Giving and following instructions

In this blog post, I’d like to reflect a bit on the idea of giving clear instructions. In theory, it’s a simple practice, but I’ve found that in reality, it’s sometimes a bit more complicated. This seems especially true in the context of foreign language teaching, in which an additional obstacle of a language barrier can stand between the students and correct comprehension of what they are supposed to do.

When I was doing my CELTA course at IH Madrid, one of the earlier modules focused quite a bit on giving clear instructions. Some of their tips were to stand in the middle of the room, speak in short sentences, and gesture to the activity or portion of the book that we wanted the students to complete. For the lower levels, phrasal verbs should be avoided due to their more complex structure, and quick concept checking questions could be asked to gauge whether students have understood the instructions. Ironically, a question that should be avoided is the standard “Do you understand?” Oftentimes, students will almost automatically respond yes, either not willing to admit that they don’t understand or, more interestingly, not yet aware that they actually don’t understand.

These suggestions are logical, and they work well enough with the smaller class sizes usually seen in a CELTA-style academy. However, it seems to me that when we’re in a classroom with thirty-odd overtired teenagers, the game changes a bit. Teenagers, it seems to me, are not the most diligent listeners: not to their parents, sometimes not even to their friends, and certainly to their teachers. I have often found that with my 3º ESO students, I would get roped into going around and explaining one-on-one no matter how clearly I tried to explain the exact same thing not five minutes before. This happened for written instructions as well: in their technology class, students would call me over for assistance and ask me how to do something that was (to my mind) clearly explained in the written instructions. I would proceed to ask the students if they had read the instructions, and many times they would admit that they, in fact, had not.

It’s worth pointing out here that adults are not immune to this aversion to attending to instructions. I hate to say it, but I’ve noticed this even among my classmates in this Master’s program. Things that I take for granted as generally understood are the objects of questions and doubts, with enough questions and replies going back and forth in our group chat that I actually begin to doubt my initial understanding of what I thought were clear instructions. Likewise, people will ask a question about something that is clearly and directly stated in the teaching guide. It makes me wonder how we as teachers are supposed to give clear, intelligible instructions if we as students don’t seem to understand them ourselves.

I have to admit that I don’t have a solution to this. I have no magic technique for giving instructions that are immediately and universally understood, though I always try my hardest to explain things straightforwardly and in detail to anticipate possible questions. All I can offer at this point is a brief reflection on why I think this is happening. From my perspective, it has to do with the culture and the fast-paced world in which we live. We are accustomed to an environment of self-gratification, and we are connected to others by our fingertips, to the point where we get anxious if a friend takes over an hour to text us back, or impatient if we don’t get a same-day reply to the email that we just sent. We are so used to being “on” all the time, pressured to be “productive”, that I think we have developed a dive-in-head-first instinct. Our instincts tell us to just go or just start doing, and we’ll figure out the details on the way. I think that perhaps the anticipation of doing makes us truly anxious to sit around and wait for explanation or instruction: the longer we have to wait, the later we will finish, and the less time we will have to do the next thing on our list, or to do the things that we truly want to do.

So what can we do? Maybe the answer to listening to or interpreting instructions lies in forcing ourselves to slow down. To this end, meditation comes to mind. Meditation as a practice is all about being mindful and staying in the present moment, accepting our thoughts and feelings and sitting with them. And what is listening to instructions if not an exercise in staying mindfully focused on the present, an effort to detach ourselves from the anticipation of doing? I wonder what would happen if teachers took students through focused breathing or body scanning exercises before introducing a task that entails detailed instructions. Would this encourage the students to slow down and relax them enough that they are more open to receiving and retaining instructions? Maybe it’s worth a shot.