<&>Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English Version One <&>Copyright 1998 School of Linguistics & Applied Language Studies <&>Victoria University of Wellington <&>side one <&>15:26 now what you've brought up today there are some common themes which i'm getting out of this first of all there's getting students interacting okay so i'm going to talk to you a wee bit about creating a safe environment for students to feel comfortable to do that er the other things i'm picking up is concerns about <.>the about confidence about us going in and feeling confident in the classroom we're in here i'll be covering that er the other thing is the deathly silences now again this <&>16:00 comes back very much to creating the right environment but there are also discussion strategies that you can use which i'll talk about a bit later on now before you go i'm going to give you two handouts which have been developed for tutors in tutoring situations and don't go without those if anyone does have to leave early um just let me know and i'll grab those for you <.>now what i don't cover today there will be some stuff in there which may give you some ideas which may help you right? <,,> okay <,,> now yes yes okay then bye i might just wander round a wee bit <,,><&>5 just some tricks teacher tricks before i get <&>17:00 started <,,><&>3 first things i want you to remember when you go into your classrooms the trick of good teaching is to make it LOOK EASY <,> all right even if you're feeling really nervous and your stomach's doing somersaults go in and make it look easy because if you're looking nervous or ruffled or hassled then the students are going to pick it up straight away and they're going to tune out very quickly so make it look easy even if you're not feeling like it is easy quite often you can um tell tutors who haven't tutored before because they come into their classrooms and they're sort of like this you know <.>and and students pick it up <&>18:00 <,,> so make it look easy it's always okay to say that you're a new tutor because that's being honest but just don't act like one <,,> it's just confidence exuding confidence <,,><&>3 the other thing which may help is if you ARE new to tutoring try planning tutorials with another tutor in the department PARTICularly if you're new to tutoring which some of you are <,> er when i first began tutoring i made all the mistakes <,> in the book the second year a friend became a tutor in the department i was working in which was the education department and we were <.>working both working the first year course and <&>19:00 we both felt pretty isolated we had the same thing that some of you have brought up we weren't sure how we were coming across <,,> we weren't sure if we were doing the right thing or if students were responding to us <,> but once we began working together <,> and talking about what we were doing in our classrooms talking to each other about our ideas we began to develop our teaching practice much more quickly and it reduces that sense of isolation <,> so if there is someone who you know and who you TRUST in your department try working with them and planning tutes with someone else <,,><&>10 the other thing that i want to mention to you and if you go away with <&>20:00 absolutely nothing else today i want you to remember this the secret of really GREAT teaching is eye contact so i'm gonna write it on the board and you can write it down <,,><&>8 eye contact now it is possible to go into a lecture theatre with three hundred first year students going ABsolutely berserk and having them ready sitting attentively quietly and ready to learn JUST by using eye contact <,> it's magic there've been a lot of research which has been done on the subject and you'll find that some of the most dyNAMIC lecturers and tutors at this university will tell you that the secret of their good teaching <&>21:00 is making eye contact <,,><&>3 just remember when you're not MAKING that connection with your students they're not making that connection with you and if they're not making that connection they're not necessarily going to be listening to you okay so just remember eye contact it's magic <,,><&>9 the other thing i want to say to you is <,,><&>4 always remember and never forget no matter how BADLY a class is going and sometimes classes can go really badly it doesn't matter how awful you're feeling keep smiling <,> okay not the sort of tense smile of the new tutor i'm talking about coming <&>22:00 across being relaxed appearing confident not over confident but keep smiling because occasionally you will have to deal with situations with students where someone is being quite obnoxious who needs to be challenged in some way don't let it show that you're angry or that you're ruffled or that you're upset <,,> okay you can challenge students when they need to be challenged but do it in a constructive way and DON'T let it show that you're feeling upset because your students will tune out very quickly if they feel that you've lost control of the situation <,> all right <,,> so remember try and handle those really yukky situations which do arise with a professional manner okay and keep smiling <,> <&>23:00 all right now the role of the tutor this about <.>the the environment that we create in the classroom and these in a sense these are the intangibles of classroom process a lot of people will tell you that tutoring is like going on stage it's like a performance in front of people you don't necessarily know very well <,,><&>3 and what some people do is they create a classroom presence <,,><&>3 now when i say that i also meant to say to you that you must always be yourself when you're in a classroom it's no sense in imitating someone else someone who you know is a really good teacher <,,> be yourself because at the end of the day you're only who you are and students know when they're <&>24:00 being conned <,> classroom presence <,,> tut or creating a presence for ourselves is like putting on a set of clothes almost when we go into a classroom persona if you like <,,><&>5 when i first began teaching i had to learn a lot of things about myself because we reveal ourselves when we're teaching in ways that we don't even think about at the time i had to learn for myself when i went into the classroom first of all i have a very sarcastic tongue now my family can handle that my friends can handle that but my students CANNOT HANDLE IT because it's a different kind of situation there are different vulnerabilities going on in that situation so i <&>25:00 had to learn to challenge students in ways that were constructive and it took some time <,,><&>3 i had to learn to be less blunt and i had to learn not to put people down <,,> so remember try and challenge students always <,> challenge them into thinking in different ways where possible but find constructive ways of doing it <,> now the other thing about creating this presence this intangible thing <.>is is about how we come across to our students when we're in the classroom now sometimes we don't have much of a sense of how we ARE coming across in a classroom situation and this isn't just people who've begun tutoring begun lecturing this is people who've been teaching for years they still haven't worked out what they look <&>26:00 like in front of a group of students <,,> so what we suggest that there are a variety of things that you can do you can practise it in front a mirror well that's what i do sometimes because <.>i i enjoy doing things in front of mirrors <,,> <.>others other ways that we cope with that is we get um staff to work in front of a video camera and they can play the tape back afterwards if you're not comfortable with doing that go into a room close the door close the curtains and practise your class before you go in so you get a sense of what you're doing <,> and be aware of certain mannerisms that you might have which are deeply irritating these sorts of things okay they <&>27:00 come across in a class <,,><&>6 the classroom environment now that's really important <,,> you'll find that your students talk to each other and interact with each other much more when they feel safe <,,> so you've got <.>to as a tutor we ALL have to find ways of getting our students to feel safe but at the end of the day it could be you know that there are going to be some students who don't and <.>it's that can be intimidating for us but it's a challenge to find ways of breaking that pattern <,,> now every classroom has a different feel every time the students come together they'll be needing different things they've had a whole week since their last class and there's between <&>28:00 twelve and twenty five people depending how large your classes are who've lived lifetimes in that week so every time your class is going to be different <,,><&>5 now that means that there is in some ways you can look at it as being a kind of inherent instability in classroom dynamics but there are things that you can do before you go into your class which will create <,,> a kind of safeness if you anticipate in advance what it is that you're wanting to get across so before any of you go into your classrooms just have a THINK <.>about visualise in advance what's happening in that classroom think about where you've got the <&>29:00 seats are they in rows or are they in <.>an a horseshoe shape <,,> or are they in a circle because <.>w where your students are sitting is going to <.>ha affect how they relate to each other if people are sitting in rows they can't each other's faces and if they can't see each other's faces then they're not going to talk to each other quite as easily as they would if they could see each other <,,><&>3 think about what you're doing in the classroom are you standing in front of the class <,> and giving out information or are the students working in small discussion groups and doing some discovering for themselves <,,><&>6 think also <&>30:00 about noise levels some people work best in a fairly formal environment where people are working quietly i prefer a slightly less formal environment where students are talking loudly if they need to i prefer working with noise whatever it is that YOU feel most comfortable with and most able to create in your classrooms think about it beforehand and then work towards creating that but it's got to be something that you feel good with <,,><&>4 so do what's best for you <,,><&>5 the other thing is er remember to set limits with your students <&>31:00 always set limits with your students now that's in a whole lot of things first off you need to set limits on how much nonclassroom contact time you're going to put aside for students um you need to decide when they're going <.>t to <.>cont contact you how they're going to contact you and how much time you're going to put into doing that now the reason i say this is because particularly at first year level students come in and they have a whole lot of needs they're in an environment where they feel really uncertain a lot of them are feeling really anxious and they'll be looking towards you to resolve some of those anxieties for them <,,> now if students are approaching you with their concerns that's great because it means that <&>32:00 you've probably made yourself approachable but on the other hand each of you has got a lot of other commitments in your life you've got study commitments maybe work commitments research <&>32:15 <&>end of side one some overlap on side two <&>side two <&>0:19 commitments you have family friends lovers and you need to keep a balance and what'll you'll find if you DON'T set limits with your students right at the beginning then your time is gonna suddenly feel like it's no longer your own i've had students ring who are working nights ringing at three in the morning cos that's the only time that they had to work on their essay so you need to be clear about when they can get in touch with you <,> what i do with my students now is i say as they go if <&>1:00 they DO have to ring me at home otherwise i i'll give them my office number but if they DO have to ring me at home it's got to be for a good reason and between the hours of seven thirty and ten <,,><&>5 so set limits on how much you can do and remember that your time belongs to you <&>1:23