Balancing the variety and our ability to cope

Second revision, not final version… Balancing the variety and our ability to cope Tim Murphey, Nanzan University Duane Kindt, Nagoya University of Foreign Studies When one system has enough flexibility (sometimes called "requisit [requisite (?)] flexibility" or "requisit [requisite (?)] variety" (Dilts, 2001) to cope with another system, they are in a smooth balance. For example, the weather system and drainage system. As the amount of rainwater accumulates, drainage patters cope with the increase. Social systems are similar to systems in the natural world. When people, and the tasks they perform, are in a particularly efficient balance we are pretty close to Csiszentmihalyi's (1997) ideal state of "flow," i.e., when we are challenged and yet able to meet the challenges effectively and successfully. However, when we have, or our learning system has, a wide range of flexibility and [but] the system within which we operate unfortunately demands very little, this can lead to serious consequences on several levels: boredom in the moment, general apathy towards the class or program, and most seriously[,] eventual attrition of the flexibility of our learning system. It could be that every child growing up could learn multiple languages but the environment often is [often] not rich enough in that regard and this ability slowly atrophies, similar to a tree that when deprived of water looses it’s [its] flexibility and becomes brittle and unable to cope with strong winds. A teacher who is just required to teach the textbook may be underused and then conditioned to this[,] and gradually lose [losing] their flexibility and motivation. When students are treated in the same way, is it any wonder that students [they] refuse later to do more [excel]when they are asked to be innovative as in the comic strip below? Thus, it is important to not only be aware of the systemic nature of learning[,-remove comma] but to be actively engaged in systems, when we have a choice, that match and challenge our skills, or [at least find ways] to use our skills somehow despite the dulling systems we may belong to. Being part of the systems we are in, we are able to actively change them [those systems], and change them so we are able to learn better within them. Every element in each system can be an agent for change. On the other hand, as potentially debilitating as too little variety can be too much variety. If the environment gives too many new tokens, i.e. too much variety, to a person they may be overloaded. This is the obvious result in srong [strong]weather storms that result in floods. The drainage system is unable to handle the deluge of water, and the excess runs over chaotically. Language learners, too, may not have the tools to effectively cope with the huge range of variety, say, in a new language that they are trying to learn. Often unable to know where words begin and end, and when new items seem to come at an amazing number [rate] and not to stay very long, students can become very discouraged because learning is very difficult and superficial, and forgetting amazingly easy. Theoretically, teachers and textbooks and curricula are positioned in these learning systems to regulate the amount of variety and to organize it in effective chunks so that students are not overwhelmed. However the variety of different learners’s [learners’] socio-economic backgrounds, their individual learning preferences, unique background knowledge and motivations, all work against this “one shoe [size] fits all” kind of teaching and adjusting [pseudo-adjusting (?)] by teachers. Despite the best efforts of teachers and students, some students still feel overwhelmed, some feel bored, and both sorts may come to greatly dislike schooling of any kind. [Luckily,] [t]here are some tools that learners can learn to use that regulate the amount of new items and circulate [revisit] new items more frequently for more efficient learning. I call these to [These are called] “tools of recursion” (Murphey, 2001) because they make possible the recursion of language tokens often within a short time and [within meaningful negotiation] negotiate meaningfulness. Most importantly though, these tools are mostly controlled by each individual learner as they act as their own water drainage system, regulating to a great extent how much variety [is coming in] and how often. Not all students learn to use these tools equally [well], but many have reported good success in a variety of contexts, enough for me [us] to want to describe them for other teachers. Tools to regulate the variety of tokens Shadowing (Murphey, 2001b) is simply repeating a few words after [a speaker] speakers that can [to] slow them down and tune them into problems with comprehension. It is also helpful for the shadower’s retention of information. Summarizing is when students stop their interlocutor after a short while and say something like “Let me see if I have understood you,” and then they summarize a bit. This helps them also to chunk explanations and take control of a part of the discourse as well as improving short term memory. Listeners also learn that when they shadow, it’s much easier to summarize because they have already partially said it all. Try shadowing someone in a language you are learning. It becomes immediately apparent that your partner adjusts quite naturally to a speed and level that is appropriate for communication to occur. Action logging gets students to report on classroom learning activities and students can let teachers know what is not so interesting and when they are overloaded. Teachers and [can]then adjust the whole lesson if many students say the same thing, or at least give some special attention to students having trouble keeping up. Newsletters (Kindt & Murphey, 2000)[.-remove period] are simply collections of student comments, with or without teacher comments, that are redistributed to the students so that they can benefit from some of the ideas and reactions of other students. Like the other tools, Newsletters can restrict the variety, or in many cases enlarge the variety as students talk about different ways of learning, doing activities, and responding to the learning activities. Walkman recorders and Longitudinal Videoing of Student Conversations [(LVSC)] are increasingly being used by forward thinking teachers at two universities in the Nagoya area (Nanzan and NUFS). These methods allow for periodic recording of students’ conversations and their own re-listening/viewing of them [those conversations] outside of classes. Thus, perhaps the great variety in a set of conversations can be viewed/heard multiple times and more easily appropriated. Even when students have skills to regulate language input in the moment, like shadowing and summarizing, it is critical that students have opportunities to revisit the language they are learning. Using audio and videotape in a reflective cycle contributes well to this meaningful recursion as does other scaffolding techniques. A good first step to providing meaningful recursion is to become aware as a teacher of the significance of seeing learning as a system and providing requisite variety and methods for regulation to students. References Csiszentmihaly, M. (1997). Finding flow. NY: Basic Books. Dilts, R. (2001). Creativity, health, and the law of requisite variety. Anchor Point 15 (5) 42-46. Kindt, D. & Murphey, T. (2000). Feedback and feedforward: Action logs and class newsletters. In D. Brooks, R. Long, & J. Robbins (eds.)On JALT99 Teacher Belief, Teacher Action: Connecting Research and the Classroom. pp. 85-88. Murphey, T. (2001a). Tools of recursion, intermental zones of proximal development, and critical collaborative autonomy. JALT Journal 23 (1) 130-150. Murphey, T. (2001b). Exploring conversational shadowing. Language Teacher Research 5 (2) 128-155. For further info about these tools see Kindt’s EFL site at http://www.nakanishi.ac.jp/~dukindt/index.html or Murphey’s at http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/~mits/