Event Report – Ibaraki Chapter October meeting

An Ecological Jungle of Learning: Partnering Students with Invitations to Teach, Reach, & Publish by Tim Murphey
Listening to Murphey, we participants soon realized that we needed to adopt a different approach to our pedagogical practice. Students are not whom we teach but our active partners. We don’t provide them with textbooks, but their works themselves are the course texts–shared, revised, and reused throughout the course. Murphey compares student-produced texts (SPTs) to “an ecological jungle.” SPTs may not be “so clean, organized, and orderly as many teachers would wish.” But they are arguably the most fertile ground for learning, growing, and community building, creating an atmosphere where everyone’s perspectives are valued and appreciated. Having laid out this approach, Murphey introduced us to seven activities that he had found effective in encouraging students’ self-expression. Some of the activities improve the classroom environment, eliciting students’ feedback on lessons or inviting them to consider how they can be good learning partners to their peers. Others prompt them to reflect on their learning history or positive influences in their lives. During the presentation, Murphey gave us many opportunities to participate in those activities; we felt first-hand how they can be conducive to a sense of empowerment and connection with others. Learning from Murphey’s philosophy and method, we clearly saw the possibility that the language classroom could be a place for students’ wellbeing and transformation.
Reported by Naomi Takagi