Demand High: Seminar Pack 2

Learning to See Learning

What is this Seminar Pack?
This is a set of materials and procedural instructions to help you run an in-service training
seminar for language teachers to look more closely at what is happening in the students
learning process at any moment in the lesson.

You can use the materials exactly as they are presented here or adapt them for your own
context.

Who might want to use this Seminar Pack?

It is aimed at Trainers, Directors or Studies, Academic managers, interested Teachers etc
who would like to offer an in-service training session

What audience would the seminar have?

The audience is assumed to be language teachers who have had initial training in language
teaching (e.g. CELTA, Introductory certificate, MA In TESOL etc), and have had a minimum
of a few months post-qualification teaching work. It is most suitable for audiences of
experienced teachers.

The seminar is mainly pitched at teachers of English but, with small adaptations could also
be useful with teachers of other languages.

How long will the seminar take?

The seminar will take between 45 and 75 minutes (depending on how much time you allow
for the discussions). Optional extra materials are provided to make this into a 90 minute
seminar.

What is included?
1 A short “Background briefing” document for the trainer
2 Seminar plan – procedural notes and guidance for discussions

Materials needed
Board
Large sheets of paper (e.g. A3).
 Demand High: Seminar Pack 2

Background briefing for the Trainer

What is Demand High?

It’s a proposal originally put forward in March 2012 by Jim Scrivener and Adrian Underhill.
Since then it has been discussed at many conferences internationally and the originators
have run seminars and workshops in different places.

The authors said that they were asking four key questions:
 Are our learners capable of much more?
 Have the tasks and techniques we use in class become rituals and ends in
themselves?
 How can we stop “covering material” and start focusing on the potential for deep
learning?
 What small shifts in attitude and tweaks in techniques can we make to change the
whole focus of our teaching towards getting more learning happening?

The proposed answer to those questions is not fixed. The authors suggest that by asking
those questions we begin an on-going process of enquiry so that we can find new ways of
getting much greater depth of tangible engagement and learning in what we do.

The authors have tried to emphasise a number of things:

 It is not a “new method”. Rather it is a set of adjustments to whatever method or
approach the teacher is currently using in class.
 It is not anti any method. It is not anti-Communicative Approach. It is not anti-dogme.
It is not anti-Task Based Learning. The proposal is that, whatever you do in class,
might be susceptible to improvement, a re-focussing.

At the moment, the authors have grouped these shifts and tweaks under the working name
of “Demand-High” – but they are aware that the enquiry may open up new ideas and may
lead to a change of direction.

The main misunderstanding about Demand High seems to be that the authors are proposing
some return to “traditional” teaching and that “Demand High” means making everything more
“difficult”
Demand-High is not the traditional idea of making things more difficult in ways that did not
help the majority of students (e.g. setting exercises that were too hard). When teachers did
that they were probably trying to help, but were out of touch with our learning needs and
therefore caused us to struggle, and with limited result. This is un-doable demand.

In contrast, the authors are proposing a demand that comes precisely at the point where the
learner is capable of making their next steps forward – and helping them to meet that
demand, rather than avoiding it. This is doable demand.

Some questions that might be useful for teachers to investigate via action research

 How can I push my students to upgrade their language and improve their skills more
than they believed possible?
 How can I gain real learning value from classroom activities that have become tired or
familiar?
 What teacher interventions make a real difference?
 How can I shift my preoccupation from “successful task “to “optimal learning”?
 How can we transform “undoable” or “low” demand into “doable demand”?
 What is the minimum tweak necessary at any point in any lesson to shift the activity
sideways into the “challenge zone”?
 What attitude and action changes would lead to “Demand-High” teaching in my
classroom?
 What is the demand on a teacher to become a “Demand High” teacher?

The content of this seminar: Learning to see learning

To be able to raise the “doable demand” in classroom work, I need to be able to fit what I ask
students to do much more closely to what is happening in the students’ learning process at
that moment.

I need to put on “spectacles” that see learning as it happens. This seminar focusses on
helping teachers to start looking more closely at learning.

(This topic is also focussed on in Self Observation Task 4)

 Demand High: Seminar Pack 2

Seminar Plan: Learning to See Learning

Stage 1: Preparing for the task

1.1 Ask teachers working individually to list 2 or 3 small tasks that they have given to an
individual student or to a whole group during a recent language lesson.
1.2 Ask each teacher to select one of those tasks and give it a brief name to identify it. Ask
participants to call out these names, so all can hear the name of the task that each
teacher has chosen. You could ask participants to give a very brief statement about
what each activity involves. Many will probably be familiar activity types to the group.
1.3 Ask teachers, working individually, to take a piece of large paper (e.g. A3) and to make
a table with three columns (like the one below). The third column is approximately the
size of column 1 and 2 together. You can draw an example on the board.

1.4 Ask teachers (working individually again) to write their task name in the left hand
column. As a worked example, write your example task on the left hand side of your
board table:

Identify all the words in a paragraph that contain a certain sound

1.5 In the middle column ask them to note down the actual words of two or three
instructions that they gave for their particular task, along with any follow up guidance
they offered. Ask teachers not to include basic classroom organisation instructions
(e.g. “get into pairs”) but to focus on the instructions that deal with the learning task
itself (e.g. “decide which of the two verbs is correct”). Ask them to draw a line under
each instruction across the width of columns 2 and 3. Again, offer your own worked
example:

“We have practised the sound /æ/ and found some example words. Now
would you please look through this paragraph carefully, and underline any
words you find that contain this sound /æ/”
Stage 2: Learning to See Learning

2.1 Focus everyone on your board example. Explain that you now want to think about and
decide what individual internal learning moves the student would have to make to carry
out each of the instructions for your example task.
Invite participants to look at your instruction in the table and to suggest possible
“internal learning moves” that the student might do in response to that instruction.
Write up good suggestions in column 3 and add some of your own (from the sample
answer below).
Point out that all these answers are, intuitive or informed guesses - but the participants
can still make their best attempts.

Example
Task Instruction
Identify all the “We have practised the
words in a sound /æ/ and found some
paragraph that example words. Now
contain a certain would you please look
sound through this paragraph
carefully, and underline
any words you find that
contain this sound /æ/”
Student inner moves
 Say one of the sample words
 Extract and say the sound /æ/
 Hear it internally in the inner ear
 Hold on to that inner representation
while reading the passage, probably
slowly, hearing internally each vowel
sound, and comparing it with the
‘stored’ representation of /æ/
 When a possible match is found,
checking it by saying the word, and
extracting the vowel in question several
times, and again comparing with the
stored master sound.
 Underline words that seem to contain
/æ/
 At various times probably test words
and sounds aloud to see how that helps
the inner discernment
 Notice and identify uncertainties
 Refine criteria to resolve uncertainties
 Develop or become aware of the piece
of help that is needed, or the question
that needs to be asked in order to do
this

2.2 Now ask teachers to do the same task themselves. They should think about and
decide what individual internal learning moves the student would have to make to carry
out each of the instructions in their own table. These should be written in column 3.
The aim is to try to spot even the smallest inner moves that the student would have to
make
 This is the key activity of the seminar. Allow enough time for it to be done carefully and
with attention. If participants are finding it difficult, you could allow them to discuss and
work in a pair.

Stage 3: Feedback and Discussion

3.1 Teachers meet together in new groups of 3 (i.e. not with any people they have been
discussing with so far). They should talk through their task and instruction briefly and
then their imagined student inner learning moves. Listeners can ask questions and
gently challenge!

3.2 Bring everyone together in a plenary session. Ask a volunteer to write their answer on
the board in the same three columns i.e. Task, Instruction, Inner Moves. Listeners can
discuss these moves, trying to understand and help describe them better, and try to
spot any that assume another move that has not been identified.

Do the same for one or two more examples.

3.3 Now ask how identifying these inner moves might impact in the instructions given, the
time allowed, and the subsequent teacher interventions.

Invite teacher to talk about how they already do this, and what this activity has added.

3.4 Conclude: “Basically we are asking not: “What does the student have to do?” but
“What does the student have to do to do this?” This is a substantially different
question and has the potential to completely change how we work.