Working in Movement

On Paying Attention to Noticing is an article in a Japanese newspaper that presents one teacher's approach to instructing students in a second language. In this case, it's English and the students are Japanese. The approach is similar one used in movement education. That is, rather than focusing on the nitty-gritty mechanics of a skill or unfamiliar movement pattern, the student is encouraged to try things out and learn from them. It is in trying things out that the client or student "notices" things in context that probably wouldn't be as apparent in taking a more mechanical approach to the learning.

The ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher offers his students an English language-based task to write out. Then, without correction from the teacher, the students informally compare what they have written with other students. In these low pressure situations, students often learn a surprising amount, often taking in the subtleties of English in a way that would be difficult from traditional instructional methods. From the article:

On a sheet of paper, several categories such as name, hometown, working history, English experience, travel experience, family and clubs will be written. Next to each category heading, students have to make a related question which later becomes the basis for interviews with fellow students. By starting this assignment without any presentation phase, the students are forced to think about what a correct or meaningful question would be in each case.

For example, should "Hometown" be "Where do you come from?" or "Where did you come from?" For "Travel experience" is it better to ask "Have you x?" or "Have you ever x?" After the students write their initial questions individually, they then check their questions in groups and in Japanese, knowing that they had better come up with accurate English forms since they will be using them in a spoken interview, the product, later.[Mike Guest writing in the Daily Yomiuri On Line]

I've often wondered how the type of learning offered in movement education could be extended to other environments. Guest presents an intriguing (and promising) approach to learning a non-native language as an adult. Wish this sort of thing had been available during my school days.