Democratic Classrooms: Teacher-Student Collaboration for Active Language Learning

Abstract
The dawn of a knowledge based, technology driven culture in Bangladesh has introduced the
need for communicative learning and eventually the realization that language classrooms need to
empower students with language skills that will help them negotiate better with the world around
them. However, Bangladeshi classrooms are heterogeneous where there is a cultural imbalance
between Bangla medium students from rural/suburban areas and Bangla and English medium
students from urban areas. This, coupled with undemocratic curricula, has left the presentday
teacher, especially one teaching in a private university, struggling to cultivate collaboration and
interaction in her students. !n this paper, ! have addressed this issue by emphasizing how sharing
personal stories in the classroom can reduce the cultural gap between students thereby creating a
democratic environment where students interact and collaborate more effectively in English.
2
Introduction
!t was in "anuary #$$% as !
&
had 'ust entered my first (istening and )peaking class at
!ndependent *niversity, Bangladesh, with new ideas and a hopeful lesson plan, when ! realized
that my e+pectations ,and my smile- were falling flat because my students were hardly
responding to my teaching. .s a foreigneducated teacher new in Bangladesh, ! had started with
an ice breaker activity where students had to form pairs with the person sitting ne+t to them and
each student had to interview her/his pair partner who they were to later introduce in front of the
whole class, ending with a sketch of that person on the whiteboard. The interviews were to
consist of finding out about each person/s favorites 0 people, things, food, etc., plus a special
characteristic/skill/1uality/talent that the person possessed. ! had not only stated the instructions
verbally but had also written them down in one corner of the whiteboard. ! had falsely assumed
that my students were going to have fun and that the class would go on smoothly, filled with
laughter, with a bonding that would be created that would last the rest of the threemonth long
semester. However, ! was shocked to learn that this was not even nearer to what actually
happened on that day. The ma'ority of the students too were dazed.
Ever since, ! have taught many such foundation level courses and ! have begun to
understand the reaction of my students of #$$%. 2irstly, they had never had a class like that
1
!n this paper ! have avoided using the third person pronoun and the phrase 3the author4
to refer to myself but have used the personal pronoun 3!4 instead to avoid sounding distanced
from the reader. Thus, the intended tone of this paper is conversational rather than the usual
pedantic found most academic papers.
3
earlier in their lives. 5oreover, it was the first day of their freshman year and they were scared,
shy and lost. To top it all, when they were met with a teacher who not only did not give them a
concrete lecture on grammar that they had e+pected in English class but instead confused them
by trying to have fun, they were, to be honest, dissatisfied. !t was, as ! realize now, a cultural
chaos.
6ver the years, ! have met other English teachers who have echoed my e+perience and
my thoughts. The research for this paper began in 7ecember #$$8 as ! started casually
interviewing such teachers in private universities in the country. .mong them, three teachers
were from !*B ,!ndependent *niversity, Bangladesh- ,.ndaleeb 9houdhury, )haiful !slam and
)haila )hams-, two were from *(.B ,*niversity of (iberal .rts, Bangladesh- ,.T5 )a'edul
Hu1 and )haheen .ra-, one from B:.9 *niversity ,;hairul Basher- and one was from <)*
,<orth )outh *niversity- ,5ousume .khter 2lora-. ! asked them 1uestions on the following=
whether there was any significant different difference between responses to 1uestions from
urban/suburban and rural students or from Bangla and English medium students,
if their students responded well to collaborative tasks the only way to complete which is to
interact with both the teacher and peers,
which students on an average asked 1uestions to the teacher fre1uently,
whether these teachers designed the courses based on students/ cultural and affective needs or
not,
students/ seating preferences, and
4
how much Bangla the teacher needed to use in the classroom in order for students to feel at
ease.
.ll the seven teachers that ! spoke to e+pressed the same frustration regarding the
heterogeneity in their classrooms, observing that the Bangla medium students especially those
from rural/suburban background were intensely dependent on their teacher for completing
language tasks. )tudents, especially those who had attended the mainstream Bangla medium
schools, responded poorly or even negatively to nontraditional, collaborative tasks. .nd almost
every student from this category got nervous when faced with activities like roleplays, debates
and presentations that re1uired them to think outside the bo+. The teachers reported that
rural/suburban students generally avoided voluntary groupings with urban/English medium ones,
and performed poorer when forcefully grouped with the latter. These rural/suburban/Bangla
medium students, as 5r. )a'edul Hu1, .ssistant >rofessor at *(.B, states, 3are mostly silent,
waiting for someone else to say something, so that they can either simply nod in agreement or
remain silent in disagreement. They don/t even ask 1uestions? )o it/s terribly difficult to figure
out whether or not they/re following your teaching.4
.nother concern that all the teachers unanimously voiced was these students/ lack of
creativity 0 they favored handouts, notes and dictations that they could memorize or copy 0 but
hated using own ideas and own research.
9onsidering these challenges that private university English language teachers and
students face in Bangladesh, in the following sections of this paper ! have attempted to e+plain
why students from rural/suburban Bangla medium backgrounds face difficulty in interacting and
collaborating with their English medium peers. ! will end the paper with a discussion on how
5
storytelling in the English language classrooms can create a more democratic environment
which can turn around the performance of these students.
1. The socio-cultural-historical foundation of English education in angladesh
Before we can begin to understand the state of our English classrooms, we need to revisit
certain theoretical studies based on the history and culture of .sia. )ince anti1uity, the prominent
mode of instruction is .sia has been the much celebrated 3gurushisshya4 form ,guru 0 teacher@
shissya 0 student, or more specifically, disciple-, where the teacher/s status is e1uated with that
of a divine being. The teacher/s instructions are the final words and the perception is that s/he
must be obeyed without 1uestion because s/he is the ultimate and infallible authority on
knowledge and learning. However, this is not to misunderstand the ancient gurushisshya form of
teaching as autocratic because if we look at the teaching practices in some of the ma'or religions
of the region 0 Hinduism, !slam and Buddhism, we will be able to observe that even though
teachers in these religions were considered as possessing divine powers, their students/disciples
actually gained knowledge through dialogues with the teacher. The Sahabas of >rophet
5uhammad, the shissyas of Buddha and those of 7ronacharya of 5ahabharat have created
e+amples of such dialogues where students 1uestioned and challenged the teacher to learn, and
the teacher in turn challenged the students to rise above him in knowledge, i.e., create knowledge
that is more advanced that that contained in the teacher. This is why knowledge in these religions
has been attributed divinity as a gesture of reverence with the simple understanding that it
'ustifies one/s being. Hence, the teacher is the epitome of divine knowledge.
.s the historical film rolled, it introduced of new forms of servitude for people, including
the discriminations in the right to learn and become 3educated4 and 3modern4, and this tradition
6
of pedagogy has taken on a monstrous turn in our times where our learning environments have
become regimented and forced, and the teacher autocratic. This pedagogical form has become
common in all areas of learning, including that of English language. This can be largely
attributed to what Edward T. Hall in his pioneering book Beyond Culture describes as a 3high
conte+t culture4 that is now typical of most countries in .sia, including Bangladesh. !n short,
people in high conte+t cultures communicate through fewer words, sometimes even through
silence, and regard the individual assertiveness and constructivist attitude of the Aest as
disrespectful and almost a sacrilege committed against authority. !n fact in most of these cultures
it is believed that 1uestioning the authority or establishing priority of the individual over the
collective may result in causing the authority severe dissatisfaction whereby, considering the
instance of the student, s/he may end up being denied divine knowledge or may even have to
serve penance for such acts. This type of cultural practice has been further e+plored by Beert
Hofstede in his article C9ultural 7ifferences in Teaching and (earningC where he discusses the
concept of 3power distance4 ,D$&D#$-. This can be understood as the way in which people in a
culture anticipate and nurture power differences and the privileges or disadvantages that arise
from such differences. Thus in cultures such as that in Bangladesh where large power distances
prevail within organizations, authority is not shared but is rather very strictly centralized and it is
considered favorable to practice collective obedience to power, both out of fear and reverence
and because such obedience makes the authority happy and charitable.
The introduction of English education during the British colonial rule changed nothing as
far as traditional pedagogy was concerned, and students were, as they are still in most cases,
e+pected to learn rules and te+ts by rote through repetitive drills. Teachers in Bangladesh have
7
always developed curricula and designed syllabi according to what they have believed are fit for
the students to learn.
2urther, very little attention has been paid to account for changes in syllabi according to
changes in the country/s socioeconomicpolitical scenario. .fter the Bangla (anguage .ct was
passed in &8E& in Bangladesh, the status of English became that of a foreign language that is
meant to be used sparsely for very limited communicative purposes, mostly for limited clerical
purposes or in higher education ,Banu and )usse+ &#F&#8-. However, although at present the
Bangladesh government has outlined in its <ational 9urriculum the overall aims for English
language learning as human resources skillsoriented ,Development of Education@ .iny &&D-,
based on which English teaching at the tertiary level in the country is struggling to take a more
critical, creative and careeroriented turn, neither teachers nor students are able to practically
perceive the language as anything but 'ust another sub'ect that students need to pass in to be
promoted to the ne+t level of education. 6ur syllabi have still not ad'usted to our growing
e+posure to the hightech neoliberal market economy and year after year, students are offered
the same language courses with the same contents and taught through the same approaches.
.nd thus the legacy of this nonconte+tualized, closed, teachercentered, non
constructivist form of teaching is largely responsible for the shock that modern teachers get when
they try to employ more communicative, studentcentered classroom practices. However, !
believe that it is only a matter of converting challenges into opportunities for a language teacher
in Bangladesh and it is possible, as many of my classes have successfully and repeatedly
displayed, that if a teacher takes steps to involve her students in the entire dynamics of the course
0 from course design to evaluation, and is able to foster critical learning skills using collaborative
8
cultural practice as an aide instead of considering it a disadvantage, the result will be a
democratic, studentcentered classroom where students are no longer afraid, or shy, or an+ious
but are willing and able to use their analytical skills in learning a language that will e1uip them
with communicative abilities necessary for them to negotiate with the world around them.
!n the ne+t section, ! have therefore discussed certain values and issues that both teachers
and learners must mutually cultivate while designing and participating in a language class. These
are accompanied or followed by strategies/techni1ues that have helped me accomplish a more
interactive, democratic and a more intellectually satisfying English class than the one ! had to
face in 7ecember #$$%.
!. Setting u" an interactive and democratic classroom
Teaching English in Bangladesh is fraught with multifaceted contradictions. 6n one
hand are students who are culturally conditioned to passively absorb traditional style rule
governed lectures. 6n the other hand are teachers who after witnessing the fall of grammar
translation and audiolingual methods recognize the importance of innovative classroom
techni1ues. 7ealing with these contradictions re1uires accepting that our classrooms need a
complete makeover.
9ontrary to what many of us language teachers believe 0 that students can be motivated
to become active, selfsufficient learners without the outside world ,by this ! mean the world
outside the classroom- creating any impact on this learning process, the dominant political and
cultural discourses are simulated in the classroom without us even realizing it. )tarting from the
teaching materials to the e+pectations and pre'udices of both teacher and students to the interplay
of communicative dos and don/ts, language teaching is fundamental to understanding and
9
propagating a culture. )teven >inker in his book The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human
Nature has long ago criticized the once popular deterministic view that students come to the
language classroom with a mind like a blank slate, or tabula rasa. )o the moment language
teachers accept that learning is not an isolated process but is in fact a negotiation and re
negotiation of new and established values, norms and beliefs that help us understand and choose
what to learn and how, it becomes easy to identify the processes and discourse strategies that act
as barriers to learning. Thus, in this way, it also becomes easier to make changes.
This is where the notion of democratic classroom becomes due. Here, ! unavoidably turn
to >aolo 2reire who has led the way to building democratic classrooms through 3dialogues4
between students and teachers. 2reire has, to my opinion, advanced the most comprehensive
research on the notion of democracy within the classroom by proposing modifications in the role
of both the teacher and her students. !n eda!o!y of the "ppressed, he redefines and
revolutionizes the teacherstudent relationship.
Through dialogue, the teacher of the students and the students of the teacher cease to
e+ist and a new term emerges= teacherstudent with studentsteachersG. HTIhe teacher is
no longer merely the one who teachers, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with
the students, who in their turn while being taught also teach ,JE-.
2or 2reire, a democratic classroom is essential for both teachers and students to be able to
cocreate new knowledge@ knowledge that 3emerges only through invention and reinvention,
through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopefully in1uiry men HsicI pursue in the world, with
the world, and with each other4 ,F%-. .ccording to him, 3progressive education4 must take into
10
account the knowledge that students bring into the class and through interaction with the teacher,
which in turn can spin out a better understanding of the world. Thus, it is the teacher/s duty to=
know that his or her Khere/ and Know/ are nearly always the educands/ Kthere/ and Kthen./
Even though the educator/s dream is not only to render his or her Khereandnow/ with
them, or to understand and re'oice that educands have gotten beyond their Khere/ so that
this dream is realized, she or he must begin with the educands/ Khere/ and not with her or
his own. .t the very least, the educator must keep account of the e+istence of his or her
educands/ Khere/ and respect it. (et me put it this way= you never get there by starting
from there, you get there by starting from some here. This means, ultimately, that the
educator must not be ignorant of, underestimate, or re'ect any of the Kknowledge of living
e+perience/ with which educands come to school ,3>edagogy of Hope4 F%-.
2reire/s conviction of 3knowledge of living e+perience4 is rooted in >aiget/s views on
constructivism, where 3learning is a developmental process that involves change, self
generation, and construction, each building on prior learning e+periences4 ,1td. in ;auffman,
D$L-.
"ay 5cTighe and ;en 6/9onnor in their article 3)even >ractices for Effective (earning4
describe this process as 3diagnostic assessment4 that teachers need to employ at the beginning of
teaching any course 3to check students/ prior knowledge and skill levels, identify student
misconceptions, profile learners/ interests, and reveal learningstyle preferencesGpre
assessments serve diagnostic purposesG4 ,&$-.
Thus, from the moment ! felt the urge to turn my passive and traditional students into
interactive and critical learners, ! have been e+perimenting with various democratic forms of
11
classrooms for my speaking and listening courses. ! say 3forms4 because each classroom has its
own dynamics. .nd one form of management may not necessarily suit two classrooms.
)ometimes, a mi+ of different management practices has worked well. !nspired by 2reire, !
always begin my classes by getting to know my students.
*nfortunately, most English teachers in private universities in the country do not conduct
needs analyses to design the syllabi of their language courses. They are in the habit of preparing
a standardized syllabus that all teachers teaching the same course attempt to complete in a
particular semester. The syllabi are thus blind to its students, i.e., they are based on teachers/
assumptions, biases, and e+pectations. )o, for instance, students who enroll in a course to, let us
say, improve their speaking and listening proficiency end up being forced to learn the same
rubber stamped material, without having any say in whether it suits their aspirations and learning
styles or not.
:ight in the first class of the course, ! have made it a practice to begin by asking
1uestions about the students and goading each of them to tell me why they have enrolled into the
course and about what they e+pect from it. They are shy at first, or nervous, but when ! e+plain
why ! ask such 1uestions, they are visibly comforted. )o from day one, ! make my students my
colearners, as ! call them from then onwards. This gives them a sense of being in charge and
although many of them take time to stop e+pecting a pedantic control freak who delivers long
lectures to a silent class, once they start having fun, there is no turning back to the traditional
classroom.
Teachers therefore must run a needs analysis with the students being fully aware of why
and how the course will be taught to them. Boals need to be set early on in language classrooms,
12
through dialogues and negotiations between the teacher and student. Teachers need to identify
within the first few classes the background, beliefs and aspirations of the students in their classes
so as to be able to personalize classroom discourses as much as possible.
.s a more democratic measure, many universities around the world have recently started
offering open syllabi, i.e., syllabi that are not standardized but are modeled and remodeled by
teachers and students together to fulfill their specific colearning goals. !t would be utopist to
even consider such a radical change in teaching in Bangladesh because another crucial challenge
for the English teacher in the country is facing a classroom of students from diverse
backgrounds. ! use the term 3multiliteracies4 coined by the <ew (ondon Broup
#
in &88J and
later e+plained in detail in Multiliteracies: #iteracy #earnin! and the Desi!n of Social $utures
,9ope and ;alantzis- to describe such students. The e+tent to which English education in the
country is poorly managed can be observed simply by looking at English classrooms where
students from different educational and proficiency backgrounds are amassed at random, that too
in huge numbers. .n average English language classroom in private universities contains
between D$ to F$ students. There are no guidelines as to how the students are grouped in a class.
There is usually an uneven and arbitrary distribution of students from Bangla and English
medium schools, as well as a hodgepodge of students from different disciplines of study. .mong
all the private universities in the country, B:.9 *niversity is the only one that categorizes
2
9ourtney 9azden ,Harvard, *).-@ Bill 9ope ,*niversity of Technology, )ydney-@
<orman 2airclough ,(ancaste *niversity, *;-@ "im Bee ,9lark *niversity, *).-@ 5ary
;alantzis ,"ames 9ook *niversity of <orth Mueensland-@ Bunther ;ress ,*niversity of (ondon,
*;-@ .llan (uke ,*niversity of Mueensland-@ 9armen (uke ,*niversity of Mueensland-@ )arah
5ichaels ,9lark *niversity, *).-@ 5artin <akata ,"ames 9ook *niversity of <orth
Mueensland-.
13
students according to proficiency levels or 3modules4, and each module is then offered a course
that fits the average proficiency of the students contained in it.
9onsidering this, a practical democratic approach by a language teacher threatened by
multiliteracies is to talk to her students and list the common, achievable goals of the course. !f
for e+ample, a class has more number of English medium students, the teacher may skip teaching
the basics of present simple tense and conduct separate tutorials for the minority Bangla medium
students outside class hours. However, this the teacher may practice only when she is assured
that her English medium students do not display the need to learn such basics. )ummarily, a
language teacher needs to keep in mind that there is no one English that can and has to be taught
to all her students. .nd a successfully democratic language class encapsulates the differences in
the needs and aspirations of different students.
#. The collaborative classroom
!nteraction in the classroom remains limited if the students and teacher do not engage in
controlled collaboration. .s an e+ample, let me cite the happenings in one of my speaking
listening classes. !n this course, students are e+pected to watch some prescribed English films
without subtitles to improve their comprehension of different intonation and pronunciation
styles, not to learn to emulate those styles but to be able to understand foreign English. .fter
every film viewing session ! make it a point to discuss the film in detail with my students. 6ne
day we watched "ames 9ameron/s %vatar together. !nitially during the discussion, as it is always
the case, students were silent. Ahen ! pointed to one male student and asked how he liked the
film, he responded, 3Bood4. ! then asked the same 1uestion to another male student and received
14
the response= 3)ame to him4 ,meaning the second student also found the film 3good4-. ! could
understand from his hesitant reply that he too had realized that his utterance was grammatically
unacceptable. However, he also seemed to know that it was a communicable utterance and so did
not attempt to rephrase the sentence as ! paused with the e+pectation that he would. )o ! first
asked him to e+plain what he had said in Bangla and he immediately lighted up and responded=
3.maro bhalo lagse, 5iss4 ,! also liked it, 5iss-. ! e+claimed, 3Breat?4 and repeated what he
had said in correct English= 3! also liked the film4. To my surprise, without my asking him to
repeat this sentence, he did so a few times and seemed to make a mental note of what ! had said
so that it does not get lost to him in the future. ! then launched on how ! felt about the film,
describing in detail my favorite scenes and dialogues in the film, what some scenes/characters
reminded me of, how ! felt the movie had racist undertones and how some parts of the film
confused me and how it did not end as ! had e+pected it to. ! could not even finish talking when
the entire class burst into a shower of comments about how they agreed or disagreed with me. !
then decided on the spot to tell the class to take five minutes of reflection time and 'ot down
some of the things about %vatar that each wanted to share with the rest of the class. .fter five
minutes, my students had a lot more to say about %vatar than in the beginning. )ome of them
went to the e+tent of defending the film against my allegation of it being racist. !t was a noisy,
smiling class that ! left that day that was looking forward to watching more films together.
35an is a social animal4 may be a clichN, but it surely is the foundation of a language
classroom. )ince language is never used in isolation, building togetherness and the practice of
sharing works wonders in making students respond to language instructions. !t gives them a
sense of support and harnesses the practice of groupthink in the Bangladeshi cultural sense. The
idea of collaborative, interactive classrooms has been commended by 7onald 2reeman in his
15
article Collaboration: Constructin! shared understandin!s in a second lan!ua!e classroom by
invoking ". (emke who emphasizes that learning in a classroom
Gto a very large degree is talk= it is the social use of language to enact regular activity
structures and to share systems of meaning among teachers and studentsG.The
1uestionsGconcern the ways in which teachers and students make meanings together
with language, what theyGdo to one another through language, and how language is
integrated into the activity routines of the classroom ,<unan FJ-.
Through collaboration, students also understand the importance of their individual roles
in creating knowledge, because then each student is conscious of adding to the pool of language
inputs. Their sentence structures may not be always correct but their fluency increases in the
process of classroom practices that demand spontaneity.
$. Democrac% and feedbac&
.ccording to Aiggins in %ssessment as $eedback, feedback is goalsetting tool that helps
teachers decide what need to be accomplished in a particular course. >erhaps the largest chunk of
a language curriculum involves feedback. 5ost teachers in Bangladesh understand feedback as a
rigid, unidirectional and corrective process whereby students make mistakes and teachers correct
them, either verbally or in writing ,popularly with a red pen-. .nd many a times, teachers
complain of their students not following their feedback. 6n deeper inspection, many do finally
acknowledge that their students actually fail to comprehend teacher feedback. !n any case, both
students and teachers are frustrated and the course goals are never met successfully. ! have seen
many teachers write comments like 37o this assignment again?4 and 3Bad handwriting. Ahat did
you meanO4 on writing assignments of students. 6ral feedback in Bangladesh is also mostly
16
corrective in nature where teachers correct the students/ grammar as soon as the students utter an
unacceptable sentence, even if it may be in the middle of a dialogue. )o it is small wonder that
students fail to respond to comments as desired by the teacher, because such feedback frightens
the students and lowers their selfesteem.
. primary assumption of a democratic classroom is that there is no fi+ed feedback
strategy for language learning. :ight at the beginning of the course a teacher must discuss
feedback strategies with her class and find out what kind of feedback processes their students
prefer and how such feedback will help achieve the course goals.
<ot only that, a language teacher wishing to teach effectively must also illustrate the
possible outcomes of each type of feedback style that she discusses with her students in order to
finalize on certain styles for a particular classroom. !n Differin! perceptions in the feedback
process, 7avid 9arless/ research shows that unlike students who cannot even conceive that
teacher feedback is supposed to help them improve, their teachers believe that effective feedback
has been delivered ,##L-. .nd this is e+actly why students should participate in understanding
and setting the goals and styles of feedback, a process 9arless calls 3assessment dialogues4
,#D$-.
)ince feedback is a lot about error correction, modern teachers face the dilemma of
whether to correct their students on the spot or wait for the right time to correct mistakes.
;athleen Bailey, as cited by 7ouglas H. Brown in rinciples of #an!ua!e #earnin! and
Teachin! acknowledges=
17
3Glanguage teachers have a number of Kbasic options/ when confronted with a student
error, including to treat or ignore, to treat now or later, to stimulate other learners to
initiate treatment, and to test for the effectiveness of the treatment.4 ,#EF-
This dilemma is easier resolved in a democratic classroom. 2eedback in my speaking
listening classes involves a multidimensional relationship= feedback from teacher to individual
student@ from teacher to a group or the entire class@ from students to teacher@ and from student to
student. These feedback relationships are agreed upon and established within the first week of
classes. The forms of feedback are also agreed upon, i.e., it is established that feedback may take
the form of comments, corrections or 1uestions. !t is also agreed that throughout the course ! and
my students will engage in learning to give and receive feedback as a crucial step in learning to
communicate in English. Thus, feedback in my classes is a process of continuous learning 0
everyone learns not only to give and get feedback but also to ensure that feedback is constructive
and can be followed up on.
. helpful move toward effective feedback for Bangladeshi language teachers would be to
provide formfocused instruction ,22!-, defined succinctly by <ina )pada as 3any pedagogical
effort which is used to draw the learners/ attention to language form either implicitly or
e+plicitly.4 ,1td. in Brown #EJ-. 2urther, )pada along with (ightbown record two ways in
which 22! may be implemented in the classroom= 3isolated4 and 3integrated4 ,(ightbown and
)pada &%&#$E-. They define isolated 22!s as instructions that involve teaching acceptable
linguistic 3forms4 ,grammar, pronunciation, etc.- without the specific aim of raising
communicative competence in students. 6n the other hand, integrated 22!s do the 'ust the
opposite. )pada and (ightbown also suggest teachers to create a balance between the two forms
of addressing error correction in the classroom. 2or teachers wishing to create a democratic
18
atmosphere in the classroom, ". Ailliams makes us aware that it not only the teachers/ duty to
identify and correct errors but students must also be guided to learn to take the responsibility of
doing the same ,Hinkel JEF-. This is a practice that teachers in democratic classrooms need to
instill in their students so as to create empowered and active learners.
2or me to incorporate 22! in my class, firstly, it is important for me to play around with
student groupings in the classroom. Bangladeshi students, as many colleagues would agree, tend
to 'oin classes in groups. .lthough some are loners or are more individual than others, the
ma'ority of students either enroll into the same course as their friends, or form peer groups after
the course has begun to which they tend to stick to throughout the course. .lso, English medium
students tend to group with other English medium students, 'ust like female students tend to
group together. This is again a culturally collaborative practice that they perceive as a safeguard
in a language course they have no passion or interest in. Broup work is an important criterion for
establishing democratic and collaborative norms in a language classroom. (ockhart and :ichards
confirm this by emphasizing that group work 3increases the amount of student participation in
the class4 and that it 3can give learners a more active role in learning4 ,&FD-. .s ! negotiate with
students about possible grouping strategies that will be effective for a particular course, ! enforce
the idea that there are to be no static groups in the class, and that students will have to work with
different peers/peer groups for different activities. ! declare that forming and reforming
groups/pairs is also to be a matter that has to be mutually decided by the students and myself.
6nce this is established and tried out ,with initial starting problems of course-, each student
becomes more open to sharing ideas with every other peer in the class, and the shyness or
hesitation that used to previously arise during interactions vanishes into thin air. Thus, when in
the second class of a speakinglistening course, a student who nodded doubtfully at her classmate
19
who spoke a grammatically unacceptable sentence 0 3There have big canteen on !*B4 by the
twelfth class raised her hand and politely remarked= 3E+cuse me. ! think you mean KThere is a
big canteen in !*B/. .m ! rightO4 and smiled, while the other student smiled back and said
3Peah. Thanks. Peah, ! tried mean that4.
Thus, unlike traditional teachers, modern ones should not be afraid to allow peer
interaction and feedback. However, it needs to be teacherregulated. !n peer interaction,
according to (ockhart and :ichards who allude to Hatch, 3one learns how to do conversation,
one learns how to interact verbally, out of this interaction syntactic structures are developed4
,&F#-.
9ritical, empowered learners do not hesitate to give feedback to their teachers. !n fact,
teachers should ensure that they discuss teacher evaluation with the class at the beginning of the
course by stressing that the more students learn to comment or 1uestion the teacher, the better
they will learn, i.e., they will learn to learn on one/s own. )o e+plaining the benefits of teacher
evaluation to students is therefore a must in a democratic classroom. :onald Boyd in his article
&mprovin! Teacher Evaluations refers to a goaloriented teacher evaluation as one that should
3relate to important teaching skills4 and is 3as ob'ective as possible4, pointers that Bangladeshi
teachers need to remind their students as they discuss teacher evaluation policy in the classroom.
6f course, the aim to empower students in a congenial atmosphere may completely
misfire and some students may abuse the open environment and be lazy or rude to teacher/peer.
.t this point what come handy are the course goals and policies that the teacher and peers had
decided upon when the course began. 7espite this, some students may disrupt a congenial
atmosphere in many ways. Berald .mada in Copin! 'ith Misconduct in the Colle!e Classroom
20
lists, among others, two categories of misconduct commonly found in Bangladeshi classes=
3plagiarism or lying4 and 3disrespectful behavior4. <ow first of all, teachers and students must
agree upon in the beginning of the course that any behavior identified by the teacher or any
student as misbehavior is not to be tolerated in the classroom. The teacher must also make her
students aware of the institutional policy regarding misbehavior. 2inally, even though democratic
classrooms mean that traditional hierarchy placing the teacher in the divine seat is avoided, the
teacher still remains the ultimate decision maker in her class, and must e+ercise penalties if cases
become e+treme. The best way to start dealing with e+treme misbehavior is to consult a
colleague. (isa :odriguez reminds teachers to be mindful of not overtly insulting their students
in front of their peers or other teachers, using 3positive4, encouraging words and most
importantly, to not forget their own e+periences of being a student earlier in life when dealing
with even the worst of student misbehavior.
Conclusion
! had once overheard a teacher during a conference in 5alaysia say that becoming a good
teacher is easy if you can remember the bad teachers who taught you. !t is not difficult to
recognize the frustrations of one/s students through their displayed level of motivation and the
e+tent to which they voluntarily participate in learning. Teachers and educationists must not be
deceived by a completed syllabus or a completed written assignment but must also make sure
that they understand and share with their students the process by which these have been
achieved. <ot only that, it is important to create an environment that fosters students who
actively seek out learning inputs through interaction with peers and the teacher. The absence of
such a democratic classroom can be disastrous for the selfesteem of both the teachers and
students. 9reating such an environment is a continuous process of trial and error as there is no
21
one particular kind of classroom that fits all. The students and their teacher need to be co
participants in deciding the norms, values, practices and feedback and grievance management
measures in order to colearn 0 the teacher learns to teach while the students learn to learn.
2inally, a teacher must remember that she is a caregiver, and historically speaking, autocracy has
never fostered growth but only dissatisfaction.
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24
Teachers should remember that, as :ichards and (ockhart argue, 3the interactional dynamics of
a classroom are largely a product of choices the teacher makes about learning arrangements4
,&88L, p.&LJ-.
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27
28
HH This paper addresses the presentday Bangladeshi tertiarylevel language teacher/s woes over
her student/s lack of creativity and empowerment in the classroom by discussing how effective
discourse strategies, especially 1uestioning can overcome to a large e+tent this problem that is
seen as a barrier to language learning among many of her contemporaries around the globe.
has seen the language teacher, especially in the tertiary level, heave a loud sigh of frustration at
her students/ lack of creativity and assertiveness 0 skills that are deemed obligatory to function
profitably in the present globalized world order. II