?? I?ve been explaining this topic over and over again. They don?t understand! I don?t know what to do??

How many times do you remember throwing something like this to a colleague of yours?

Getting students to understand what you are trying to teach is essential in learning, though really hard. The same explanation repeated over and over ends up giving you a headache. What can we do when explanation does not work? Is there another way out?

<B>Nancy</B>,a primary school teacher explains how she tackles this problem in her literacy class. Having to teach her Year Six (CPE) pupils how to follow instructions, she gave them a few mixed-up sentences to arrange in the correct order of a chocolate-covered apple recipe. She ensured that her pupils understood and could follow the instructions by actually making them prepare the chocolate-covered apples. One of her pupils, Bryan (10 years old) comments,

?I really understood the correct order of these sentences when Miss Nancy made us prepare the chocolate-covered apples in our school kitchen. Everything became so true? so real. It?s different you know, from just doing an exercise in your copybook. It makes sense, it?s real fun and? hmm the chocolate-covered apples were delicious?? A creative mind and a little motivation work wonders! The teaching of a simple exercise like re-arranging mixed-up sentences becomes, indeed, meaningful to our learners.

<B>Cindy</B>, teacher of Commercial Studies in a secondary school, states that one can be creative in all subject areas. She relates her experience with her Form III students:

?I had this chapter ?Introduction to Basic Economic Concepts? to teach and I wanted my students to understand the link between Opportunity cost to the consumer, producer and government. After a lengthy explanation, since this is a highly theoretical chapter, I realized that my students could not get the gist of it. I simply stopped the reading and explanation strategy. I tried something different, something new. I devised group work in which students had either to write a project or prepare a role-play. It was remarkably successful. Students were lively and participative and enjoyed their group work.?

<B>Indeed</B>, Cindy feels happy about her experience. She confides that not only the group work strategy was effective, but she also learned a lot from her students. By observing that the boisterous ones were thrilled by the role play while the shyer ones preferred writing the project, she discovered Learning Styles. ?I?ve learnt that my students have different learning styles, while some are kinesthetic, others seem to be more visual or auditory and I need to cater for them all.?

<B>Melissa </B> (15 years old), states, ?I was really surprised and even puzzled when Miss Cindy told us we were going to do group work and role play in Commercial Studies. All my friends were too! It was so different from all the Commercial Studies classes that we were used to. I didn?t expect it! It was great!?She emphasizes that such activities should be done more often and in all subjects. ?Everybody was eager to participate. As for me, I understood the concepts better through role play. Participation?s better than explanation!?

<B>Explanation</B>, central to education has to be effective. The use of grammatically simple language, examples, definitions of technical/key terms and, most importantly, fairly brief ones that may be interspersed with questions and activities, will definitely enhance the effectiveness of our explanations in class. Here is a list of seven aspects that research in education has yielded, which can be worked up to enhance the effectiveness of an explanation:

<B>Clarity</B>: it must be clear and pitched at the appropriate level.

<B>Structure</B>: the major ideas are broken down into meaningful segments and linked together in a logical order.

<B>Attention</B>: the delivery makes good use of voice and body language to sustain attention and interest of learners.

<B>Language</B>: it avoids the use of over-complex language and explains new terms.

<B>Exemplars</B>: it uses examples, particularly ones relating to learners? experiences and interests.

<B>Understanding</B>: teacher monitors and checks learners? understanding.

Finally, why not allow our imagination to be triggered by Nancy?s and Cindy?s experiences to improve the effectiveness of our explanations and be creative in our own way!

<B>Shardha SANDAPEN</B>