Feature

Managing classrooms & making writing enjoyable : Here's the Jeremy-ian way!

Dr. Faheem Hasan Shahed

It's never the case that your students are either intelligent or dumb. The fact actually is: they are DIFFERENTLY intelligent!' Pausing a bit, Jeremy Harmer continued, 'You have to understand that people are different and have individual personality traits. We like, and respond to, different things in different manner. And so, when you are dealing with students in a class, do keep in mind that everyone of them has brought different emotional states, likings, disliking, desires and expectations with them, and they keep judging you on the basis of all those. All of them ARE intelligent pupils.'

The full house audience, who were teachers of English from different universities, colleges, schools, and institutes, were already glued to the eloquence of this globally renowned ELT writer and teacher-trainer who had been conducting a double-session English Language Teaching Seminar at the Surma Hall of Hotel Sonargaon on 25 August jointly organized by the British Council and BELTA (Bangladesh English Language Teachers Association).

Jeremy came to Dhaka as the key-note paper presenter at the 4th BELTA International Conference that was supposed to be held at BIAM from 24 to 26 August. That had to be cancelled due to the unavoidable state of affairs that occurred at that time. This seminar was in a sense a look-alike conference in miniature form where he presented his key-note paper. Of course, in his quintessentially British elegance blended with brine humor.

In the first session, he talked about the ways to deal with mixed-intelligence, mixed-ability classes. In doing so, he highlighted the relationship between motivation and individual differentiation from the perspective of both students and teachers. 'What do the students want their teachers to be? They want a teacher to be someone who inspires, who helps and who cares.' Saying so, Jeremy demonstrated in his uniquely maneuvered visual aids how factors like affect, attitude, attitude, achievement and activities are inextricably interlinked that needs utmost attention on a teacher's part in any classroom. Before winding up the session for tea-break, Jeremy made his ultimate observation: 'If you are good teacher, you always know what you're doing. Students may not love you all the time, but they'd RESPECT you.'

The post-tea session witnessed a different Jeremy where he talked on writing habits, processes and genres and explained with interesting examples how writing is predominantly audience-oriented, and therefore is dominated by unbound, creative mantle of moods. He then showed ways as to how teachers can conduct both writing-for-learning and writing-for-writing depending on the class situation.

'Writing is an enjoyable task and you can make them write small, easy things allowing them to be as creative as possible,' he said. 'As for example, you can ask them to write a one line poem with the topic “YOU” and see the magic!' Jeremy cited how students could respond to this by writing lines like: 'You are the tender sunshine on my window', 'You are like the green mango that makes me elated in summer…', 'You are the cloud that's dropping the rain to wash out my pains…', 'You are like the cute green grassland on an autumn morning…' etc. What he meant was, in doing this type of very small activity, they actually need to think a lot to generate the appropriate expression. And that is what makes them creative. Holding bigger thoughts in a smaller thread of expression makes writing task challenging and enjoyable.

The seminar was a grand success given the fact that the participation and responses were overwhelming, much to the delight of both Jeremy and BELTA. Everyone held this opinion that this type of interactively interesting seminars is the need of the moment, and BELTA has a great responsibility to perform in this regard. It ended in the right note with BELTA President Prof. Arifa Rahman presenting a cute memento to Jeremy as a mark of Bangladeshi hospitality, ably reciprocated by British gratitude.

Now that the postponed international conference has been rescheduled on 7 and 8 September in BIAM, one hopes that Jeremy Harmer will be back among us. And for those who missed that Sonargaon-opportunity, it is great news.

Hashi Klub!!!

Kazi Ahmed Farhan

Dear readers of Star Campus, I am going to introduce to you some of the rockers of Dhaka University. They are different from the other rockers. Why are they different? They are different because these rockers have opened a Hashi Klub (Laughing Club)!!! Yes, you have read it right. It is something new for us - Bangladeshis.

Five years ago in Mumbai, Dr. Madan Kataria decided to find out whether or not "Laughter is the Best Medicine." He gathered together a group of patients and neighbours to meet daily to enjoy a good laugh for a while. After a time, Dr. Kataria found that the participants experienced improved health and decreased levels of stress. Now this theme of laughing club has become very popular in India. In America and Europe such clubs are there for many decades.

Now, about our own club. Some students of 2001-02 session of different departments of DU have opened a Hashi Klub (Laughter Club). It is informal in nature. It began its journey on July 1, 2007 with a grand Hashi (Laughing) party. The purpose for creating such a Hashi Klub is to have simple but rocking fun. It has no written but some oral rules. The mission is to laugh to ones optimum level.

The existing number of members of Hashi Klub is 44 and it is growing steadily! The klub now operates in Room no. 229, Zahurul Haque Hall of Dhaka University at 10:59 PM on every Thursday. The Hashi Klub has no organogram and no committee. Here everyone is a general member. No one is superior or inferior to one another. The monthly subscription of this Hashi Klub is Tk. 1. If any member fails to pay that, he is fined 0.25 paisa payable the very next month. The activities of this Hashi Klub includes telling and reading skits, jokes, funny stories, poems, rhymes, satires etc. They also watch videos, ads and funny Natoks (dramas). The Klub has plans to include hearty laugh, dancing laugh, swinging laugh and cocktail laugh.

SM Didarul Hasan, one of the organisers of this klub commented: “We want to have fun and make some moments enjoyable. After a week of work and chaos, we meet to enjoy our leisure time. After we pass out from this university we want to continue with the activity of Hashi Klub. For this purpose, members of this klub will meet regularly to pass some quality time.”

He first shared the idea with Johny and Kamrul, respectively they are the present and former president of house of debators, Zahurul Haque Hall. Laughter helps us develop our sense of humour. Laughing is beneficial for both the soul and health. If you want to be a member of this Hashi Klub then write to: hashiklub@gmail.com.

(MBA 8th batch Department of Marketing, DU)