How Does Competition Affect Language Learning?
Korean Middle School Teacher Jin Seok Park Sees Some Benefits
Jin Seok Park, who teaches English at Shinseo Middle School in
South Korea, recently sent a note to the TESL-L listserv, expressing
a tentative endorsement of competitive activities with English
learners. The listserv cut the message short, however, so Jin Park
contributed the full article to ESL MiniConference Online, and
welcomes direct replies at
gwtw11334@yahoo.com
Hello, ESL MiniConference!
I am teaching 8th-grade students in Korea (South
Korea) . I have been teaching middle-school students
for almost seven years. I have tried many various methods
to attract them into my class. In the process, I found one
which I have thought a good way to make the students
join the class. But a few days ago, I attended a seminar
where I got the idea that my way might be wrong. I am
so wondering if this is a really way to mislead them.
Here is my style. I use stickers to inspire
students' motivation. Each of my classes consists of 44
students, so I divided each class into four parts. One
of the parts is divided into three small groups, each
of which is made up of four students.
Usually the class
is run by the big four parts, or teams, which each have 11
students. When I ask some questions and some students
answer them, the team which they belong to gets two
points for each question. The points can change from
time to time. I heighten them up to 5 to raise
students' interest. They are very eager to get those
points. They compete speedily to answer faster.
I give
the first-place team 4-point stickers to each member; the second,
3-point stickers; the third, 2-point
stickers. And this is the important part. The fourth
place team is suppposed to get 1-point stickers and a
homework assignment, in which they write a page about what they learned
that day. Students really hate homework, you know.
Secondly, I check what they learn that day by asking
questions of all the members of the team. When they
don't tell the right answer, the team will lose some
points. This is used to change the rank or order. If
they are still the first after losing some points,
they are going to be the winner of the day. When one
student says a wrong answer, sometimes the other
members get sad or angry. But mostly they laugh and
get pleased with the mistake. And the other teams
laugh and are pleased. The classroom grows warmer and
the students get animated. Most students don't fall
asleep. But they might get stiff or nervous, I
suspect.
Thirdly, I use the small groups to make the students
practice speaking and to extract students'
participation. I make an instruction paper to explain
how to do the activity, including supplemental tasks which each
student can do. Each small group runs their own
class according to my instruction and the instruction
paper. After doing their group activity, the one who gets
the most points gets a 4-point sticker and the next
winner gets 3-point sticker and so on. They try to get
the most points in the activity. They do the best ,
participating in the small class. The group activity is
made for even the slow students to join and
understand. It usually requires speed. It can be called
the competition.
I consider this as fun. But the speaker at the
seminar I listened to the other day insisted that
giving stickers and encouraging competition is a bad way.
Cooperation should lead the class. Teachers have to
make students know how to cooperate and help each
other in class. Then my method hit me. I doubt if I am
doing wrong. I had confidence that I mixed the
competition and cooperation through my style. But I am
confused. Am I leading the students to too much
competition? I thought I made the class animated and
alive.
ESL MiniConference readers! How are you running your class? Are you
competion-oriented or cooperation-oriented? Is competition bad or
isn't it? Can appropriate competition be helpful? I want to listen to other
opinions. Thank you in advance.
Comment by Jin Seok Park
2002 ESL MiniConference Online
Shinseo Middle School, South Korea