Independence
column
The bane of my life and the backbone of my teaching: Logbooks!
(Quotations
from the students' logbooks are in italics – my comments in the logbooks are in
blue and brackets).
This evening I was sitting at home with an hour or two
to spare and thought to myself, “I could read 7a's logbooks now.” That though would
be impossible. To read 22 students' logbooks takes hours and hours and,
remember, I have 5 times 22 students as I teach English to five different
classes, that is 110 students' logbooks. So, as you have probably noticed, I
decided to write this article instead.
Logbooks are hard work, really hard work. I try
to read all of my students' logbooks approximately twice a month. Some students
(maybe 10%) write every single day. One student in particular writes
approximately 350 words every day. Others write more seldom, but I do tell my
students that I expect them to write at least four times a week (twice during
lessons and twice at home). Of course, not all achieve this goal, but the vast
majority do. So outside lesson time, logbooks are the most time-consuming
activity that I have. I do, however, since I use autonomy, have much less
preparation in comparison to traditional teacher-centred teaching.
In 2003, when Leni Dam introduced me to learner
autonomy, I was not just sceptical, I was 100% certain that the concept of
learner autonomy was absolute nonsense. For more on this, read my article
“Autonomy never, never, never” (first published in Independence in ????). The most
preposterous idea, I believed, was that (Danish) teenagers would be prepared to
devote time to writing a language-learning logbook. Out of the 110 teenagers
that I now teach, not one of them disputes the wisdom of writing a logbook.
However, back to the hard work. I really have to push
myself, to devote the time to read all 110 logbooks every fortnight, but I do.
Why?
For many reasons:
1. I firmly believe that autonomy without logbooks is
anarchy. Logbooks enable me to keep a very close eye on my students' learning
and development.
2. My students produce huge quantities of writing which I
am certain develops their language skill enormously.
3. The logbook gives the students a voice and freedom of
expression which they do use.
4. Logbooks keep students on their toes, they don't
usually know which day I shall read them, and they know that Frank will not be
impressed if it is a few days since they last wrote.
5. It guarantees that they are reading free-reading and
thus gaining lots of meaningful input and cultural learning.
6. It allows for each student to use English at his or
her level, i.e. 100% differentiation.
7. Then there is one more reason…. The private worlds of
my students.
When I started writing this article (a few days ago) I
intended to tell you about how trivial much of the logbook content is, and it
is. I read thousands and thousands of words about what kids did during the
weekend, visits to grandmothers, holidays, time spent with friends, and of
course linguistic content like “I learnt what the word “denigrate” means,” etc.
lots of trivial writing, which is often (sorry) fairly boring!
Like I said, I started writing this article to avoid
reading logbooks, but I did nevertheless zap back and forth between 7a's and 8a's
logbooks and this article and I got hijacked by the seventh reason, “The
private worlds of my students”.
I love teaching, I love the interaction with teenagers.
I love to let them see that they are “seen”. They are individuals who are
important to me not because they are my students, but because they are real people
with thoughts and feelings.
Let's look first at Ahmed's logbook. (Ahmed is 14
years old. I have been teaching Ahmed since August 2016 when he moved to our
school).
03-02-2019
Today the first thing I did was playing CS:GO. It went
absolutely terrible. Again I had to play with idiots. Then I played with
Alexander. We lost again. Later I ate breakfast. Then I came back to playing
CS:GO. I lost another game. My trust factor has gotten so low that I don't even
get teammates anymore that knows how to play CS:GO. It's very fun to play your
favourite game and not being able actually have fun. Of course I can't play any
other game because my computer is bad and my parents never let me buy any
games. At this point I'm planning on redoing everything I've achieved with this
account. Make a new account, get CS:GO, level up to level 21, get prime
matchmaking, play the game and become Nova again and actually get teammates
that know how to play the game. The only thing I need is money. What I should
just do now is take a break from videogames and just calm down and focus on
something else… Later I came home. I had already eaten dinner at my grandma's
house so I just went onto making homework. We just got some math test back and
my parents looked at it. My mom wasn't happy about my result. How am I not surprised? Recently I'm
only going down in most subjects and I'm really not surprised. I'm not getting
any better and I have a pretty good thought of why I'm not going up. I think it
"maybe" has something
to do with the fact that school is extremely depressing and almost everything
is not interesting to learn about. English is fine, physics/chemistry is fine
and history is fine. Everything else is just boring and I really don't know the
reason to do most of it anymore. Well after I did homework I had "fun" for the rest of the
day.
Today's book: Metro 2033 [J] (I added the smiley, and the
following is an account of what he has read).
They are on their way to Rizhskaya and on the way something
weird happened. Everyone besides Artyom started acting weirdly and suddenly
they become normal again and nobody besides Artyom remembered what happened
just the hour before. They concluded that it happened from a gas outbreak since
there was a pipe with a hole making a weird balloon-like noise. Artyom kept
them all together and saved them from running away or hurting themselves.
Ahmed nearly always writes this amount every day and the content is
basically the same, day after day. So I do tend to skim his logbook, putting in
a smiley-frog every time he mentions free reading at home. This is something
that I do with all students', a smiley when they write about their reading, so
that they can clearly see that I think that free-reading is VERY important.
Nearly every day Ahmed criticises his teachers, writes about his gaming, and
how lousy the school provided laptop is. Often he tells me how many hours sleep
he had and very often about family situations.
Again I see it as a privilege to made privy to his “private” world. His
English is super, and I am sure that it is his logbook writing and therefore
also free-reading that are responsible for his linguistic abilities. The
logbook fosters a very strong relationship between me and my students, because
they bring me into their private worlds.
-------------------------------
Lilian's logbook (I have been teaching Lilian since
August 2018, when I took over English teaching in this class).
23rd January 2019
Today, we started having Danish. We did
some grammar. We had a substitute again… After the lesson. We had a break.
After the break, we had geography. We did presentations today. I presented with
Mata and Markus about Korowai. After the lessons, we had a lunch break. After
the break we had physic and chemistry. After that, we had math. After math we
got free from school and I went home. At home I did some homework. At 6:00 pm
o'clock, I was at training. The training was okay. After the training I went
home and watched Denmark vs. Sweden. We had a war at home, haha.
[J]
But Denmark won so that was great. After
the match I went to bed.
(The smiley is one that I put in when reading her
logbook).
This too is quite “boring”, and most days are like
this. I didn't at first understand the reference to “war”.
Lilian is 13 years old. Her mother is Danish and her father Swedish and she
loves to play handball (a very popular sport in Denmark). In January the world
handball championships were held in Denmark. In the semi-finals Denmark played
against Sweden. So therefore, there was probably lots of teasing among Lilian's
parents before and during the match.
Lilian is a lovely kid. When she shares this
“family/home” information with me, I feel privileged. When I saw her the next
day getting off her bike, I commented upon it to her and she smiled, Lilian
could see that her teacher was reading what she wrote, and by acknowledging the
situation, I make it obvious that Lilian is not just some anonymous student,
but rather a kid who is seen by her English teacher.
I do this as often as I can, when I see students
outside of lessons, if I can remember an incident in their logbook or am
impressed or even disappointed I will drop a comment, chat a little with them…
and demonstrate that not only do I read the logbooks, I notice them too as
individuals.
-------------------------------
Tina is 14 years old. (I have been teaching Tina since September 2018, when
she changed to my school).
Today
its Saturday and I just came home from a birthday party that my moms friend
held. We were actually also to a birthday party before, but we were there in
short time, because we had to go to the other. In the first birthday it was my
moms friends to sons that had birthday, they are not twin they just held the
party together. And the second party was also my moms son that had birthday.
His name is Daniel, he turned 7. Time goes so fast, last time I saw him was 3
years ago. There was a lot of food, I ate so much today. I couldn't stop
myself, there were a lot of cake and a lot of Filipino food. Something else
happened….. There were a boy in the party, he was at my age. We always had eye
contact and he always smiled at me. And I smiled back. When I was in the
kitchen he came, and when he walked pass me he looked down at me and he went
very close to me. At some point I needed a charger so I asked Leslie if I can
borrow a charger, then he took the boy's charger while he was using it ahahaha.
Leif is the father to Danny. He's is very funny and kind. He is good at making
people laugh. When we were getting ready to get home, I had to give the charger
back to the boy because I wanted to talk to him. I went to the room were he was
with he's friend. I asked if he still had to use the charger, and he said yes
and smiled, so I gave it to him and smiled back. Then his friend pushed he's
elbows, as if it was a sign that he had the chance to say something to me now.
So I stayed for a minute, we stared at each other, at some point I had it
awkward so I walked, then he said wait, I have a question. I went back, he said
have I seen you before? Isn't that a typical flirting line? Ahah. But I said,
no I don't think so I'm not that much around here. Then he said "but I feel
like I know you, do you know a boy named Jamey?" I said no I don't think
so, then he asked if I was hanging out with Filipinos and I said no and that
most of my friends are Danish. Then he apologized because he thought I was
someone else. He tried though. He could have been a good friend. I should have
talked to him.
[Boys!!!!!!!... But don't mind me I have two
daughters”].
The last
piece, [Boys!!!!!!!...
But don't mind me I have two daughters”] is my comment. But here I was
knocked off my feet. To think that Tina would tell me that she had a little
crush on a boy…I am surprised that I am given an insight into her private
world. Suddenly logbooks are not so boring, but quite sweet.
-------------------------------
Judy is 14 years old. (I have been teaching her and her
twin sister since August 2015 when they moved to our school).
February 5, 2019
Today is Tuesday
We have an alternative week, and I think that it is
good, because then we can set all the homework and tests on a stand by. I like
that we do something different than we are want to. (ed: than we usually do).
It is not that fun at school and at home in these
weeks. There is so much drama and angriness in the school with the girls. I am
never involved, but I feel, it happens so often, and it is so annoying, because
it is destroying the atmosphere and mood. I am not that kind of person who gets
angry and want to argue a lot. I am starting to be more together with some of
the boys from our class, because that is so much easier. If there is a bad
atmosphere and some of the girls are angry with each other's, I go and have
some fun with the boys. I don't know, I just think I am not that type of person
who is good at that drama.
It is hard at home too. I think you know it, Frank,
but there is a lot of problems at home. I am not involved, but I still feel
that I am involved, much involved. Lucy is very bad, and her relationship with
our parents is so bad. In the start I just thought that she was started getting
teenager, because she was always angry, especially at my mom and dad. But it
started getting worse. Her door was always locked, and she was always fighting
with mom and dad, over talk but also psychologically. It was very
uncomfortable, but I was just trying to forget it.
It was still getting worse. She got home very late,
first when mom and dad was asleep, and she was away before the stood up, it
hurt so much and I was so sad, because they couldn't talk to each other. On
that time, I hadn't talk to Lucy in a week or something, and we were started
ignoring each other in the school. It all collapsed from 2-3 weeks ago I think,
were we were together with some girls from the class, me and Lucy. She hadn't
eaten the whole day, because she couldn't be at home at the same time as our
parents. It was night, maybe 10:30 and we were at a restaurant. She still didn't
eat, and it was very horrible to be in her society, which is terrible because
she is my sister. Her finger was red and I could see on her that she had losing
her weight. She was shaking. A lot happen that night and all us girls could see
that something was very wrong. It was that night I understood that it was very
serious and that I (ed: it) could be dangerous for her, if she didn't get help
soon. Suddenly I started crying, because I was so overwhelmed. I was prepared
that it was that bad, and I couldn't baer that it was so uncomfortable to be in
her society. It ended up that I was calling my mom to pick me up and I was
crying a lot.
Now it is different but still very bad at home. I
still feel very uncomfortable together with Lucy, but I think that one of the
reasons why is, that she is changing too much. I don't think that it is on a
positive way, but I can't rule (ed: decide) that. That is up to her, but I don't
like that person she is starting to be… I really don't like the way she is towards
me, and especially for the people around her. It is very hard to follow what is
happening at home, and I am started to hold back, because I don't want to know
it. I feel safer, when I don't know what happens.
My comment, which I wrote: [Poor
you and your parents and Lucy… I do understand that life is very difficult for
all of you. It is not fair and it doesn't make sense, I know. There are no
magic words I can say, just hang in there, kid. Do your best to be there for
each other…and if you want to talk, say so,… in my experience, it helps].
-------------------------------
Over the years I have had many students who pour their
hearts out in their logbook. I have written to her as soon as I saw this and
will of course talk to her and her form-teacher, etc.
I love teaching, I love meeting my students, I love
that they feel that they can use their logbook to write English, improve their
English and to bring me into their private worlds.
Logbooks are still hard work, many logbooks I just skim
quickly, using smileys to give praise or encouragement and non-smileys to express
my disappointment. My smileys are hard to reproduce in this magazine, I have a
large selection of happy/angry frogs(!) and more traditional smileys.
Each time I read a logbook I write a short (one-to-five
line comment), Comments always start with the student's name and often read,
“more free-reading, please”, or “try to write more often at home please…” or some
words of praise.
Logbooks are the bane of my life, taking so much time,
but they are the backbone of my teaching, providing me with a tool to monitor students'
progress, and allowing me to give advice and encouragement on how to improve,
but logbooks do also bring me into the very private world of the students and I
suppose that “English” in that way becomes personally relevant to them, thus
opening up affective-motivational aspects, which I am sure impact enormously on
their learning.
