Review- Challenging Children

Challenging Children
Delta Publishing
Henk van Oort

There are two things that I find you need an almost limitless supply of to keep teaching kids over the months and years- energy and new teaching ideas. One day a book will tell me how to keep up my supply of the former (for which I will be very grateful) but in the meantime here is another book that aims to keep me well stocked in the latter- this time a book of ‘imaginative activities to inspire young learners’.

The activities in this book are drawn from the 40 years experience that the author has in primary teaching. There are around 100 ideas divided into sections on Listening and Speaking, Reading and Writing and Vocabulary. Many of the ideas seem to be strongly influenced by the author’s experience of teaching classes for highly gifted children, as the title of the book vaguely suggests (although the publishers try to not make this too clear- probably so as not to put off anyone who could possibly be tempted to buy the book, an old publishing trick). The author’s connection with Pilgrims also suggests the influence of Humanistic English teaching, which does come out in some of the activities as well as the organisation of the book. Perhaps because of this influence, the amount of theory in the book is minimal, even in the three page introduction. The theory there is is summarized as Movement, Memory, Imitation and Rapport, which is unlikely to be new or very debatable for any teacher with much experience and/ or training with this age group. This lack of theory does mean that you are left free to get down to looking at the activities as soon as possible and decide for yourself what you think about them, but means you are unlikely to be prompted to try anything you don’t like the look of or feel you don’t understand the reasoning behind. It can also leave a feeling that the knowledge you are gaining is not a building block to a new level of teaching knowledge, but rather something you learn, use up and need a new one the next day.

Perhaps again reflecting a ‘touchy-feely’ approach to language teaching, the activities in the book are also not overly strict and organized and there is certainly room for a little creative chaos in the classroom in most of them (something I have always equally feared and admired). The same is somewhat true of the book, where inside each section the activities are only organised in alphabetical order rather than by sub-skill, level etc.
For example, Listening and Speaking starts with Birthday Calendar, where students and teacher make and speak about said calendar in a somewhat random but very open ended way. The focus is ‘Formulating questions and answers’, the timing is ’10 minutes’ but could clearly be much longer, the materials are only ’12 sheets of paper’ and the rationale is the rather vague one of ‘motivation’. There is suggested language for you and the students, although some of this seems a bit high level for a ‘one owl’ (low level) activity. Many of these factors are quite typical of the book- the quite freewheeling classroom interactions based around personal interactions rather than physical objects, not very clear cut timings and levels, minimal materials and preparation, and ambitious plans for what the teacher and students will be able to achieve.

At the end of Listening and Speaking we have ‘Who touched me?’ This is unusual for the book in having quite limited language (Did you touch me?) but takes a typically broad and imaginative approach to language development, seeing students listening to each other walking along the floor as a way of improving listening comprehension for language development. Reading and Writing starts with A Please Get in Touch Letter and ends with Words from a Jar (coming up with words with the number of letters of the total of two thrown dice). The Vocabulary section starts with Abbreviations (puzzle style ones such as 8 l. on a s. meaning eight legs on a spider) and ends with Words in a Box (making drilling fun by involving a magic wand).

Having no high level primary-age classes and not being convinced that a less-structured approach could work with classes where most of the language needs presenting first and some students use any lack of structure as a chance to ignore English altogether, I found that neither opening the book at random, flicking through it or starting at the beginning and reading through was likely to quickly come up with an idea that I could use at it stood. I did, though, find things that reminded me of activities I hadn’t used for a long time or that formed some random connection in my brain and helped me to think up another seemingly unconnected idea. Although it was very hit and miss, 5 to 15 minutes spent with this book once every couple of days did help me come up with more new ideas.

While this ‘recipes’ approach to language teaching is not so popular nowadays and perhaps demands rather a lot of the teacher, there certainly is a possible justification for letting the teachers and students create the syllabus, language, mood, timing etc. themselves rather than setting those things in stone. The fact that books with that idea have not changed much since the eighties can be seen as a sign that these truths are universal and the underlying approach does not need to change any quicker than human personalities are changing (kind of a Humanistic English Teaching as Shakespeare theory). Personally, though, I think teaching has moved on. We are now at a point where children listening to footsteps as a way of improving listening comprehension does not need to either accepted or rejected depending on the opinions of authors or individual teachers, as the relevance of it could be quickly examined by an experiment or two. That does not mean that we have come full circle and are back to a point where a scientific theory (like a new version of behaviourism) is going to decide everything we do in the classroom, it simply means that by having a more scientific and experimental attitude to what we do in class we can discuss teaching in a way that at least holds out the hope of deciding which things are better rather than all things being equal, however much such conclusions might depend on particular situations. If this book is (as it appears to be but the publishers seem loath to tell us clearly) a book on teaching particularly talented and demanding students, there must be lots of research from English teaching and general primary school teaching on what methods have worked best all over the world. While none of the that research might turn out to be directly relevant to my own classes, I personally would be much more likely to take notice of it and be inspired by it than by any book that is based on one approach or one person’s experience- especially when that person has a clear ideological bent that means they are unlikely to say anything that surprises me.

I would recommend this book to anyone who uses a good number of activities inspired by Humanistic Language Teaching (e.g. from books by Mario Rinvolucri, acknowledged in this book) in their adult classes and are looking for ways to bring a similar approach into their young learner classes. It might also be useful for primary school teachers who have read about Humanistic English teaching in their theoretical studies of English teaching and are wanting to give it a try. If either of these groups have classes needing more of a challenge, this book should suit them all the better. For the rest of us, I think the extra time needed to read a book based more clearly on recent research and/ or with a clearer aim and approach would be well worth the effort.
Review originally published in Modern English Teacher magazine. Republished with permission.

(C) Alex Case/ Modern English Publishing