new course begins with certain objectives.Sometimes, there is an examination at the end, which needs to be passed.The examination may be an internal one or one set by a national or international body.Sometimes, the goal is to reach a particular level in classwork and term tests.On other occasions, the objective is more precise like the presentation of a paper or speech, the satisfactory participation in a conference or knowledge of and competence in the use of language for travelling or an aspect of one’s job.

Having goals are great motivators but they can play against learning in some cases and achieving them can be more urgent than being aware of the knowledge and learning that we acquire on the way.For this reason, it is useful to focus our students’ attention on both the objectives and the process of learning to get there.

I (Jamie) recently gave a questionnaire to my training college students concerning their attitudes towards learning and their expectations for the year.It was very interesting to notice that in the class there are a number of students who study or teach forms of dance and that the responses of these students included comments on the process of learning.A couple of them made a comparison between the process of learning dance and that of learning English and highlighted the fact that how they learn dance helps them in the study of English.Points they mentioned were that learning never ends, that there is always something to work on, that a lot of practice is necessary, that learning includes the whole body.It was stated in a matter of fact, almost positive way.There was no desperate cry of “When will we have learnt English?!!!”Learning was regarded as part of their lives in the same way as dancing and that was a good thing.There is no stopping point.This approach seems to be a very functional one as it directs our mind to what we are doing at every step along the way and not only to the finished product, the certificate or the stamp.Learning is more than just collecting passport stamps for countries and saying “I’ve been to Belgium, here’s the stamp”.What happened to you in Belgium, how you felt there, what you did and learnt there is as important or even more important if we want to have a really rich experience of life.By considering process, we are adding a great layer to our experience, which is fuller than the rather behaviouristic practice of collecting pieces of paper or stamps, of doing what is necessary to pass the exam but then forgetting it all as it is no longer necessary.By noticinghow we learn, we learn about ourselves, how we process information, how we handle instructions, how we transform what is in wordsinto our minds and bodies.We can then use this knowledge to learn more fluently in the future.

Learners of body skills like dancing, martial arts, sports or gymnastics know that many skills and techniques are not acquired overnight.They require practice and polishing.A new dance sequence can take hours if not days of work.We also need to warm up before we start so that our muscles are flexible enough to make the moves in a relaxed way.If we do not practise a routine for a while, we need to revisit it so as to remember all the steps.It is natural to get rusty, but if we have learned it relatively thoroughly in the first place, it will always be there for us and we can get back to top performance quickly.

We now know that intellectual skills are also learnt both by mind and body.The more completely we manage this, the better we incorporate the skill or material.

Michael Papworth recently offered his summary of learning to the SEAL e-group.He divided learning into three sections: Factual knowledge: the material, the data, etc. Understanding, which involves understanding how facts relate to each other and are interdependent and Skill, using knowledge and understanding to solve problems or create new learning.We can often meet our year´s objectives by knowing the facts well, but to really have and keep that knowledge with us we need the second and third elements.These elements encourage us to look beyond the what and notice thehow and it is in this way that we really learn.

Being able to detect the process in any activity or learning is increasingly becoming the skillwe need for the future, so it is well worth raising our students awareness of this now.

Ó Laura Szmuch and Jamie Duncan 2003