If you want to know what Demand High is (and isn’t) – read the original explanatory front page here: https://demandhighelt.wordpress.com/what-is-demand-high/
Where Are We Now?
We’ve been quiet on this blog and Facebook for a while. But our inquiry (and our tea-drinking) has continued while we have been running Demand High seminars and workshops in many countries. This has given us feedback and experience to integrate and build on.
So … Where is DH now? Here’s a quick overview of DH to date (January 2015).
Phase One
We launched the Demand High meme at IATEFL in March 2012. We argued that communicative language teaching had painted itself into a corner, encouraging a lot of “fun” and familiar ritualised activity types, work groupings and materials but with limited apparent engagement with the “dirty” part of dealing with language and learning, and so on. We suggested ways of dealing with these issues, but people kept saying: “OK, this is interesting – but what can we DO?”
Phase Two
In our workshops we started to offer a wider range of focussed practical chalk-face techniques, examples and guidance. Yet even when we did this we found it challenging to capture the essence of DH in a way that was demonstrable in conference plenaries or one hour workshops, because what we were talking about was a facet of live teaching that is by definition hard to catch.
Phase Three
So now we are wondering. Can we formulate something more concrete and accessible for classroom teachers? Something that teachers, can, if they wish, read about and then take into class and try? Not just a set of raw ideas but detailed guidelines for teaching.
So this is where we are now (perhaps)…
• Demand High is the meme – the raw idea that we can ask more of our students, that we can challenge them and base our teaching around going where the learning is, working at each individual’s learning edge. We still encourage every teacher to experiment with that simple but challenging starting point in their own contexts with their own students.
• Alongside that we are now intend to develop something we will provisionally call Learning-Centred Teaching – (yes, learning) a set of clearly-stated ideas and concrete practical classroom techniques that teachers can read and experiment with.
Over the coming months, please read, join in and help us find out where this is going and whether it’s useful.
Demand High ELT 
Hi Adrian and Jim,
Have you considered the impact of learner motivation on achievement of potential? Dornyei’s concept of Future-Self Guides suggests we focus overtly on our learners’ individual goals, and incorporate this into our course content and everyday teaching. If this increases motivation then it also increases success, and allows teachers to have higher expectations in terms of learner performance.
What do you think?
Steve
I agree with you Steve. In my opinion, DH is the thing a teacher needs to bear in mind whenever possible to teach, we can push certain students step forward; However for those who need to build up their confidence, they certainly need more encouragement, so motivation is more important.
I’m stepping into a classroom tomorrow for the first time post maternity leave and was searching for something to read to give me a liitle boost. I found it here this morning! This blog is just what I needed. Thanks for a really great read guys. I look forward to reading more 🙂
Kylie
I am quite interested in this concept as you have described it. A variety of reliable approaches in the classroom helps ensure the greatest amount of learning; therefore I am eager to hear more about Demand High. I’ll be reading! Ryan
Jim Scrivener, you’ve been with me all these 9 years in this business. Yours was the first book I reached for as a teacher trainee and I benefited greatly from it. Now this web blog! I’m excited and as someone always trying to go the extra mile to make “it” happen for my students, I’ll be keeping in touch with this great concept page. Let the lions rage. Thanks big time!!!! Janek, Czech Republic
I think this is something I would like to explore in Young Learner Pedagogy, now that there has been a shift away towards engaging our YLs in activities with linguistic validity. It falls in line with Krashen’s i+1 principle and Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development. I can’t wait to learn more about how to demand high.
I’m giving a presentation on demand high for YL at the international house YL conference next week and ill be sending a copy of everything to Jim to share on here if he wishes 🙂
Kylie Malinowska
Hi Kylie and everyone,
I wondered if you’d given the presentation you mention in your post above yet. At the moment, I’m doing mod2 for Delta and toying around with the idea of DHT for my experimental lesson. I’m a little unsure because of the possible shortage of info out there. The whole ‘meme’ totally resonates with me and I almost feel it’s something I’ve been doing, or trying to do (successfully or not) for some time – hence wanting to investigate it further. Do you, or anyone else have any words of advice that may help me decide whether to go ahead or not?
Thanks.
Hi Hada,
I’m giving it tomorrow in Rome for the IHWO young learner conference. I’m not sure how to answer your question. I like the whole meme concept, so I’ve accomodated the information and made Jim and Adrian’s ideas my own to fit my context. I think (correct me if I’m wrong Jim) the whole idea of ‘reinventing’ the way we teach is not about a strict ‘method’ but a series of thoughts and questions and ideas evolving. Not sure how you could experiment with that? Maybe you could take one aspect of teaching and learning, eg pronunciation (a certain author has a very good book you can resource 😉 and apply DH concepts to you lesson? Maybe make notes about the level of challenge perceived by you vs the students and get the students response?
I’m not a Delta tutor and its years since I did it, so not sure about your criteria. Why don’t you try some of the DH peer observation tasks and see if it gives you some more ideas?
If you’d like more info about my session, feel free to email me Yladvisor@ihworld.com
It is being filmed (ill have to find out if I can share that though?) and ill be sending my session notes and slides to Jim and Adrian, but not until after April because I’m giving the session again at another conference. But I got all my ideas from this very blog 🙂
Perhaps check out this blog? http://cambridgedelta.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/demand-high-elt-is-it-really-something-new/
Good luck with your delta.
Kylie
Interesting the frequency of negatives and questions in this description – an awful lot of saying what it is not and asking what it might be but very little of what it actually is.
I think the point of this blog is to present some ideas and then see where it goes from there. Rather than telling us what they think we should do, Jim and Adrian are just sowing a seed and then leaving it up to the rest of us to take it further.
If you’re looking for answers or a new method to follow, this blog isn’t for you. But if you’re looking to explore some of the things that are wrong with ELT these days and consider/suggest/discuss possible solutions, you may find it quite useful.
It reminds me of a well-organised “scaffolding” in the ELT classroom and not only…
Hi Jim
I have just watched two short talks: the IATEFL interview with you anda TED talk by Ken Robinson about creativity. It seems to me that what you are asking teachers to do is think creatively about how to get more ‘mileage’ out of an activity; how to help learners to stay engaged, remember and learn. It was WONDERFUL to hear this. As a teacher educator in a university I tried for ten years to encourage my students to do what I called ‘stretching’ an activity. My more creative and courageous students got it! Many others didn’t. Many teachers like the security and ease of tightly planned materials. Colleges run assessment -focussed programs with little flexibility. Teachers fret about ‘covering’ ( whatever that means) material. In the last 10 years the focus has moved away from HOW students are learning to ticking boxes.
Lets hope your ideas inspire teachers to be a bit more creative.
Hi there, Jenny. An encouraging view and surely one to be cherished! Nevertheless, “creativity” doesn’t come natural to many teacher-colleagues I have come across (and yet it should be one of the preconditions of a good teacher!). Anyway, the impending question of “How to set free one”s creativity?” could start off another discussion on this great DH blog . PS. Interested in seeing where this blog will take us:-)
Fiona Farrrugia
EF school Malta – April 14 2013
I think this is a great idea and works very well in a classroom. We are actually encouraged to do this by our head teacher Alexandra Bianco. She an inspiration to us all and is always reminding us to challenge our students. I find that when you do they remember grammar much better.
I read the Facebook reference to DHT last week, and had a serious think about what I was doing in class. I do a little DHT, but not enough. Inspired by the read, I’ve made a conscious effort to challenge the students and have them take at least one step out from where they are with many tasks – and it has been really rewarding. It is obvious from the response that they are enjoying the extra challenge, and find learning benefits in the activities – good reasons to continue.
Re comments above about the sometime lack of creativity in teaching staff – no excuse! There are so many web sites offering so much free material that every teacher should have a wealth of creative, interactive, inspiring and interesting material at their fingertips!
Wonderful – and very interesting. Reflection tasks could be incorporated into the blended learning environment to incorporate demand high learning, I think. Nice, this has given me some good ideas on how to incorporate demand high into the curriculum, or at least provide it as a suggestion to teachers in the online environment and inside teacher training manuals etc – thank you!
I am glad that there are some good people out there that ask themselves the very same questions that have been bugging me since I started this profession. Pushing the students to a level that they themselves had not thought of achieving should be any teacher’s ideal. So I’ll be reading on…
Hi Adrian and JIm,
Just found your page – I’m a slow learner! It looks very good, I’ll follow it, and I wish you the best.
Thanks, first of all, for this blog.
I came here to check if DHELT was covered by lexical inferencing classroom strategies for an article I am currently researching and I think it is.
Here, however, is my tuppence worth on my understanding of demand high teaching moments based on what I have discovered here and elsewhere:
1. It seems to be incorporating complexity and moving away from the accuracy – fluency continuum which has dominated for so long
2. Based on this, perhaps it is more correct to look at a Venn diagram of accuracy, fluency and accuracy where tasks move slowly towards the ‘perfect storm’ overlap of all three?
3. I believe Merrill Swain was the first to put forward an output hypothesis where learners could provide themselves with their own input+1. She did this as a response to Krashan’s comprehensible input+1 around the 80s if my memory serves me well
4. Lexical inferencing could certainly be a solid example of a demand high teaching opportunity … hopefully I’ll get the article published to illustrate my point here!
Margaret
Apologies…’accuracy, fluency and COMPLEXITY’
10 years on and my suspicion was that this was indeed something that was not new is confirmed here: https://www.eltconcourse.com/articles/articles1/dhelt_article.html
Vygotsky and Krashen kinda got there before all of this.
Another interesting Blog, Jim, thanks. It always amazes me what different approach different ELT Teachers take. I think having the student, not the teacher, as the main focus, works well. I’ll be sure to try some ideas from here in my next lessons.
Interesting. BTW, I’ll be listening to you in Lima,Peru on the 31st of May
I’m Samzj (‘toy), please get in touch, miss you sis!!!
Ne’ hope you can get in touch. Thanks be to God, for guiding me this far!!!
Hello to all hope u all be fine and healthy
Actually it is my first time to use this website and I register in order to improve my English but I am confuse how can I use so , do you tell me how can I use it for easily to improve my English? Please
Thanks and regards,
Waslat
Hi there Waslat. I think you did not get this website right. This website is aimed more at teachers, not students, I think. Good luck elsewhere 🙂
HELLO
This website is enormously wonderful
Thanks
Hi there, my name is Mario Santamaria from Mexico city. Excellent is brilliant this is a real class for teachers. This is how you land knowledge, understanding and wisdom. Is meaningful and clear step by step to follow.I WISH YOU CAN WRITE A BOOK WITH ALL THESE TECHNIQUES AND SEMINARS. Thank you, please let us know when you coming to Mexico city.
I’m sure that we all have problems in classrooms with behavior and is because we don’t know how to teach.
Wow!
This approach rocks, and for me more importantly entirely accords with my own experience with our potentially co-creating learners.
You have a new fan……
Hi guys,
I’ve attended a workshop on Demand-High teaching recently, I myself am a ELT teacher and a coach. “Demand-High” is a weird name, in my opinion. I suggest you re-name it “Uplifted Learning & Teaching”. With a sense of upgrading, raising to a higher point.
No offense with your suggestion, but I like the term “Demand High”.
To me it implies asking more of the students than the standard lesson plan. In fact I think of it as “Ask More”
Thanks for this presentation.
I wasn`t there to see it. But we did a workshop about it today in Agadir, Morocco.
Tanmert
You come over like a bunch of do-gooder girl guides, overcome with jargonitis (‘lexical inferencing’?) I understand that some of you want to justify what you’re doing and that the longer you do something you need to feel you’re progressing, make a name for yourselves even. But this is another reminder to me of how inward looking the whole thing is, even within the parameters of the industry you work in. If you really want to know what’s wrong with, then log into Tefl.com and read some of the adverts and what they’re offering in re-numeration. Note the McDonaldisation and the soulless maneouvering of private equity funded education. Stop thinking you’re moral crusaders. Unless you’re very fortunate, the business context you’re working within is not nearly as idealistic.
OK – the job argument is a good reminder. But surely, it’s always worth asking what good teaching might look like? And your argument re McDonaldisation – isn’t that precisely what DH is arguing against? If that doesn’t need a “moral crusade” (if that is how you want to call it), then we should just let it happen?
I came across the Demand High talks today by chance on You Tube, and couldn’t believe how both Adrian and Jim were echoing what I have come to realize after a few months of observing classes, that so little was in fact being asked of the students. I saw the teachers using up so much energy, and the students quite content to let them work hard while they, the students, could just lean back and let the class flow without practically any effort on their part. I think that the mistake comes in the actual lesson plan preparation. Instead of the teacher saying “What shall I teach today?”, the main question should be “What do my students need to learn today?” and, the answer to that is the basis for the design of the activities in the classroom. Very simply, you can teach until you’re blue in the face, but if there’s no or very little learning, all your efforts are in vain.
I started my ELT training too at International House in Shaftesbury Avenue with a 10-week RSA course in 1971, so more or less I’m of the same vintage as Adrian and Jim, and it seems interesting to me that they have come to this realization in these later years of their career, just like myself.
I look forward to studying more what’s on this webpage.
well said Helen!. We have always advocated less ‘teacher talk’ and a greater focus on student learning. As a teacher educator I asked my students to present their lesson plans with a ‘what the student will do ‘ column beside the teacher’s ‘what I will do ‘ column. Many students, especially those who were not already teachers, or were secondary teachers, found it quite hard to visualise what the students would actually have to do in an activity. My students also had to explain how what they were asking the class to do was related to the current theorie/s of second language learning. (Ahh but that was in a postgrad diploma/MA course, not a CELTA).
A lot of ELT is a performance by the teacher, and many people who love to perform go into the field. It’s sometimes a challenge to get them to leave the spotlight…..
I also find that beginning teachers are, and need to be, very focussed on what they themselves are doing. it is only after some experience that they have the headspace to notice what their learners are doing . (except for elementary school teachers, who are usually very learner-focussed EL teachers. )
A lot of the old ‘routines’ weren’t very effective for much other than for drill and entertainment, even in 1971 when i was at Int House, like you.
Now in 2014 digital technologies have lobbed a grenade into ELT and it is time to reassess what we do with students in the classroom. Demand High is a good place to start.
Thank you both for these comments. A small worry is fanned by what you say; how much is it only teachers of our “vintage” (as you so politely express it) that notice or feel that there is a problem?
High Demand requires a High Motivation and High Commitment which for me are essential for maximising successful teaching and learning. High Demand should not only be restricted to the language learning classroom but also extend to the selection process for prospective candidates for such pre-service courses as CELTA and Trinity Cert TESOL. Such programmes are marvellous starting points, even more so if the participants actually have some intrinsic motivation to become teachers. I still genuinely thrive on pre-service training work after three decades and more. However, I have noticed over the past few (5 or so) years that there are an increasing number of extremely weak candidates who, when you talk to them during tutorials and dig a bit deeper (“inquisitive tweaking?”), are principally doing the course “to get a job abroad.” I cannot blame them for that as the current brilliantly orchestrated economic crisis often forces them to do so. But there’s the rub. They want a job but they don’t (particularly) want to be teachers.
So are we bold enough to ask more High Demand questions at pre-course interview or do we let them on to increase course numbers or “to give them a chance?” (A chance to do what exactly might be an interesting question for the interviewer to ask themselves?)
If an applicant, when asked why they want to do the course, says (something like) “I would to travel, I like people, I’m interested in other cultures and languages and a friend did this course and said it was excellent.” Would a follow up “tweak” such us “Yes, All good reasons. Now can you tell me why you want to be a teacher?” “What motivates you to spend a lot of money to engage in an intensive course and investigate and teach the fascinating complexities of English grammar in a high pressure circumstances?” (The latter especially important to native speakers with no language learning background) If this sounds like a bit of a grilling then so be it. People are getting better at “bigging themselves up” when they apply so interviews need a commensurate increase in rigour. There are thorough, well crafted written tasks at many centres which require trainees to write about the qualities of a good teacher and complete language analysis exercises which are all neatly and cosily done in private. These often don’t seem to suffice, though, High Demand face-to-face (or at least voice – to – voice) questions might encourage the applicant to think again before signing their name on the dotted line and prevent them from flailing away at something they don’t like and are not competent at half way through the course. For me, there must be some traditional element of vocation in teaching. Without a “desire to teach” there is little reason to Demand High but rather to “get through the lesson”. To “do the materials.” To manage, To cope. To get over the line. TO SURVIVE..
I would lo spend less time rescuing those who are struggling and much more time training more intrinsically participants to become even better. To be be in a position to Demand High of the trainee so that they can., in turn, Demand High of themselves and those they teach.
Hi Simon. Yes, Demand-High is a concept that could well apply to all aspects of teaching and training.
Thinking about my own reasons for getting into ELT it was just “to get abroad”; I think it was quite a while before I felt any sense of loyalty to the profession itself. I wonder if I would have been discouraged at interview. But then, I guess, I also had a sort of basic fire in me to teach as well – though I couldn’t have articulated it very well.
Simon’s post raises an issue that is important in education generally, and especially important in TESOL; the ‘profession’ of teaching. When I taught on a university Dip TESOL course the students fell into two broad groups; trained school teachers who wanted to teach adults and non- teachers from all walks of life (very interesting!) who wanted to teach English .With regard to professionalisation, the schoolies had the advantage of teacher education and school experience. They thought of themselves as teachers. For them ESOL was just an extra string to their bow. For the other students, there was the challenge of learning about what to teach, who their learners were, how to teach them, and why. After 6 months (full time) they had enough theory and a bit of practice and were ready to continue learning in the classroom. Does a CELTA provide this?
Sure, it gives you ‘techniques’, and a ticket to world travel via EFL, but it doesn’t give you much of an understanding of how your learners learn, or of how you can demand more of them. It encourages you to follow recipes, and to depend on them, ‘Jim, give us a book of ‘demand high’ techniques! ‘
Working in EFL often mitigates against the development of professional judgement; you work for a commercial organisation, your students are graded, batched into groups,and processed in 5 week blocks. Programs are assessment driven, or determined by the textbook. There is no room for adaption. You ‘deliver courses’. You are paid by the hour, and not paid much.
By contrast, in government funded schools you cannot get a job in elementary, secondary or adult ESL without having spent a year (full time) learning how to be a teacher.
Why are we surprised when teachers in private language schools use tired old routines?
Just realised that I wrote High Demand in my post above instead of Demand High.. Please excuse this as a mixture of carelessness, over zealous Puritanism, old age, tiredness and probably some deep seated Freudian slip…….
Nice idea. I’m an English teacher who got an MBA to improve my Business English skills. The approach reminds me of the Toyota Way, something we studied in our Supply Chain Management course. Basically, everyone who works at Toyota is vigilant for ways to improve. This might be as simple as moving a wrench from the left table to the right table. You can read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System
Interesting insight from a side-step. Many thanks
For what it’s worth the article mentioned above about Demand High & Lexical inferencing is now available online:
http://ihjournal.com/special-report-lexical-inferencing%E2%80%A6a-chance-to-demand-high-by-margaret-horrigan
Thank you very much. Useful link.
We are a group of teachers who meet in Norwich every couple of months to discuss teaching matters. In our last meeting, we discussed Demand High. A summary of our meeting and discussion is here: http://www.positive-teaching.co.uk/positive-teachers-group
That’s great Carole. Thanks very much. I’ll post a link on Facebook a Twitter.
Jim, I thoroughly enjoyed your presentation at TOSCON14 this afternoon. And thank you for giving us permission to teach! I also appreciate that you verbalized how every class is a multi-level class; teachers often complain that they have a split-level class, but as you said, this is the case in ANY class. The challenge will be to push each student to their next level in a large class without feeling like I’m wasting too much of the other students’ time. However, I can see that this can be done in different ways – including feedback on writing assignments, which is where I give the majority of my feedback. Thank you for provoking us!
One great way of fostering ‘tangible engagement and learning’ is using articles about science as a medium for English language learning.
Newtonsapple.org.uk is a website that arouses curiosity by explaining interesting images in different topics.The old saying ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ holds very true!
Hello Adrin and Jim,
you might find my site http://www.engames.eu interesting for your site.
It contains free materials for learners of English. There are grammar mind maps and games for learners of English. Check it out and if you like it, I will be really happy if you share it.
Have a nice day
Zdenek Rotrekl
Dear Teachers Adrian Underhill and Jim Scrivener, I am an Uruguayan secondary school english teacher who has started thirty-four years ago, when being a teenager, teaching privately and thirty years now started teaching groups. Then not only didn’t I have any Teachers Training Course, but neither did I have the certificate from the University which stated my English was Proficient enough to teach. However as time went by did achieve both. Nevertheless, not being go enough for the “private sector” two years ago I turned two the deepest and longest Teachers Training Studies in my country. This Study’s Curruculumn is of four years to become an English Teacher. As I could not give up working for Studying I presented my C.V. at our National English Inspection and due to my experience, I then thought, was given the opportunity to start teaching in Public System. Presently, I work with four groups of 1st years Secondary Scholars ages 12-13. Along this journey I’ve learned to be ecleptical and today on Winter Holidays being 12:33 pm I’m most than pleased to have come across ELT-Chat a twitter site which took me to the videos section and from there in you tube I found a short video of an interview to your Teacher Scrivener were you refered to Demand High as not being a New Method in Teaching, but a means of going “beyond”, of course this is my word. Being so enthusiastic I search for more on the web and found your Conference Teacher Underhill on what happend to be Demand High applied. As a matter of facts I haven’t fished watching this conference , but the reason that pushed me to write to both of you is that Teacher Scrivener you said few people did comment and I needed to share with you two that I also started the Faculty of Pschology in my country. Not having graduated, but out of 20 subjects in my plan had 8 to have done so, I’ve always been interested in the process of language learning and been reading on Neurocience applied to education for some time now. To make it short, the awareness which you arise with your procedure, Teacher Adrian Underhill is in my humble view the key to this present paradigma awareness of the inner process interacting in a certain here and now with our prior knowlege even when beginners. I wish I could caount more than with my short salary to be able to afford each of every book you both have and will be publishing on this theme. Thank You Both Very Much.
Cecilia Viana Otero.-
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Thanks for the post. I will certainly return.
I have some criticisms of ‘Demand High’ in this post – http://wp.me/p59670-sG – I don’t agree with putting yet more pressure on teachers which is what this amounts to.
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What I think is really interesting is that there seems to be a coming together of beliefs, experiences and modes of thinking about the role of the teacher from a wide spectrum of angles. Up at Newcastle University in the UK, lots of research and CA driven stuff by Steve Walsh and colleagues on the idea of ‘space for learning’ and what classroom interaction analysis seems to show. This all chimes with DH ideas of ‘pushing’ learners a little more. Looking forward to IATEFL this year and my workshop around all this. Looking to get colleagues to share experiences and thoughts from across the many different social settings we come from.
I thank you for the shift in focus towards demanding more from students. It yet again tries to involve students at a more engaging language situation and development process. I clearly see that in the overall package of language development the ideas put forward through extensive research into techniques and methodologies are designed to give further tools of assistance to the teacher and I believe that these are gratefully accepted throughout the teaching community. However, I strongly believe that what really occurs inside most classrooms, be it monolingual or multinational group teaching more or less dictates events that occur in reality through meticulous planning. Depending on where one teaches, it has a profound affect to course design and implementation of materials. The design of international syllabus where introducing English language alongside English language demands through state school syllabus using state school teachers (local teachers) has a huge impact on how the lessons are delivered.
I have been teaching English for 27 years and in that time I have read article after article and seen workshop after workshop explaining different approaches to take, different actions needed to get different results. I have combined, I believe, bits from here and bits from there. My classrooms have never been filled with students who came with total enthusiasm and a thirst for knowledge. Researchers tend to use groups of students who are willing to be researched and I believe act in accordance with what is expected of them. This to me is the total opposite of what really happens inside any classroom. We must not forget the moment of teaching is very spontaneous at times which involves many interruptions which will affect the “plan” which also affects the timing of the lesson, which also affects the results that we were trying to obtain. This is just one indication of interruption, of course there are many more, what the student brings into the classroom, attitude, the willingness to want to learn today, Did they sleep well last night..etc.
These all play vital roles in the execution of our plans or intentions. No matter how hard we try to introduce students to the benefits of language study, they will have their own reasons for wanting to study or not. I don’t really want to go into all these now otherwise this will turn into a thesis. I am sure you understand.
Please reply to my comment. Thank you.
In “The Art of Possibility”, the authors (the Zanders) describe the world of measurement, and scarcity which is basically a frame of mind, where the ego is king and we are all in competition with each other, everyone is out for him/herself and competition is rife. I mention this because I’ve seen it creep into a few of the posts here, that mention the lack of remuneration for EFL jobs and I might add the increasing cost cutting and reducing of hours in many institutions which may well make busy teachers feel that they are taking part in a race to see who is the first to get to the end of the coursebook.
The world of measurement, however, is a matter of perception and rushing through what is basically someone else’s assessment of what your learners need when you apply a syllabus or coursebook too rigidly, probably due to fear of not using time ‘efficiently’, may actually lead to the very thing you are trying to avoid: wasting time, as learners are rushed through activities that they have only half understood. Taking the time to stop and ponder, allowing learning to blossom is surely a more efficient way to go about things.
Oh, and, by the way, why can’t this be both learning and learner centred, how about personalised learning centred…? I find it hard not to put the learners at the centre of the process.
To go back to “The Art of Possibility” the authors say that changing the way we view the world we live in is a question of developing the habit of
a) lateral thinking and
b) giving others the benefit of the doubt, taking responsibility for the interactions and relationships you take part in,taking a deep breath, counting to 10 and taking the time to see things from other people’s point of view as well as our own.
The man in the car behind you, for instance, who seems to want to overtake you or is driving dangerously, may well be on the way to a hospital, you don’t know, so take the time to consider various scenarios. The same thing is true of our lessons, and our teaching, there are thousands of different ways of approaching every moment in the class, but tuning in to what is happening and guiding learners towards learning what they want and need to, even if you do not finish the unit in your book, might actually be of more benefit to those learners in the long run.
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THANK YOU very much for the link!!!Fantastic photo too! I used to eat those, especially on valentines day. 🙂LikeLike
Since watching the you tube video of the original talk, I have been fascinated by this idea. My motto was always ‘Make learning fun!’, because I felt that too many lessons were boring and not appealing to the many different ways we are able to learn as humans. Fun didn’t equate ‘just be silly ‘, but was a carefully thought out idea to try and bring my classes to life and keep the learners engaged. Since then, I have begun the trinity dip tesol and decided to make demand high the focus of my personal journal. What happens when you really try to go deeper into the learning experience with your learners? So far, I’ve had amazing results. Thank you for the meme, it has sparked a thought provoking reflection and I would propose that we not only demand high of our students, but also of ourselves as teachers. What nudges can we give ourselves to improve? I love what this has started. Thank you again!
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Great ideas. I agree, demand also links into challenge, a degree of mindfulness aware of pressure ( of the good kind linked to challenges) that creates best performance in learners. I would love to add to the discussions.
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It looks like it’s been a while since anyone posted on this site. Can anyone fill me in on the current status of Demand High? Are you still actively promoting it, moving forward? Would love to know.
Me too. What’s the scoop on DH nowadays?
Here are my 50 cents: I teach explaining the kids that language recycling happens a lot when we speak a language. I also teach them the concept of mirroring and recycling backwards. Mirroring happens when you are speaking to someone and that person must flip the conjugation (you and I or you all and we) and recycling happens when we talk about other people. This helps them flip flop verbs and recycle information.
If running proves to be a problem then it may be wise to find alternative exercises such as circuit training, weight training, swimming or cycling.
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Still thinking, i wonder why Mr Scrivener said we shall look after a dogme teacher?
Similar topics related to lesson plan and class management
I as a teacher want constructive ideas which can improve the class room atmosphere and make the class highly interactive
is there still work being done on this topic and website? I see the most recent materials are from 2013