The method of oral language learning developed by Dr. Paul Pimsleur in the middle of the 20th century offers seemingly effortless progress through limited-size lessons of systematic exposure and practice. Core educational concepts like chunking, connecting new material with learners' existing knowledge, and making use of learner anticipation are really evident in the Pimsleur method.
Sometimes good teaching judgment tells you that you need to simplify to the point where you stop teaching. You stop the flow of information and maintenance of oversight, and give learners time and space to process for a while what they have been taking in, on their own.
Travel writer Pico Iyer, whose work flings him around the globe, sees quiet and stillness not as the absence of something but as necessary parts of every day and everyone's life. They allow for a sifting and reckoning of the most important lessons from what we experience:
Susan Cain, another writer and public speaker, author of Quiet, stresses the importance of solitude in giving us time and space, allowing us not only to think but to produce something of our own.
If real learning requires teachers to facilitate and learners to struggle with the real work, time and space must be available for students to prepare mentally for this work.
An effective hook (something that grips the audience) gets a lesson off to a good start: getting learners' attention, setting some of the tone for the lesson, and raising some of the guiding questions.
Much current effective video advertising, in TV and online, uses humor as a hook. Though effective, this tactic belies the advertiser's understanding that the humor is more attractive than the product advertised (do you really want to buy from a company with such products?). For me, the most effective ads, the few that once in a while actually make me consider as a consumer the product advertised, grip their audience through hooks that are more educational in nature, and limited in verbiage. Often the messages in these hooks can be stated succinctly, just like punch lines in the humorous hooks.
We help you make your contribution, creatively (Apple iPad Air):
We have been helping build companies and the country for many decades, and your company is next (Citi):
We know the vital importance of "mutual" in our name (Mass Mutual):
And one from an educational purveyor --
We will make you relive history - in your bones (PBS's "The Vietnam War"):
"Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. " --Steve Jobs, in Business Week interview 1998
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." --Leonardo Da Vinci
In her 1994 treatise (The Tao of Teaching) relating teaching principles to the ancient Chinese 道德经
Tao Te Ching, Greta Nagel concludes, in her 81st and final parable, with a reminder that "high-level deeds and philosophies can be expressed in the most basic terms." (p.229) Think of pithy, timeless teaching maxims: the golden rule (treat others as you would have them treat you) or Confucius on practical wisdom (知之为知之，不知为不知，是知也. -- To take what is known as known, and what is not known as not known, this is knowledge.).
Besides language, Nagel advocates parallel simplicity in the most important teaching actions. "Similarly, helping other individuals can be accomplished through the most simplistic actions, from sharing food to sharing thoughts."(ibid.) She then recounts the story of a teacher who helped a young student overcome a discouraging home environment and low literacy skills by giving him opportunities to blossom by contributing his drawing skills to enliven classroom textual materials. The finer details in her work with the student involved asking for a picture of a strawberry basket, or requiring a couple of additional written sentences to complete a thought, but all of these discrete instructions played smaller parts in the broader, simpler, initial teaching strategy of helping students develop naturally by paying attention to their interests and needs, and then providing a rich environment and encouragement. Before this formerly discouraged student could feel the relevance of each piece of academic guidance, he had to feel the simple, more encompassing message from the teacher: I understand your situation, and I believe you can be successful. The successes, small and large, flowed, after that initial main message, more naturally from the student and with less intervention from the teacher.
My statements here are obviously not very simple and concise. I suspect the short Leonardo quote best makes the point.
One of my favorite films that touches on education is The Karate Kid, the original version made in the 1980's. It can be put in the cornball, Disney-hero category, but is understated enough in most of the scenes, and touches on what matters at so many points, that my eye-rolling loses out to the welling tears at the corners. The scene I recommend viewing as a teaser combines the importance of simple, basic skills and preparation with the importance of "light bulbs going on" in minds to make the learning gel.
In the film, Mr. Miyagi, a neighbor very experienced in karate, teaches a younger Daniel how to defend himself better using karate, as well as plenty of life lessons. His teaching methods tend to be zen-like, and in the scene I've selected here, Daniel is just about fed up with them. Mr. Miyagi has assigned Daniel to wax Miyagi's car, paint his house, and sand his patio floor, over a period of days. When Daniel sees Miyagi return from fishing while the boy was house-painting for him, he demands to know what the point of all this "unfairness" is.
In my VoxoPop introduction to this blog, I cited Apple's design of application icons and user interface on the iPad as an example of "simplicity for the learner," behind which lay a lot of development work and high technology. Besides the comfortable appearance and intuitive navigation of Apple products, Steve Jobs is also cited for his good product presentations, which are similarly simple in appearance, yet engaging, understandable and effective. Here is a Youtube video with a distillation of pointers on how to present like Steve Jobs.
I work in education for adult learners who generally face a few hurdles in their learning. They are immigrants with limited or no English. They average an 11th-grade educational background. Many have not worked in a mainstream US job; some have never worked in an hours-and-wage job at all (they might have been in farming). Some have hardly or never used computers before. Instruction for them has to take into account a range of limited entry skills. It also has to include a presentation of material that is not too unfamiliar or overwhelming. Being able to break down instruction into non-threatening, understandable, yet intriguing elements, is crucial to my work. Using simple English is a given, unless, even better, audio or visual support can communicate much of the message even without use of language.
Unfortunately, keeping instruction or communication simple and effective is usually not simple, nor quick. Some of the most simple and effective communication is among the most time-and-resource-consuming and expensive to produce. Watch some of the luxury auto or investment firm commercials on CBS's TV program Sunday Morning (9am on Sundays) and you will see beautiful visuals with simple, limited monologue that took a lot of professional work and money to produce.
I will use this blog to gather ideas and resources for keeping instruction simple yet effective. I hope that it can collect content that will be interesting, and perhaps even useful, for others working in instruction for other populations of adult learners -- learners who may be different from my English-learning immigrants, but may still bring a range of entry skills and challenging levels of learning readiness that make "keeping it simple" a wise practice.
