It is vital then for a teacher to gauge the readiness of his/her students before introducing a unit. Pre-assessing this will also allow the teacher to modify instructions or break it down into student-friendly terms as big ideas can surely be conveyed in simpler language

Very recently, this pedagogue introduced a particular mode of power-point presentation to his middle school students. Having learned about it from his academic writing professor at his university and also having witnessed its effectiveness, he had a feeling the ‘pecha-kucha’ presentation would work well with his middle school students, too. Pecha-kucha, which is ‘chit-chat’ in Japanese, is a short visual presentation comprising 20 slides. Each slide is timed to automatically advance every 20 seconds so that the whole presentation lasts for a total of 6 minutes 40 seconds. The students were involved, if not immersed, in this learning experience right from the start when they had to brainstorm ideas, collect pictures, transmit those pictures over to the timed slides to its culmination when they had to present a short story provided through pecha-kucha.

Some of the common denominators as regards pre-knowledge prior to this activity between himself and his students were foundational literacy, basic computer literacy and power-point presentation skills. What engaged them into it perhaps has to do with the input hypothesis introduced by linguist and educator Stephen Krashen in the Monitor Model, a theory of second language acquisition in 1982. Although strictly in the domain of second language acquisition, it may not be very hard to see why the proposition that an input needs to be slightly beyond the learners’ level of competence in order to be comprehensible could be relatable to everyday pedagogy, too.

The odds of labeling power-point presentation as overrated and overdone by both this teacher and his students are very high. They are indeed overdone these days in academia, and the latest victims are those school children whom by their teachers, in the name of integrating ICT into education, are frequently saddled with this all too easy mode of knowledge exhibition. The input hypothesis also suggests that the meaningful output may not also be achieved if the input and the corresponding task are way below the level of the learners’ competence.

The teacher had enjoyed pecha-kucha and considered it worth pursuing at his university precisely because the task was neither too easy to get easily bored nor too difficult to get frustrated. There was an important element of novelty in the task, which nonetheless required previously acquired skills and ideas. With this as an experience, the students at the outset and as a pre-assessment were asked a few questions, which would then determine whether to proceed with the activity or not. All of them knew and had overdone power-point presentations before, but nobody had even heard of this type of presentation except for a student who knew Japanese and could tell that it’s a chit-chat. Group work and collaboration were nothing new to them, but sitting close together to find the right pictures to go with the plot was a new challenge.

Likewise, preparing slides with the contents of the given topic would have been a piece of cake, but since the format here was different, they had to do a fair bit of new work here as well.  The long and short of it is that both the input and the activity had them greatly involved.

An unavoidable part and parcel of this profession is that there are failure stories, too. Not too long ago, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in its unabridged version, but with annotations, was introduced to the students. It is believed, especially among language and literature teachers, that if you do not enjoy or like a particular work, do not bother to foist it upon the students. There was no dearth of enthusiasm and appreciation for the ‘Bard of Avon’ in this case, but not even a quarter of that could be conjured up in most of his students. It proved to be way beyond their level of competence and comprehension even with the scaffolding of Shakespearean English and elements of drama.

Not an absolute failure though, the post unit reflection informed the teacher that over half the students were simply not ready for it, and most of the thoughts taught had gone over their head. Similar unit of drama by the same dramatist, however, proved to be quite successful six months later, and it might be partly attributed to the knowledge acquired earlier. It is vital then for a teacher to gauge the readiness of his/her students before introducing a unit. Pre-assessing this will also allow the teacher, if there is indeed a Hobson’s choice of teaching a unit prescribed by the curriculum, to modify instructions or break it down into student-friendly terms as big ideas can surely be conveyed in simpler language.

To conclude things on a positive note, also not too long ago and again emulated from his very academic writing professor, this teacher had also introduced a unit named ‘Toastmasters’ aimed at enhancing the students’ public speaking skills. The requirements, like time-bound speaking, a segment of impromptu speech, and a jury of critics like spell-checkers, pause counters and grammar watchers made the entire experience demanding yet exciting. The right input to the students, therefore, can break the monotony of a classroom, resulting from learning experience being either too easy or much difficult.