Big class? Small room? Needing to regularly shift modes of interaction (groups, pairs, big circle)? Do you have trouble motivating students to actually move? Noisy scraping chairs? Are students getting stuck in cliques and clamming up? Or is your 'group-work' only in English when you are within earshot?In any of these circumstances the panauricon could be the classroom management tool for you.
The panauricon idea is an adaptation of Jeremy Bentham's in/famous eighteenth century prison design, much celebrated in our era by Michel Foucault. Bentham's model prison was based on the idea that prisoners could be controlled, pacified and reformed by means of constant and uniform surveillance from a central position: usually some kind of tower. The principle of Bentham's 'panopticon' was that the prisoner could always be seen and knew that he (sic.) could always be seen.
The emphasis of the panauricon is on establishing the teacher of an oral class in a central position where s/he can hear what any student is saying. To put this another way: the panauricon puts the teacher where s/he can, without moving, tune in at will to any conversation in the classroom. In contrast with the traditional teacher centred chalk and talk classroom where the teacher stands in the front, in the panauricon the teacher is literally at the centre of the classroom. But despite the teacher's physical position the panauricon should be considered a student-centred classroom because, after the giving of instructions or initial repeat-after-me drill, it is the students who do the talking. In the panauricon the teacher becomes a mainly invisible presence. The teacher's role is to listen and intervene in individual conversations. The teacher's role is to time and orchestrate the movement of the class, to 'organise' the maximum amount of oral practice from students.
In any classroom where oral practice depends on groupwork or pairwork the presence of the teacher - as model of and arbiter of correctness - may daunt some students. As the teacher circulates to monitor the progress of students s/he finds some groups clamming up, shy; others which had been silent suddenly performing, yet others switching into the target language just for the benefit of the teacher's appearance. In the case of the panauricon however the teacher's ubiquitous position renders these evasions futile. The teacher can tune in at any time merely by turning his or her head. The teacher has no need to move around the classroom. It is the students who do the moving. The students have the feeling that the teacher is always 'there'.
As in Bentham's panopticon not all of the students can see the teacher all of the time. Specifically the students in the middle (on the inside of the circle) cannot see the teacher but they do know that the teacher is behind them.
Nowadays one tends to associate Bentham's kind of contraption with the frightening forms of social control it sporned: eg the modern prison. A word is called for then in defending the panauricon. The panauricon is not about silencing people. The purpose of the panauricon is to generate as much talk as possible, to monitor talk so as to help students to improve on their oral production. The panauricon is not about pacifying prisoners. Its purpose is to create an active classroom in which physical movement is associated with practice and in which practice and movement (and fun) are associated with learning. Whereas Bentham's model was all about keeping prisoners in a permanent state of fearful immobility (about restricting movement and volition through surveillance) the goal of the panauricon is to encourage the movement of students, to ensure that all members of the class speak with all other members, to control and order that circulation of students in such a way that students are reassured (by what may at times be an illusion) that the teacher is with them and able at any time to cater to their individual needs.
Most importantly though the panauricon is a co-operative activity: a dialogic activity. In the panauricon students, who are perhaps more used to sitting in isolation at desks in neat rows, work to learn together.
A classroom in which students are used to following simple movement instructions is an easy classroom in which to implement the panauricon.
Instead of sitting in a big circle (assuming they are used to that) we're now going to make a circle with an inside and an outside (you can call it the 'inside-outside' circle for reference). Here's how it works.An even number of students allows the teacher to stand in the middle of the circle. From this position s/he can easily tune into any pair interaction: ask students to repeat what they have said, ask questions, correct errors, fine-tune tasks and so on. An odd number of students puts the teacher in one of the chairs, in a pair with a student. In this case the teacher can choose to be inside the circle (to minimise his or her movement) or outside the circle (especially good when introducing the panauricon so as to model movement around the circle). Being in the circle gives the teacher the opportunity to closely monitor and assess students' performance. Where students are used to the panauricon, a student's absence will allow a variation from teacher-in to teacher-out of the circle mode. This kind of variation helps to keep the panauricon lively.
- Half of the people are inside the circle.
- Half of the people are outside the circle.
- Everyone inside has a partner outside the circle.
- Everyone outside has a partner inside the circle.
- Please take your chairs with you. We'll have our conversations sitting down.
- Any questions?
- Remember - everyone has to have a partner.
- Please do it now.
Once practice commences, be it a pre-taught drill of fixed length or a fairly free conversation (or anything in between), it is of course likely different interactions will proceed at different paces. Therefore it is good to wind down a 'round' gradually. If a round finishes too abruptly just because some people have already finished then some other students may feel that they have not had the opportunity to complete their practice. If a round drags on then some students may feel bored with waiting. Timing is everything in the running of the panauricon because it is an activity which enlists the members of the class as a single organism.
Having drawn a first round to a gradual end and then definitely asserted this perhaps with a phrase like stop speaking now, it's time to make the wheel turn and to give everyone a new partner.
It is often good to give people on the inside a new instruction about a variation in the drill or dialogue (for instance, swapping roles or testing memorisation by closing books, while the people on the outside are moving). Naturally if a dialogue is being practised as a drill it will be appropriate to reverse roles between those inside and those outside of the circle. Sometimes it is a good idea to rotate the circle before reversing roles as a way of ensuring that complete dialogues are practised regardless of where pairs got up to in the last round.
How regular to make the turns? No matter how innovative a classroom method - any procedure repeated without variation will bore students. Deciding when and how often to make the whole class move is a little like deciding what someone's pulse should be. The teacher-co-ordinator's job should be to harness the prevailing rhythm of the class rather than impose one. That said, attention to pace can breathe life into any classroom activity. Sometimes students race, sometimes students are sluggish. Changes in pace can shift attention from fluency to accuracy or vice versa, from sound to meaning or vice versa.
I recommend for most purposes not allowing a round to last more than about three minutes. There should be some new input in the way of instruction - change a condition, a tense, whatever - at least every second turn, so that students never perform an absolutely identical role more than a few times. For beginners or in the case of a particularly challenging dialogue (or if the panauricon is being used for the specific purpose of memorising dialogue for a play) it may be desirable to have many identical practices. But a rule of thumb should be that interest is a key motivator and that repetition is of its nature deadening. 'Repetition is the rust of sacred verses' says the Dhammapada (Buddha's teachings, p. 48, 1995).
The purpose of the panauricon is to liven up the necessarily repetitive work of language learning. Memorising a dialogue (any words in fact) is much more fun as a social activity. Within bounds one could say that the more people involved the more fun it will be. After all language is an inherently social activity. As with any method - however ancient, however innovative - good will is required to realise motivation in effective classroom practice. The most exciting of materials, the most thrilling of instructions, delivered leaden voiced will fall on perhaps not deaf but certainly uninspired ears. Likewise the most thrilling of tasks repeated without variation will not only become dull but will by association give a boring feeling to whatever is being learned.
So when and how (on what conditions) to make the wheel turn is really the key to the success of the panauricon. The beginning of each new round is an opportunity for the global adjustment of the game. Wheels are known for their tendency to inertia and the moment of movement (the teacher-centred moment) has to deal with whatever resistances are building up in the circle. The direction to move has to inspire students. It has to give them a reason to pursue the adventure to its next stage.
Then on each round, or as students become comfortable with the task so far, add more to the list of information demanded: eg throw in one or two new comparisons each time or throw in a cause question (Why do you prefer Coke to Pepsi? Because x is more/less z than y. Do you always prefer fast food?)
The rounds may begin to take longer or it may be possible to expect students to do more and more in the same time. Much depends on the prevailing level of motivation. With highly motivated students the exercise can be run as a co-operative speed game (Who can get through these questions and answers in one minute?)
The principle (as in the "Presentation - Practice - Production" teaching in general) in this kind of task building use of the panauricon is to move from simple to complex, from a slowed down model to a near native speed interaction and from 'someone else's' words to words which feel like one's own. Making the language used more real - that's the general direction in which practice moves the learner. Or at least by stages the teacher should manage to make the simulation 'feel' more real.
The panauricon really models in sharp relief an essential criterion of successful classroom practice: that is the constant necessity of achieving a balance between routine and innovation. Successful learning depends on the comfort of expectation - knowing what comes next. And paradoxically successful learning depends on having expectations disturbed - after all learning is about novelty, about the getting of new knowledge, at least knowledge which is new to the learner.
Apart from variations on rounds arising from changing instructions, varying conditions or circumstances, adding new problems, etc.; there are some other physical means by which the class can be shook up. The teacher moving around the outside of the circle would be such a change. The teacher taking a place in the circle - perhaps having a student give instructions from the centre - would be a truly teacher decentring way of using the panauricon. Asking students to physically swap chairs with their partners gives the people who were on the inside of the circle the opportunity to do some of the moving and in a long class could serve as a kind of half-time marker.
Shifting modes of interaction while still sitting in panauricon formation can again liven things - for instance the marked shift from repetition to freer dialogue, from pairwork to individual work (make your own individual list, make your own questions, your own topics, or even dictation: write this down), from outer to inner communication (a moment's silence for reflection or to hear a dialogue in one's head) - any of these 'digressions' from the main pattern practised will make that main pattern more meaningful to participants.
How are groups of four in the panauricon any different from groups of four arrived at by some other method? Apart from the fact that they were easily arrived at, the panauricon set-up centres these groups around the teacher and gives the students the feeling of a continuity in the teacher's presence and availability, a continuity which carries across the classroom mode-shift. Groups which could turn back into rotating pairs at any time are ad hoc and depend for their success on spontaneity and the feeling of urgency which come from knowing that the group has a limited life. As with the pairwork panauricon students are motivated by having someone new with whom to talk and by sensing the teacher's presence and availability.
This would provide for instance for a class of 24 (i.e. six groups of four) six thematically linked discussions taking somewhat more than half an hour (given the need to give feedback, revise instructions and soon).
There could even be double agents involved if students were allowed to decide to sell out to other groups. Likewise certain activities might permit the simultaneous circulation of ambassadors auditors/spies.
To simplify the process and achieve maximum functional diversity, the groups could be arranged such that one group argues for a proposition, the next group against it, the next group amends the proposition (for a specific purpose), the next group finds exceptions and caveats, the next group finds loopholes or means of subversion, the next group finds counter-proposals and so on.
Groups could maintain the same functions with regard to various proposals passed to them (thus simulating the work of a particular office). As the class becomes proficient in each of the critical roles demanded they should be able to juggle new functions and new topics at the same time.
With a sluggish class there really is a danger that a lot of time will be wasted in shifting from mode to mode, that this will involve an inordinate amount of teacher talk and repetition of instructions. But where the will is lacking any kind of self-motivated activity will be difficult to achieve. At least if students come to associate language learning with movement, with something they do with their own bodies, there is the hope that they will break from certain 'spoon-feeding' assumptions which assure their passivity and limit learning potential.
The vague unanalysed feeling that things just ought to be the way they are is the enemy of progressive education. Just so, infectious entropy, to mix some metaphors, whether coming from above or below, really is the enemy of language learning. Intelligent students are able to conceive of their collectivity in varied ways. For the purposes of language learning it is often useful to shift quickly among these. Fluid communicative relationships between individuals, partnerships and groups in a class allow the members of a class to maximise the potential learning benefits they have to offer each other.
By regularly changing the membership of groups, by giving everyone the opportunity to speak with everyone else, we maximise the opportunity for students to develop a personality in the target language. This personality building process reifies the language for students because it gives utterances the opportunity to become meaningful rather than rote. It also acknowledges that the principal communicative resource in the classroom is the students themselves: their knowledge, their memories, their skills.
Panauric 'ambience' ensures an attention to tasks through the dynamism of regular movement and the teacher's seeming ubiquity. Thus two of the main and most difficult conditions of communicative Langauge teaching are met in classroom practice: the students really communicate with each other, the teacher is really available to help them.
Establishing a classroom which shifts easily and fluently from one mode to another (big circle, inside-outside circle, groups of four/ whole class, pairwork, groupwork) is useful in a number of ways and for several related purposes.
In this kind of classroom it will be easy to interrupt discussions with drill which is realised as individual practice - and not merely an everyone repeat after me routine. Thereby a teacher can make and give individual practice for global corrections and adjustments for errors or solecisms committed by the class in general. In this kind of classroom it will be easy to convert oral practice into creative production, thus helping students to take the key step towards internalising new structures and vocabulary in their own language practice
Movement and balance between fluency focused practice and accuracy focused practice will be easier to achieve and easier to maintain. There will be less likelihood of getting stuck in any particular mode or with any single focus at the expense of others.
From the point of view of developing students' logical and argumentative skills, the panauricon is a good way to encourage students to look at many different aspects of a topic, to extend vocabulary and structures associated with or useful for a particular theme. Cycling related discussions through groups can help students to think more broadly and more deeply about issues and their inter-relationships.
Where students are practising for an examination in which these kinds of thinking skills are required of them, the panauricon can help to simulate in practice with classmates the thinking which the student will have to do on her or his own in the examination. In this way friends can help each other in the exam. Each only has to remember the kinds of things that the others would have said, the personality which they would have brought to the topic or question.
The panauricon is also good for interrupting discussions with conversation drill and/or practice. By shifting from group to pair mode one can give students 'instant' practice at a difficult structure or exchange and simultaneously form new groups. Likewise a shift from group to pair mode can facilitate the separate contribution of ideas to a discussion, helping to ensure more equal contributions by group members.
By means of the panauricon expectations of movement are established in the classroom. A feeling of perpetual movement gives students an expectation of meeting new partners. Students come to expect of the classroom the kind of dynamism which fosters communication and communicative task-based learning, the kind of dynamism which characterises immersion in a context where things need to be done by means of the target language.
The panauricon is a useful technique for a variety of purposes. It allows teachers to frequently re-focus divisions of labour in the classroom, it is an effective mode shifting device and it helps to break cliques. It is an effective - because arbitrary in operation - device for shaking up whatever people dynamics may prevail in a particular classroom. In sum, the panauricon is useful for practice and production (drill and variation from drill), for pattern making and pattern innovation, for extending pairwor, for splitting students off into groups of four, for splitting groups of four back into pairs, for frequently creating new group, and in general for instilling a movement ambience into the classroom.
Another alternative where space is a problem is to set up two rows of chairs facing each other at the front of the classroom. Students then move along the row until they come to the end. One advantage of this method over the panauricon itself is that it is relatively easy (though unnecessary) to have students on both sides of the gauntlet moving simultaneously on each turn.