The Emotional-Social Context for Language Learning

To be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner. Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn from the learner, put yourself in his place so that you may understand what he understands and the way he understands it.
-Soren, Kierkegaard (1848), “The Point of View for My Work as an Author”

Teachers at the beginning of a school year slave away in their classrooms  designing bulletin boards, desk layouts, and room décor, familiarizing themselves with technology resources, creating lesson plans, navigating relationships with fellow teachers and administration, and worrying endlessly.

The first week in the classroom is difficult for many teachers who struggle to find that balance between establishing structure and control while also cultivating relationships and community with students. It can be exhausting when some students are not as responsive as others to instructions.

Just as the physical arrangement of the classroom facilitates large-group, small-group, and individualised activities, a framework of rules and expectations sets the criteria for ongoing evaluation. Developing goals negociated by the teacher and the students for classroom behaviour, allows for the rights of the individual to be balanced with the needs of the group and the programmatic requirements of the teacher. The children are then equally responsible with the teacher for evaluating whether the rules are being observed and whether modifications are needed.

The emotional climate is tied to the social environment and cannot be judged independently. The teacher creates an environment and introduces those activity structures that best require students to make conscious decisions pertaining to their learning behaviour. Thus children are naturally  required to adhere to the agreed-upon social demands of general courtesy and to accept responsibility for their actions within the group.In this way, they begin to understand a system of rules tied to function and situation. Since the responsibility is in their power, they are answerable to the group and to themselves rather than the absolute authority of the teacher.

Teaching and evaluation should become a shared responsibility among students, family, teachers, even extending into the community through the participation of classroom volunteers who share their various talents and experiences. Traditional power roles are minimised. Power over curriculum, knowledge, and access to both is not hoarded by the teacher and rationed in small, unconnected pieces. Rather, the power  to learn is shared by students and teachers alike. Adults and children become both teachers and learners, and growth can be monitored within this more natural setting.

Lara Hache