Trust Circles and Communication - Essay Example

Trust Circles and Communication Teaching can be the most satisfying profession in the world, especially with the varied challenges it throws up. Creating awareness and making sure the information is retained in one's sub conscious mind, in order to come to the fore when encountering practical situations where this information may by used, is the biggest challenge facing a teacher. With the changing times and the advent of science, technology and varied subjects, there have been sea changes in the methodologies adopted in teaching. (Shekhan, 1995) A certain amount of creativity has been seen in the advent of the use of trust circles in classrooms for teaching and to get children to communicate and talk during these sessions. This dissertation will prompt a debate into the methodologies and systems attached to this trend in terms of effectiveness and practical experience through the analysis that has been carried out by the author. Trust Circles Trust Circles may be defined as the creation of circles within which the students can develop interpersonal skills. These circles are meant to help the children talk and communicate in order to understand and to be better understood. The following are the main elements of trust circles or what is commonly referred to as circle time: (Kidd, 2003) The use of chairs and cushions placed in a circle. The complete lack of tables and other such pieces of furniture that can symbolically act as barriers in the minds of children. The teacher sits near the pupils in order to study the expressions and ways of talking. There is use of a "talking object" which the children can identify with. This gives them the comfort level to talk, and creates a sense of discipline so that they do not all talk at once because only the person holding the talking object can talk. The teacher monitors who the object goes to. The talking object can be a teddy bear, or any other toy that children usually relate to. There is no room for put downs and the talking object is generally passed on even when a student does not want to speak. Role of Communication Communication is key in teaching. This involves two-way communication - from the teachers and from the students. In this regard, trust circles are best utilized in an environment driven by intrinsic motivation so as to develop communicative competencies through methodologies based in competition and cooperation - both of which are interactive in nature. This helps the students rise to challenges and make the best of various situations through appropriate communication methods. (Kidd, 2003) The reason I feel that this framework supports the use of technologies like multimedia through an emphasis on motivation and affective filter hypothesis, revolves around the fact that the trust circles try to promote better means of communication between all kinds of professionals. It provides the requisite standards within which educational administrators, course designers, and teachers, teacher trainers, examining bodies, etc., may design their sessions to accommodate to varied needs. (Kidd, 2003) Further, the framework presents a wide scope within its standards to reach into an individual's latent energy by separating the elements of language competence so as to effectively deal with complexities that arise in learning various things and developing interpersonal skills in the process. This taxonomic nature of the framework of trust circles and circle time also offers a wide scope for a deep analysis of psychological and pedagogical problems. This in turn helps apply the principles of the motivational models in context of the affective filter hypothesis. Therefore, through an emphasis on the communication approach, the Framework creates a separation of the elements that contribute to competency, by playing the role of a social agent in an intercultural environment. (Shekhan, 1995) For a healthy development of these elements, the use of methods like trust circles is justified. This is also a departure of the traditional methods of promoting pluraligualism. This defines a coherent and action oriented approach to the language learning process, which in turn provides the scope for the use of circle time for listening and repeating skills to further the cause of communicative approach. At the same time, the use of multimedia for a framework of this sort promotes a sense of achievement and creates an atmosphere where the language can become a part of the individual's everyday life through the social agent role played by the framework. Therefore the use of circle time creates an environment for applying learning in situations that are not typically subject related as well, through an emphasis on the cognitive and emotional elements of the learning process. (Shekhan, 1995) Simultaneously, through an objective based process as per the affective filter hypothesis, assessment may focus on components or sub components of an individual's motivational and aptitude level through the use of circle. Thus, in pedagogical context, the designers and teachers may focus on these components as an end when providing a certain level of motivation through their material. (Kidd, 2003) Research and Findings The author has asked various questions in the form of questionnaires. These were aimed at children in order to find out the talking object used during circle time, what they perceive as talking time, and how they feel when the hold the talking object in their hands. Teachers were also questioned regarding the criteria for what they would term as effective participation during talking time. Finally, based on the responses, the criteria was set and the following skills were identified. Here, it is clear that the development of communication skills is the ends for which teaching and learning programmes and methodologies are simply not the only means. This helps define the learning process along quantitative and qualitative parameters. These parameters are as follows: The general competences of students consist in particular of their knowledge, skills and existential competence as well as their ability to learn. (Kidd, 2003) Knowledge, also known as declarative knowledge, has been defined as knowledge that follows experience to take the form of empirical knowledge. Further, knowledge also stems from formal modes learning to become academic knowledge. As far as the level of reception on a student's part goes, one needs to delve deeper and ask questions regarding his or her multilevel background knowledge, perspectives, and language skills. This accommodates the aim of effective management of decisions and production within teams, with strong communication approach orientations. (Shekhan, 1995) Considering the fact that knowledge comes from shared experience, factors like shared values and beliefs held by social groups in other countries and regions, as well as a sense of common history, etc., are essential to intercultural communication as laid down by the circle time where students are made to interact on the basis of topics like native place, so as to promote a certain comfort level in taking to the various skills and subjects that are taught in the classroom, naturally. (Kidd, 2003) While the methodology may be culture-specific to a certain extent, they relate to various universal parameters and constants. Owing to the fact that knowledge is conditioned by the nature, in context of richness and structure which helps in picking up another skill, the use of trust circles becomes all the more easier within the circle time and various groups of students. In this case, communicative competency is triggered by a good working relationship between knowledge and interpersonal skills. (Kidd, 2003) Skills and know-how relates to the ability to carry out procedures than on declarative knowledge, through various forms of existential competence which facilitate knowledge recall even at a relaxed level. This depends largely on repetition and experience for the acquisition of certain facts. This is a method for creating intrinsic motivation in the affective filter hypothesis where recall of information depends on the processing of the same. This is in turn, dominated by the motivation, which has to come through communication. (Shekhan, 1995) In this regard, the use of circle time is facilitated especially where the use of trust circles for a communicative approach is concerned. This is owing to the fact that the hypothesis facilitates the exercise of drawing parallels with certain aspects of learning through the exposure of the learner to some amount of illustrative material in the learning process. (Kidd, 2003) Existential competence has been defined as the summation of a variety of individual characteristics, personality traits and attitudes. These characteristics, creates a willingness to engage with other people in social interaction in order to attain a certain level of self identity. This type of competence goes beyond personality characteristics to include culture related interface which can be sensitive in nature as far as inter cultural perceptions and relations are concerned. (Kidd, 2003) Existential competence comes from variations in the scope a student identifies when learning a new skill or subject - especially when he or she is ready to take the risk of cultural misunderstanding to gain further insight into communicative competency. This relates to the affective filter hypothesis due to the fact that the learner has reached a stage where such variations are considered as learning curves in concepts like 'learning styles' or 'learner profiles'. (Shekhan, 1995) Ability to learn: through a mobilization of existential competence as well as declarative knowledge and skills, the ability to learn is conceived as a tool of creating awareness in terms of practical use of the skill. Through a process of discovery, the ability to learn draws on various types of competence to accommodate another language, culture or even a new field of study. (Shekhan, 1995) In this context, the use of circle time has an important pedagogical role to play. For learning purposes, the strategies selected by the individual through in order to complete a particular task will depend on the diversity of the various abilities to learn at his/her disposal. But it is also through the diversity of learning experiences, provided they are not separated from each other with a strong focus on avoiding repetition, so as to cater for an expansion of the individual's ability to learn and gather a wider skill set. (Richards, 1993. p 66 to 78) Conclusion and Recommendations In this paper, the author has used the premise to show the effects of positive learning in individual so as to come up with a composite model for worthwhile learning within a person's experiences rather than simply within the educational institutions. This knowledge base takes a person through a variety of life experiences to help him or her practice a profession, meet people and basically, make a life. This paper discusses the fact that the process of worthwhile learning is not limited merely to educational institutions. The paper has been constructed in terms of a discussion of the determinants as outcomes of worthwhile learning outside the educational institutions. From there, it has gone into finer details as far as aspects of those determinants in cognitive development are concerned. These aspects have to do with general and other competencies. (Kidd, 2003) Worthwhile learning does not merely come about within the traditional classroom activities. The use of circle time is an inventive and positive way to help children apply that teach through the practice of communication. It is an informal setting within which interpersonal skills are built up and used. Therefore, the final conclusion here is that there is a need to revolutionise talking time by taking into consideration each of the students' personal choices and rotating these in the use of talking objects on a weekly basis. Further, there is a need to set a topic for discussion before each circle time session and the teacher must be present at all times, taking notes and monitoring the discussion so as to ensure that there is no deviation from the topic. To ensure that the children actually talk and there is maximum effective participation, there must be research so as to enumerate the list of topics that each individual is most comfortable with. These topics must be rotated as well so as to give each child a chance to render effective participation. References: Richards, J.C., Platt, J. & Platt, H. (1993) Longman dictionary of language teaching and applied linguistics. London, Longman. Skehan, P. (1995) A framework for the implementation of task-based instruction, Applied Linguistics, 16/4. Kidd, Sonia. (2003). Interpersonal Skills Training through the establishment of a Trust Circle. International Journal of Primary, Elementary and Early Years of Education. 3/13. Read More