Abstract

Teaching English as a second language (ESL) or a foreign language (EFL) is a challenging job for teachers. Sometimes students feel bored and the teacher is at his wit’s end thinking how to make them attentive. Therefore, ESL/EFL teaching requires continuous innovation. Accordingly, an ESL/EFL teacher often has to imply newly-introduced methods, approaches and techniques for teaching his/her students. Sharing personal experiences in the ESL/EFL Classroom is one of the innovative strategies to ignite humor and retain learners’ concentration in class.

This paper will consider the theoretical aspects which propagate that personal experiences can motivate and help learners acquire a second or foreign language with fun and frolic. To consolidate this claim, a primary research is conducted among some teachers and undergraduate students. 

 

Introduction

According to Alison King (1993) in most of the classrooms, the teacher is the central figure, the ‘sage on the stage’, the one who transmits knowledge to the students who simply memorize it sometimes without understanding. This model of teaching assumes that students are like empty containers into which the teacher pours knowledge. Such a view of teaching is quite backdated where learners are passive recipients. On the other hand, the current constructivist theory of learning believes that knowledge does not come packaged in books, journals, computer disks (of teachers’ or students’ heads) to be transmitted intact from one to another. These vessels contain information, not knowledge that is a state of understanding information in terms of what an individual already knows. This constructivist model places students at the centre of the process – actively participating in thinking and discussing ideas while making meaning for them. The teacher functions as ‘a guide on the side’ facilitating learning in a less directive way. (p. 30). As students share their life experiences in class, they perform according to their own ability displaying their own autonomous level of proficiency in that language. This places the learners in an active creative role. Therefore, to promote active learning, sharing experiences in class is a highly effective tool.

 

Again, humor enhances student learning. Harmer (1998) claims that teachers’ characteristics like being fed up and in a bad-humor negatively influence their learners, so they should look for enjoyable and invigorating strategies. Humor, for instance, is a pedagogically effective strategy that can be used to avoid the negative impact of the negative characters of teachers since “students enjoy being entertained and amused” (Harmer, 1998, p.1). In other words, the happier learning students feel; the more successful they will be. Here also sharing personal experiences in class can perform a vital role.

 

What is personal experience?

1. The term 'personal experience' refers to any knowledge, incident, or activity; positive or negative; related to an individual's everyday life. Therefore, personal experience may be of or related to growing up, education, learning a language, art and culture, religion, family and friends, health and wealth, sports and recreation, jobs and personal finance, fashion and life-style, pets and hobbies as well as relationship and romance. Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary defines experience as a “practical knowledge, skill, or practice derived from direct observation of or participation in events or in a particular activity” (on-line). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, defines “experience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event” (on-line). From the definitions above it becomes clear that experience is some knowledge or skill gained through direct observation or involvement with some thing, event or incident. It is also obvious that experience is of different types. Wikipedia categorizes experience into physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, social, virtual, immediacy and subjective. All these types of experiences can be used in a classroom. 

 

Humor in ESL/EFL teaching

Humor is part and parcel of language teaching. Gatt (2000) defines humor as the ‘breathing-out of the soul’. Furthermore, Morrison (2008) describes humor as tonic for effective teaching. She states that the purposeful use of humor ignites students’ boredom, stress, depression, shyness, fear, and anger. Humor is the best “brain food”. Berk, also, notes that humor can create an unforgettable image if it is accompanied by the use of” your words plus your physical expressiveness in your eyes, face, hands and arms, and the rest of your body”(2003, p. 64). As for teaching, it is necessary to use humor since it retains students’ attendance, improves trust between teacher and learners, and provides positive energy. Humor is a catalyst for creativity. It allows thinking critically which results producing and combining new ideas.

Tom Davis says: “The job of the teacher is to get students laughing, and when their mouths are open, to give them something on which to chew” (cited in Lundberg & Thurston, 1997). Being boring is one of the major sins in teaching (powers, 2005) as boredom and dullness can kill students motivation and negate their desire to learn (Deiter, 2000). In addition, content is firmly connected to pedagogy; what is taught is as important as how it is taught (Chickering & Gamson, 1987);the teacher should be able to present the lesson in engaging way (Flanagan, 2007). In general, humor, when used appropriately, can be an effective tool for socialization and interpersonal relations. Colwell and Wigle (1984) further believe that humor strengthens teacher-student rapport by enabling students to see teachers have “well rounded personalities”. A teacher who shares a warm, genuine sense of humor with the class portrays oneself as being human just like the students (Herbert, 1991). Effective teachers are individuals, according to Hageseth (1995), who can “take themselves lightly, but take their work and life seriously as they encourage others to do likewise. Humor is a powerful tool in education and can be used within the classroom to put the students at ease and make the learning process more enjoyable. That is why, positive humor through sharing personal experiences is advocated as a pedagogical strategy.
 

2. Why personal experience

3. Learning a second language is a very complicated process. It requires not only interests and motivation but also a lot of effort on the part of a learner. Similarly an L2 teacher needs to apply a lot of innovative techniques. A whole-hearted traditional teacher may sometimes confuse or bore the students by choosing topics from conventional texts. And if it happens so, there is a risk that students would not learn well. Smith (1983) has observed that people do not learn if they are confused or bored. And “when school topics do not relate to students' lives, they may find themselves either confused or bored” (Freeman and Freeman [online]). Therefore, topics taught in the schools and colleges should have a link with students’ personal experiences so that they may feel interested in the lessons and learn those well. Next; if we consider the confusion or boredom of our students negatively and their interests in classroom lessons positively, we are expected to include topics in their syllabus from their personal experiences. (Rado, 1991) has viewed “...designing a language teaching/learning syllabus is to match what is being taught in the form of concepts and structures with the cognitive and linguistic readiness, needs and interests of the students.” Again to teach values and skills to our students in a better way we might associate the curriculum to their daily life. This is because theorists “… argue that skills, values and understandings are best taught and assessed within meaningful, ‘connected’ contexts” (Murdoch, 1998).

4. Wilhelm (1999) has stated that language use and learning are social activities. Thus learning a language has a close bond with social phenomena. As a result, disassociating the function of language learning from social activities will not only slow down the process but also will interrupt it. Because every student brings their own emotion, culture, information and experience to classroom. And they will feel satisfied and motivated if those elements are shared with their classmates and teachers through activities. Schema Theory recognizes that each student brings “information, knowledge, emotion, experience and culture” to each classroom activity (Brown, 1987, p. 284). Besides, using everyday personal experiences in classroom acts for learners as a self-discovery as well as improves their creativity. Hyland (2003) has mentioned “ …many writing teachers from liberal arts background see their classroom goals as fostering L2 students’ expressive abilities, encouraging them to find their own voices to produce writing that is fresh and spontaneous. These classrooms are organized around students’ personal experiences and opinions, and writing is considered a creative act of self-discovery” (p. 8). For all these reasons theorists and educators have been using personal experiences in their classrooms for a long time. “For almost a century now, educators have used personal experience as the basis for learning (e.g., Dewey, 1938) and literacy instruction (Huey, 1908)” (Wurr,2002).

5. How to use personal experiences in EFL Classrooms

6. “Teaching English as a second or foreign language is not a traditional activity, rather with the passage of time it has become as ever-changing and innovative a field as fashion” (Hossain 2008). This opinion indicates that ESL/EFL teachers need to apply innovation to their classrooms for creating an effective teaching and learning environment. 

 

For improving the listening and speaking skills of learners’ personal experiences can be used extensively. An instructor may ask students to share their experiences with the class and the facilitator may discuss on them orally. He/she can also instruct them to discuss about their experiences with their partners. This activity will improve learners’ listening and speaking skills. 

 

Personal experiences contain huge resources for writing classes. In a writing class the facilitator can ask students to write about some events, incidents, or activities which happened to them and they found those very interesting and important, synopsis of movies they have watched, translation of famous songs they usually listen to and do some off-line chatting with their peers remembering their past experiences of the same. 

 

For teaching grammar and vocabulary the facilitator can choose some best and unique experiences produced by learners in class. Next he/she can analyze them for grammar and vocabulary and ask the students to do the same from their peers' writings. Besides, the instructor can select some of the writings which contain grammatical mistakes and flaws and solve them for the pupils. He/she can also dig out problems with the choice of diction and provide students with guidelines to overcome them.  

 

Taking into account the level, basic and needs of the students a facilitator may design a variety of activities including the ones above. Further, side by side with writing, the students must be advised to read huge number of experiences produced by their partners. This is because, “Research suggests that second language writing skills cannot be acquired successfully by practice in writing alone but also need to be supported with extensive reading.” (Krashen, 1993) [Quoted in Hyland, 2003:17].  Furthermore, the writings students produce may be used to assign them creative pieces of articles for development of their creativity. This can be done by interchanging the copies among the students to imagine the situations of their partners and by providing them with situations different from those they write. 

 

The Survey 

Purpose of the Survey: The objective of the survey is to develop some pedagogical knowledge about using personal experience as a tool for humor and language learning in teaching English as a foreign or second language. It aims at raising student achievement and progress in reading, writing, speaking and listening skills as well as knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. To do so, the survey investigates: 

- whether teachers and students have any prior experience of using personal experiences in their

    language classroom

- the purposes for which they used their personal experiences 

- whether they prefer personal experiences or traditional materials in their language classroom

- why they prefer personal experiences or traditional materials in their language classroom

- their ideas about using humor in language classroom

- whether they consider humor as a paramount quality of an effective teacher

- if students learn better when they are amused

- if humor can be achieved through sharing personal experiences

 

The Participants

The participants of this survey were the ESL/EFL teachers teaching Foundation or Basic English courses and the students of Bachelor of Arts in English, Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Bachelor of Business Administration, Dental Surgery, Law and Masters of Arts in English Language Teaching. They were from different educational institutions in Dhaka which include American International University Bangladesh, Presidency University, South East University, City University, Dhaka Dental College and World University Bangladesh. For filling in the questionnaire a total of 135 students were contacted. Of them only 120 learners filled in the questionnaire. Thereby the response rate is 88.88 per cent. Of the total of 120 participants 88 were male and 32 female students. Whereas, 35 teachers were given questionnaires but 28 (18 male and 10 female) of them responded. Therefore, the response rate is 80%. (See Appendix-1 for detailed information of participants)

 

The Questionnaire

The same questionnaire was prepared for all the participants that include both teachers and students. There were eight questions in the questionnaire set for the teachers and students. Only one (question-4) was open ended whereas the others were closed. The participants had their freedom to respond to the open question. However, in the closed questions there were a few reserved choices. They marked them according to the order of importance as were applicable to their own situations for question-2. Questions from 5 to 8 had four options. (See the questionnaire in Appendix-2)

 

The Survey Results

Discussion of the Results. The first question inquired whether the students and teachers have ever worked with their personal experiences in the English language classroom. This question elicited two answers: “Yes, I have” and “No, I haven't”. Majority of the students (85.83%) answered that they had worked with their personal experiences in the ESL/EFL classroom. Only 14.16% student participants answered negative. Similar picture is also found from the teachers views as most of the teachers (89.29%) answered very positive while very few (10.71%) did not work with personal experience in class. (See Table1 below).

Table 1

 

The second question asked about the purposes of using personal experiences in class. To answer this question teachers and students had to pick out and number the options from the provided list. There were only six options and no scope of personal opinion. However, in answer to this question most of the students (66.67% considered writing as very important) opined that they worked with personal experiences for developing writing skill more than anything. Next to writing comes speaking (63.33% consider speaking as very important), then vocabulary (50% consider vocabulary as very important) is in the third preference, next comes grammar (41.67% consider grammar as very important) and finally listening ((36.67% consider listening as very important)  is also a preferred skill to develop through sharing personal experiences. However, reading is the most negligible skill (only 10% consider reading as very important) which should be a matter of concern. (See Table 2a). 

Table 2a

 

We have a different picture if we compare students’ responses with those of the teachers. In answer to the second question most of the teachers (71.43% considered speaking as very important) opined that they worked with personal experiences for developing speaking skill more than anything. Next to speaking comes writing (60.71% consider writing as very important), then vocabulary (53.57% consider vocabulary as very important) is in the third preference, next comes reading (39.29% consider reading as very important) and finally listening ((32.14% consider listening as very important) is also a preferred skill to develop through sharing personal experiences. However, grammar is the most negligible skill (only 25% consider grammar as very important) which should be a matter of concern. (See Table 2b). 

Table 2b

 

The third question asked the students whether they would like traditional materials or personal experiences as materials in their ESL/EFL classroom. This question yielded three different answers from the students. 94.16% students, the highest, viewed that personal experience was preferable as material in the English language classroom. Only 4.17% students answered that they would like traditional material.  The lowest number of students, 1.67% wrote that they had no idea. In case of teachers, we can see that most of the teachers (57.14%) like personal experiences but a good number of them (42.86%) are also comfortable with traditional materials in class. Here teachers’ whims in teaching in Bangladesh may be decreased and students’ preferences should be taken into consideration by the teachers. (See Table 3 below).

Table 3

 

The fourth question inquired about both the students’ and teachers’ preferences regarding personal experiences. The highest number of students, 65% answered that they would prefer personal experience because it is related to life and therefore, they feel more connected to learning the language. It also works as a self discovery and motivates them in learning. Some viewed that they would prefer personal experience because it was a part of an individual’s life. So, they liked to talk about it freely. They strongly agreed that if personal experiences were shared in language classroom they would enhance their speaking skill. Several learners said that although traditional materials provided information, they had learned more from personal experiences. Traditional materials tend to be boring and it is difficult to follow in class. See some comments of the students in the table 4a below.

Table 4a

 

In case of teachers, almost equal focus is on both traditional materials and personal experiences, (though a bit more on personal experiences). See some of their comments in Table 4b below.

Table 4b

 

Question-5 had four options starting from ‘very necessary’ and ending with ‘not necessary’. It tried to elicit ideas from students and teachers about the necessity of using humor in ESL/SFL classroom. 102(85%) students felt that using humor is very necessary in a language class. Again 15% (18) said that humor is necessary in class. In case of teachers also, majority (78.57%) felt humor is very necessary while others (21.43%) said it is necessary. Neither a student nor a teacher answered negative. It clearly proves the importance of using humor in class. (See table 6 below)

Table 6

 

Questions from 6 to 8 had similar options to choose but they tried to elicit three different information. Question-6 mentioned that sense of humor is a paramount quality of an effective teacher. Most of the students (68.33%) strongly agreed upon it whereas some (23.33%) merely agreed and very few (8.34%) disagreed. From the teachers’ points of view, the similar picture is seen. Many (42.86%) strongly agreed upon it while many others (47.14%) agreed. Not a single teacher disagreed about this statement. (See table7 below).

Table7

Most of the students (strongly agreed upon question-7 which states that students learn better when they are amused. Here we find a big difference between the students’ and teachers’ opinions. 90% students supported this statement with strong agreement and the rest 10% also agreed. To the contrary, many teachers (39.29%) disagreed while many others agreed. This difference in opinions must be taken into consideration by the teachers. (See table8)

Table8

 

The last question is to elicit information about if sharing personal experience is a humor activity or not. Noticeably 100% teachers agreed upon it and the majority of students (91.66%) also positively agreed while a few students (8.34%) disagreed. (See Table9 below). Overall it can be said that personal experience is an important strategy for injecting humor into teaching. 

Table 9

 

Analysis of the Survey

The answer to the first question shows that most of the students, 85.83% have worked with personal experiences whereas only a few students, 14.16% have no experience of working with them in their English language classroom. For development of writing skills students write extensively in their ESL/EFL classroom. Therefore, most of them have some experience of attempting some essays/stories on topics related to personal experiences. It is unusual that some students do not have any idea of working with this material in their language classroom. 

The answer to the second question shows that most of the students,  65.83% worked with personal experiences for development of their writing skill followed by 59.16% for speaking, 50.83% for grammar, 45% for reading, 39.16% for listening and 26.66% for vocabulary. It is very normal that most of them used personal experiences in their language classroom for developing their writing skill. The second record is surprising that so many learners shared their personal experiences with their peers in the language classroom. But it is a very good and hope-giving thing. However, the lowest record for the use of personal experiences is learning vocabulary which is quite unusual and requires improvement. 

The third question about the preference of language materials in the ESL/EFL classroom is very important for this research. Here the majority, 94.16% participants, viewed that personal experience was more preferable to them as material in the English language classroom.  It is so because working with personal experience make them feel comfortable and nostalgic. It also motivates their language learning activities. Only 4.16% learners answered that they were in favour of traditional material.  It is not unusual because those participants have failed to realize the significance and pleasure of working with this material in their language classroom. A few number of respondents, 1.66% expressed that they did not have any idea of using this material in their ESL/EFL classroom.  

The fourth question, “Why would you prefer traditional materials or personal experiences?” brought forth some wonderful answers. The answer given by the majority that personal experience is related to life and they feel more connected to learning the language is very important for instructors as well as material developers. The response of the second majority is also very important for ESL/EFL teachers who teach speaking. The answer of the lowest number of participants, 3.33% is no less important for consideration. Therefore, relation to life, connection to learning, self-discovery, motivation, free conversation on personal experience, boredom of traditional materials, and English related to life and society stand prominent in the analysis of the answers to the fourth question. 

 

Major Findings

1. The results of the survey expose that most of the students have knowledge of working with their personal experiences in their ESL/EFL classroom. Therefore, this language material is not completely new to them that they would be surprised or unable to handle those. It is a positive matter for ESL/EFL instructors as well as material developers. Hence, personal experience can be used as a tool for learning English as a foreign or second language. 

2. The results of the survey also show that personal experience can be used very effectively for developing ESL/EFL learners' writing, reading and speaking skills. It may also be used to teach them listening, grammar and vocabulary. So this language learning tool may be used at all levels of schooling. This proves that the use of this material is not narrow. 

3. The results of the survey also demonstrate that learners prefer personal experience to traditional material in their ESL/EFL classroom. As a result, there is no problem with using personal experience. 

4. The results of the survey also display that students enjoy working with personal experience and feel motivated for and connected to language learning. Furthermore, as a tool of language learning it also provides them with access to human life and society. On the contrary, they feel bored with traditional materials. 

 

Conclusion

We can conclude saying that personal experience can be a nice tool for teaching English as a foreign or second language. Because this tool is suitable to teach different aspects of language. If any facilitator faces problem in working with this material for teaching any particular aspect of the language, they can exploit the ready-made traditional materials. The suggestion is of course for using the tool extensively when and where feasible and not entirely. However, according to the research results presented above it is obvious that this language learning tool is feasible for teaching many aspects of English. ESL/EFL instructors and material developers have a great role to play in this regard. If personal experience can be used in the ESL/EFL classroom properly, language learning would be very interesting, effective and creative.   

 

 

Shaila Ahmed

Senior Assistant Professor

Dept of English

American International University Bangladesh (AIUB)