The teaching environment
A comfortable setting
In order to facilitate this new teacher-learner relationship based on a deeper understanding of the learning process and the most efficient way of transferring knowledge, both students and teachers need to meet in an appropriate environment. Firstly, given that mental activity is more often than not practiced in a seated position, learners and teachers need to be seated comfortably, freeing their minds from distractions related to physical discomfort. This is why we use office armchairs in our English language training centre and not hard uncomfortable wooden or plastic chairs.
Again, in order to preserve and strengthen this new teacher-learner relationship, each person's interaction with the teaching environment must be fair. If teachers are allowed to move about, then students must also be permitted. If teachers drink coffee during lessons, then students must also be permitted to drink. The pedagogical setting must reflect the balance between students and teachers in their relationship now based on empathy. This is something that is extremely hard for a French trained teacher to envisage, especially when dealing with secondary school learners, given the need to not only control all pupil movements for fear of disruption but also the need to be perceived as almost inaccessible to reinforce the notion of authority. Suddenly treating learners as collaborators and not mere subordinates is somewhat a revolutionary concept in the French trained teacher's mind set and using the classroom set up to enhance this new relationship will initially be extrememly destabilising.
A new environment
There are numerous benefits to creating a classroom setting that is far from the 'traditional' school environment, especially for learners and teachers who may have negative memories of tense relationships in the traditional classroom. This change instantly stimulates a new dynamic learning process and is the reason our training centre looks more like a comfortable living room rather than a traditional school classroom. A minimalist environment with only the absolute essentiels.
Teachers and learners need to feel comfortable with their surroundings and not caged in by furniture or rarely used objects that are not necessary in the teaching and learning processes. The most important element needed in these processes must logically be at the centre of the classroom setting. If learning and teaching centre around making objects, then a work bench would be at the heart of the classroom. If, as is the case with foreign language learning, it's the learner's brain that is at the heart of the process (since learners will be reflecting on their mental abilities and functions rather than on writing or physical creation) then tables and desks suddenly become cumbersome. They even hinder communication during the pedagogical process since they not only create a physical separation between teachers and pupils, but are also redundant during any teacher-learner brain activity, which manifests itself through thought and not writing. When we learnt our native language we didn't even know how to write and certainly didn't acquire our linguistic skills by sitting behind a desk.
Once the tables have been removed, the physical space created allows the office armchairs to be positioned in a circle further facilitating the new teacher-learner relationship where both are on the same terms, focused on the same goal: a comprehension of the learners' brains.
The same applies to the blackboard (traditional or interactive). If the main axis for knowledge transmission and reception is mental reflection, then writing on a board becomes rather distracting. With the Leader Harrison Technique© neither pupils nor teachers need to write during the face to face teaching phase since the learning process would be greatly hindered (this does not mean that pupils never see written English or learn to write in English).
Thus from this perspective, the use of the blackboard for pedagogical reasons in our classroom is redundant, along with exercise books and traditional (or electronic) pupil text books.
It's the teacher who must establish what is really essential or superficial in their teaching practice by questioning the utility of each object present in their classrooms. If as teachers our answers resemble these: “Because I was told to use things like that” or “Because it suits me” then we must realise that our teaching practice is either based on someone else's instructions (which entails the transfer of our responsibility at the same time) or our own needs. In both cases, our pupils' real needs which are the development of an understanding of their own brain workings, are relegated to second position. As we have already seen, this posture destabilises the teacher-learner relationship, leads to catastrophic results in the domain of pupil retrieval capacity and from a psychological point of view, is destructive for both pupils and teachers.
A new environment that promotes pedagogical responsibility
If teachers now consciously create the pedagogical environment by choosing and placing each physical element found within it keeping the notion of usefulness in mind (allowing pupils to develop brain function self-awareness), then they must apply the same ethos to the tasks required of learners. If these activities have been chosen to simply facilitate the teacher's work or to entertain students as is often the case, but are not essential in the learning process, then these activities are again considered to be superficial. Teachers will have to pursue the same line of self-questioning as before when considering the physical make-up of their classrooms: Are the written classroom exercises I give to pupils mainly to occupy them, to allow me to take a break, to calm the class down and are they the most efficient way of instigating cerebral self-reflection? Depending on the answers (which must be totally honest to be useful), teachers will be able to rectify their initial choices by repositioning themselves in a way that will be beneficial to attaining their pedagogical goal of enabling learners to rapidly and efficiently acquire new 'permanent' skills. Again, deciding to function in a French secondary school without students writing in exercise books is somewhat a revolutionary concept.
It is essential that teachers become aware of their responsibility in the initial creation and maintaining of this new pedagogical relationship with learners, which essentially evolves around a deep reflection on their own teaching practice. If the pedagogical goal is to encourage students to reflect upon their own cerebral functions, then teachers must lead by example. This means that during the self-reflection process on the initial choice of learner activities and tasks, teachers must not overlook the reasons behind their choices (which will inevitably lead them to a close examination of what is really at the heart of their teaching practice : student wellbeing, their own wellbeing, parent wellbeing, the inspector's praise, the curriculum, knowledge or self-understanding of one's own cerebral function...)
In the same way that mistakes are essential for encouraging brain function comprehension, mistakes in pedagogical choices are stimuli that allow teachers a better understanding of themselves through their teaching techniques. It's through a greater comprehension of our teaching 'habits' that we can accept our implicit responsibility in our student's learning, being the guides who enable them to better understand the way their brains function.
