The Pope, the Rabbi, and the Lesson Plan Outcome
Posted by Waleed Khalid Abdulabbas on April 21, 2013
The Pope, the Rabbi, and the Lesson Plan Outcome
One of the things that I don’t agree with some of experts in the field of language teaching is setting finite instructions on how a lesson plan should be taught. The main reason from my experience of studying English for 23 years as an EFL and ESL in Iraq is that students outcome is different from what teacher sets for. No matter how much I exert as a teacher to ensure that students reach the terminal objectives or main goals, there is always an outcry. Some students might lack the same understanding conduit other peers share in the classroom. This lack might backfire the objectives to take all students to a common ground of understanding a linguistic feature of English. Let me tell you a story that a friend of mine told me about the pope and a rabbi. This story echoes the goal of a lesson plan objectives.
Few centuries ago, the pope decided to force Jews to convert to Christianity or leave Rome. Jews decided to denounce this decision so the pope had a deal. The deal was a simple debate between the pope and any aged Rabbi that represents Jews. However, the Rabbi did not speak Italian and the Pope did not speak Yiddish. So, the final decision was that they have a silent debate on the selected. They both sat facing each other. The Pope raised his right hand and showed three fingers. The Rabbi raised his hand and showed him one finger. Next, the Pope raised his hand and waived his fingers around his head. The Rabbi responded by pointing his finger to the ground. The Pope put his hand in his bag and brought out a “Communion wafer” and wine. The Rabbi then did the same thing by pulling out an apple.
The Pope then stood and announced that he was beaten by the Rabbi because he was clever. All Jews can stay in Italy.
Later on, the cardinal decided to investigate further what has happened. The Pope responded, “’First I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity”. The Rabbi responded by holding a one finger to show me that there is still only one God that is common for both religions. Next, I waived my hand around my head to show that God is everywhere. Rabbi responded by showing me that God is also here with us. Then, I pulled out wine and wafers from my bag to show that God has “absolved us” from our sins with his sacrifices. The rabbi responded by showing me an apple to remind me of the original sin. So, he “bested” me at every step I did and I decided to stop the debate.
In the same time, Jews gathered to ask the Rabbi about his victory on the Pope. “ I haven’t a clue”, the Rabbi said. The Pope told me that we had only three days to leave Rome. So I gave him the finger. Then he told me I will clear the whole country will be cleared of Jews, so I told him that we will stay on this ground no matter what will happen. “And then What?!!”, one of the Women asked. The Rabbi said, “Who knows?” “The Pope took out his lunch and I took out mine”.
The moral lesson of this story is clearly that your actions might generate an outcome that is not interpreted well by others if you use a language that is not common. I want to emphasize here what I stated before that careful introductions about a lesson plan are nothing but unnecessary fuzz. As a teacher, or a replacement teacher, I know how to say “Good morning” because assumingly that I am equally aware of how to teach that class as the default teacher. That is only if I am not a layperson who came from the street and started working as a replacement teacher. I am proposing that the lesson plan should be really simple and we should pay attention to the content more than using the imperative forms to tell the teacher how to behave in the classroom. That is the behavioral psychology concern. From my experience as a teacher at the Peace Resource Center in Seaside, I brought three exemplary lesson plans to the classroom. The only thing I needed is the content material and to make sure that students level is consistent. I did not need to know what to say have a nice day or how is your day going folks?
Anyways, lets go back to our story. The relationship between this anecdote and the classroom application is what I said “the content of language used”. We need to emphasize the content rather than paying extra effort for infinity of APA style formatting (i.e., one inch on the side, Times, 12 font, and consecutive page numbering). I personally believe that Times New Roman for example is an antique and monolithic font. There are so many other nice fonts that people can aesthetically use instead.
My final note is my recommendation to pay attention to the content of the lesson plan to ensure that that what the teacher (the pope) says makes sense to the learner here (aged rabbi).
Shukran (Thank you for reading this)
May 29th, 2013 at 9:59 am
Thanks for sharing Waleed! I always stray away from using sensitive topics such as religion and politics in the classroom, but I think it works really well how you used it. There’s not much more I can add that Sarah and Monica haven’t already said…which means I should probably just delete this comment altogether and find a different post to comment on.
I’m not going to though, well done!
May 28th, 2013 at 5:39 pm
Thank you Monica for your comment. It is true that teacher always have high expectations of their lessons or their students comprehension.
May 23rd, 2013 at 4:08 am
Hmmm… interesting story Waleed. When I read it I didn’t think about lesson objectives, however. Instead I thought about cultural differences and misunderstandings. I imagined two people from two different cultures, or L1s, discussing a topic. After a long conversation, the arrive at what they think is mutual understanding but then soon find out that what one understood wasn’t quite what the other intended to say. It makes me think of Long’s (1996) idea of negotiation for meaning. The idea behind it is that each speaker is able to adjust his/her speech mid-conversation to reach understanding. But what happens if our culture or the way we interpret something causes the misunderstanding in and of itself and we’re unable to see the problem?
In my personal experience, I’ve gone through many conversations thinking that I understood what was going on only to find out in the end that I really had no idea. More times than not, the cause of the problem was my assumption that something was, or should be, how I imagined it to be without considering alternatives. Either that or the comment was embedded with cultural specific language that went right over my head. So I guess at this point negotiation for meaning and reaching mutual understanding is dependent on ‘realizing’ that there is a misunderstanding.
As teachers I think we run across this same problem. Sometimes we think we’ve made ourselves clear and we go all the way until the end of a lesson, activity, or conversation before we realize that there was a misunderstanding back in the beginning. And sometimes we don’t even realize it at all. It may be because of cultural differences or the way our cultural hides itself in language. I think as teachers we need to really think about the way in which we explain certain things and the assumptions we make. Also, we should incorporate many comprehension checks (like Sarah mentioned!) into our lessons to ensure understanding throughout. But how do we ensure that ALL students understand?
Although, I do agree with your comment about focusing on the content being taught, when we think about what I said before, I think it’s important to pay attention to the “little” things we do as teachers too. What we overlook might actually be the cause of the misunderstanding. What do you think?
May 14th, 2013 at 11:25 pm
Waleed—I love this story about the Pope and the Rabbi! Thanks for sharing! It so hilariously and yet poignantly exemplifies the difference between the meaning we as teachers intend to convey and what our students understand from our words. For this reason, I believe it is really important that we as teachers regularly check for comprehension, especially when giving directions in the L2. I know for me, anyway, giving clear, detailed directions is a challenge, especially if the task is multi-stepped or somehow complicated. One way I find that is helpful to do such comprehension checks is to ask a student to restate for his/her classmates the directions in his/her own words in English (and then perhaps in his/her L1 if you understand the L1). This way, the student gets practice with paraphrasing, in addition to showing you that s/he understands the directions, and shares this information with the class. If s/he is incorrect, other students can help, so it becomes a group effort.