Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Hello, everyone. Welcome to a new series of talking elt. Today we're going to be talking about compassion in language teaching. We're going to be looking at what it really means when we talk about compassion in language education. We're going to be talking about why it's more important than ever to be thinking about this. And we're going to be looking at how we can integrate compassion into the way that we teach English in the classroom. I'm joined by two wonderful guests, Professor Sara Mercer, professor of Teaching English at the University of Graz in Austria. And we have Charlotte Rantz, who is a senior professional development consultant at Oxford University Press. Thank you very much for joining us. Now, one of the reasons we are here and we've invited Sarah is because she has just written and published a book on this subject, Compassion Based Language Education. And this is our opportunity to talk about it and this really important subject. Sarah, do you want to start off and tell us a little bit about who you are and what you've been doing which made you want to write this book?
[00:01:30] Speaker C: Thanks, Ben, and nice to see you both.
This has had a long gestation period, so I think I first pitched the idea to OUP in 2019, and then I don't really need to tell anybody what happened in 2020 and 2021. That kind of slowed things down, but also probably made the topic more pertinent than ever before. So it has taken a long time to come to fruition, but it's been a sort of a lifelong journey, maybe that's brought me to this point. So as a language teacher, I was always interested, well, not always, but I became very interested in the psychology of my learners. So through various issues, but it was really through doing my master's thesis, I discovered that when you were training learners in, for example, in strategy training at the time shows my age we were in strategy training at that time. The benefits were not linguistically. You weren't looking at immediate linguistic gains. You were looking at gains in terms of their psychology. The fact that they felt more confident, they had more sense of agency, they had a clearer direction of where they wanted to go. So that's way back during my master's thesis where I started with this interest in the psychology of my learners and understanding that what goes on in their minds dictates how open and receptive they are to learning. And that for me, this psychology is kind of the foundation of everything that we do. And teachers know this intuitively, I think.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Charlotte, can I just turn to you and just ask you know, do you have a particular reason for being interested in this topic?
[00:03:06] Speaker A: I think for me, I mean, coming from a teaching background and just being quite a nice human most of the time, compassion has always meant a lot to me and I think, think that we, we get on better in the world when there's a little bit more compassion around. So when I discovered that Sarah was writing this book, I was, I mean, already a fan, of course, but very excited to get my hands on this one and to have an opportunity to discuss this together.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: Charlotte, I, I feel I want to just kind of introduce you a little bit. When you are a professional development consultant, what do you do and how do you. Can you bring that experience to this discussion?
[00:03:52] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I started out in the classroom as a teacher and I became a teacher trainer and I've been teacher training since about 2010. So I get a lot of opportunity working with Oxford to travel around to meet teachers in different contexts, different cultures, to work with wonderful people like yourself, like Sarah, but also to, to have that opportunity on the ground and talk to teachers, to see one to one, how are things changing for them. And like you said in the introduction, certainly a topic very much of the moment. I think we're all looking for ways to show a little more kindness and a little more, I don't want to say leniency, but understanding in the classroom, I think.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I just wanted to bring out that you talk to people from a wide range of backgrounds and cultures so that there are many ways I think of, of how people teach which may relate to their cult, their cultural environment. So thinking about how compassion works in that it's really important to have that breadth of experience. But I think also, Sarah, yourself in your, your range of students come from a wide range of backgrounds as well.
[00:05:11] Speaker C: Yeah. I think one of the reasons behind choosing the notion of compassion to kind of bring together all the things I've been working on for the last 20, 25 years is because it's a kind of universal, that it's something that people, whatever their cultural background, religious background, it's a notion that people can relate to. Now, linguistically, it's a little bit problematic in that some languages don't have a separate word for compassion and empathy. So that does lead to some misunderstandings when empathy and compassion are being used interchangeably. And that depends on the language and how the language sees that. But the notion of compassion, I think is universal. I think it's something that people can relate to, whatever their backgrounds, and that.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: Takes us neatly into Kind of the first thing I wanted to tease out, which is what do we really mean by compassion? And you just, you kind of teased us a little bit there with the difference between empathy and compassion. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
[00:06:11] Speaker C: Yeah, so. So like I say, one of the problems that we have is that people use the words interchangeably. And in some languages there is no different word to separate between the two. The same word is used for both notions, but it's actually quite different. Empathy is the foundation of compassion. So you need empathy in order to be compassionate. So let's take that as kind of the base that we want to develop a notion of empathy in ourselves and amongst our learners. Compassion is the next step is that not only can you empathize with somebody, but you feel able and willing to take action to alleviate any kind of discomfort, perception of unfairness, injustice, and so on. So compassion is feeling the empathy. So being able to put yourself in somebody else's thoughts and feelings and understanding perhaps why they feel or think or experiencing life the way they're experiencing it, but that you are not only willing, but feel able. So it's also about agency, about having some idea of what could you do to try to make things better. So it's not just. It's not enough to say I empathize, I feel sorry that's not enough. There's an action dimension that has to go with it as well. A sense of agency that goes with wanting to act on your empathy.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: I think that's really helpful, really helpful. Because I think even within English, we may not be very careful about our distinction between those words. So thinking of that action agency side of compassion, really important.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: I think it's a really interesting point as well, that sort of difference between having the feeling of empathy and the drive to action of compassion. And I think, you know, if I think about sort of my day to day life, there are certain areas of my life where I find it easier to act in a compassionate way than I do in others. You know, I think I'm. I'm much more patient in the classroom. For example, my compassion activates easier in the classroom than it does when I'm behind the wheel of my car, for example, right. Where I often have empathy, but my actions may be not wholly compassionate at all times.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: A lack of agency when you're stuck in, in the traffic jam. Yes, indeed, yes.
[00:08:32] Speaker C: And I think what Charlotte says is really important is that compassion is effortful and sometimes we are better at it and sometimes we're not so great. At it. I don't. I think it's something that you, I take as a guiding principle for what I would like to live my life like. And sometimes I'm better at it and sometimes I'm not so good at it. And that's, that's also part of this compassion to yourself, that you allow yourself not to be perfect, that we do our best, we have an ambition and a value that we would like to live our lives by. And sometimes we're better at it than others. It's, it's, as Charlotte says, it's an effortful thing.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: Right? Yes. And I think this is a point that comes through very much in your book, that, that it's not necessarily a soft, easy thing which people might mistake compassion for. And we'll talk later about your fierce compassion concept and various other points about that active side to compassion.
We're talking about education.
And so is there something about compassion which is particularly important in a teaching and learning situation?
[00:09:43] Speaker C: I think, yeah, I think compassion.
Maybe this is the point to explain the distinction that I make, if I may, Ben, between teaching with compassion and teaching for compassion, because I think that distinction helps to explain why I think compassion has such a large role to play in education. Is that how we teach, the way in which we teach, the way that we are in the classroom, the way that we interact with colleagues, the way that we foster learners interacting with each other, that can be driven by compassion. And that, as every teacher will tell you, is extremely effortful on a day to day basis.
The other dimension to compassion, and this links obviously to the interest that I've got in Global Skills and the work that I've done with AEP on those frameworks, is that language teaching, well, teaching of any kind, I don't think is still conceptualized anymore as narrow academic subjects. I think this notion of these transversal competences empowering learners with skills for life that are beyond the workplace and beyond the classroom, I think that notion is almost universal in education settings. And so teaching for compassion is about helping learners have the agency and the skills to act on their compassion. It isn't telling people what to do. It isn't telling people what they must think. It is empowering learners with a skill set to act on their compassion, to be compassionate in how they go about their daily lives. I see it as a, as a, as a guiding principle between the kind of transversal skills and competences that all educators are striving to teach. But they're also particularly relevant in the language classroom.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Very much. Charlotte Is this something you feel?
[00:11:24] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And I think that that distinction between teaching with compassion and teaching for compassion is a really important point to make because I think teachers predominantly teach with compassion, but almost by second nature, you know, I mean, as Sarah is very fond of reminding us, all teaching is a service led profession. You know, we are there to help other people. We're there because we're driven to do that. And the compassion will almost naturally come through most of the time. Yes, it's effortful, but it's there as your, if you, if you didn't want to take care of your students, you probably wouldn't have become a teacher in the first place. Yes, but that teaching for compassion element I think is something that lends itself very nicely in the language classroom. You know, language is a vehicle that will take you to a destination. You have to have something to speak about. And quite often in the classroom, elements of compassion will come up. We do reading topics about, if we think about compassion for the world around us, you know, we'll read about topics like global warming, climate change, endangered animals, and we'll feel compassion. We'll teach about compassion and we'll discuss ways that we can help that out. So that, that twofold sort of teaching with compassion, the act of teaching coupled with that teaching for compassion and helping our students to become more compassionate to those around them in the classroom, to their teacher, to their families, but also those further away from them and those maybe that they haven't met. You know, we have to talk about something, so why not talk about compassion?
[00:13:16] Speaker B: I mean, I, I find it really wonderful to be explicit about the teaching for compassion because we may, I think a lot of teachers do teach for compassion because especially with younger children where there is a very strong sense of socializing children, social skills you're developing. So they do that. But being explicit about it I think is really powerful. When I think for myself, I have now a 3 year old and a 1 year old granddaughters and they are the center of my life. And I see them just starting the education world and I think, I don't worry about them learning the skills which are on the curriculum because I know that's all very visible. You know, I can see if they're, if they're struggling with something that we can help them and things like that. But what I can't see so easily is the development of their character in the classroom. And I know the school is going to develop, affect their class, their character, their personality almost more than anything else. And so teachers being explicit about developing their compassion, I think, is it just makes it much easier to relate to what's happening in the school. So we're talking there more generally about education. But if we think more specifically about language teaching, is there a role for Is the position of compassion particularly important in the world of language teaching and language learning? Is there something about language learning that that gives us an additional reason to be thinking about compassion?
[00:14:56] Speaker C: Sarah I think so. I think so, because I think contemporary language education is all about communication and it's about interpersonal skills and it's about interaction, whether that's in pair work, group work that we're doing in the classroom. So we're dependent on good group dynamics and good relationships in the classroom, but also the fact that when we are teaching a language, we're teaching about communicating with others. And we've moved away from the idea that there's a clearly defined target culture, particularly for English, it can be all kinds of backgrounds and people that we're interacting with. So taking some universal principles of social emotional competences, like compassion is a key strategy for helping people to be effective communicative, which is what language teaching is about at its heart.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:15:45] Speaker C: So compassion for language education, it's just for me obvious that that would be a key skill that we want to develop, one for the benefits that we will reap in more effective classroom practices, but the benefits that we reap for learners in becoming effective communicators. And then that's not even before we start to talk about, as you say, Ben, being explicit about what are the guiding transversal competences and skills we want to develop. And if we would like our learners to be able to act on, to develop a sense of compassion and be able to act on it, then we need to be teaching those skills, too. And I, I don't think there are many language contexts in the world left where you would have the idea that we are just about teaching linguistic system, we're about teaching communication, and we're teaching and empowering learners to act in the world responsibly and critically. And that's, for me, where compassion comes in on that side as well. So, yeah, I think it's fundamental.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: Yes, yes, absolutely.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: And I mean, adding to that, you know, a lot of those skills are what's going to make communication in the classroom more effective.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: Right.
[00:16:55] Speaker A: You know, you need to feel safe in your environment in the classroom, if you're going to be brave enough to take the risk to speak.
You need to feel comfortable with your teacher, you need to feel comfortable with your classmates. You need to have the self confidence and the self regulation to be able to, you know, control those emotions and make that happen in the classroom. And that cannot happen without a basis of compassion around you because we need to be free to make those mistakes.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: I mean, I always think there's something about learning a language which makes you particularly vulnerable in the classroom. You're having to reduce your ability to communicate, to present yourself in the way that you've developed in your own first language, to something much that you are less confident about. And it's so easy to make mistakes and those mistakes to be exposed and focused on.
So I feel language learning is particularly a difficult thing where compassion is important.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Talking elt the easiest place to learn about the big issues in language teaching. Tune in again next week when we will look more closely at another aspect of compassion based language education.
Don't forget to like and subscribe if you want to learn more about this issue and others like it. To find out more about Sarah's book on compassion based language education, see the link in the episode description.
