DIALOGUE AS A QUANTUM PROCESS

Twelve Principles for teaching effective adult learning

First, I want to say that a principle is the beginning of an action. There´s an assumption that adult learning is best achieved in DIALOGUE.

“Dia-” means “between” and “logos” means “words.” We can, then, say that “dialogue” means “the words between us.”

Danah Zohar defines dialogue as a quantum process; we are going to be discovering why she calls it in this way. What is important to know is that all of the twelve principles and practices are ways to begin, to maintain, and to nurture the dialogue. But, what are the principles are we talking about, what do they mean, and what is their function?

The twelve principles are presented below:

1)  Needs Assessment
It has to do with learners´ expectations and needs. One of the most important things this principle deals with is listening effort teachers should do in order to acquire and learn about the needs and resources assessment. Another thing is how motivation gets started; that´s very important because we, as teachers, must be aware of working with the tangible and visible elements we´ve got from learners. Those elements are their own needs and their own themes.
We have to be clear that needs assessment DOESN´T FORM the way we are going to teach, but it INFORMS the way; moreover, the information recollected can be used as reflective material.

2)  Safety
Safety deals with the respect for learners as decision makers. The learning process should be designed to be hard work and safe at the same time. Teachers must create a safe environment to motivate adults to learn by trusting in the competence, trusting in the relevance of the objectives, trusting in the sequence of activities (from simplicity to complexity), creating a nonjudgmental classroom, and allowing small groups find the power of safety in the classroom.

3)  Sound relationships
This principle deals with RESPECT, SAFETY, OPEN COMMUNICATION, LISTENNING, and HUMILTY. As teachers, we have to demonstrate the sense of interest in adult learning process to increase the knowledge adults are looking for; however, we have to know the limits of each relationship we are going to create for not falling in THE FATAL FLOP (this consists of students´ anger, fear, and disappointment.) If we manage our relationships in a proper way, we are taking the power in the classroom.

4)  Sequence and reinforcement
Sequence means the programming of knowledge to be acquired in the course; in the other side, reinforcement has to do with the repetition of facts during the course to make the knowledge easy to be acquired. Listening plays an important role in the principle because it allows us to modify the tasks if they are too complex for the students; furthermore, listening plays the role of the dialogue in which adults are seen as decision makers.

5)  Praxis
This principle is a inductive process (from simple to complex) because we are going to provide knowledge, we are going to make the students practice the new skills, and we´re going to make them reflect about what they´ve done. That´s why this principle is determined by action with reflection.

6)  Respect for learners as decision makers
This is about the recognition that adults are decision makers in their lives. Adults need to understand that they´re responsible for what happens with their educational process. At this point there are two types of learning dialogue: teacher-learner and learner-learner. And the most relevant thing is that learners should practice freedom.

7)  Ideas, feelings, and actions
This principle involves three important aspects of the adult learning process. Cognitive, affective, and psychomotor are the core for this principle. If we pay special attention ideas (cognitive), feelings (affective), and actions (psychomotor) must be closely related between each other in order to provide the learners an amount of information they can easily get.

8)  Immediacy
This is a very important issue for adults because they don´t want to waste their time, so they want to see the results of their knowledge, their skills, and their attitudes. We, as teachers, must provide the adequate sequence and the appropriate reinforcement for them to see that we are willing to work in their learning process. If we don´t do that, we are going to make them fall in the fatal flop. Immediacy plays a very important role on their determination to keep on learning. This principle will help not only students, but teachers during the process because it helps teachers to decide how to organize the course.

9)  Clear roles
Each part must be clear about the roles its playing in the communication process between teacher and learner.

10)             Teamwork
This principle describes itself. It is both a process and a principle, an action. Besides that, teamwork develops SAFETY and I´d like to cite that “This is exquisitely quantum thinking: nothing in the universe grows or develops alone. We learn together. We live in a participatory universe (Zohar, 1997, p. 68).”

11)             Engagement
The following sentence summarizes the principle quiet well. When learners are engaged to their learning process is not difficult to make them work in small groups or in big teams.

12)             Accountability
This principal deals with some statements that whether we like them or not are very realistic. The design for the adult learning process must be tangible to the learners; this idea is beautiful because we live in a participatory universe as we said and we cannot deny it.

Having said all this, Danah Zohar calls dialogue a quantum process because we cannot isolate any of its parts. Moreover, each adult learner intrinsically possesses both experience and personal perception of life and that´s why the deserve respect during the learning process.

Questions about SBI and classroom management

In this term, teaching is becoming a bit difficult. Some questions may emerge as how I can set up and mantain order when teaching. Well, we should know that classroon management has a variety of factors we must tale into account; moreover, we, as future teachers, should be aware of the energy we are going to create in our classroom through some aspects.
I like to present myself question before teaching, "how would I like to find the classroom if I were the student?" This question helps to take care of the aspect of the classroom before teaching because the enviroment in which the students are, indeed, affect their learning process. 

The neatness, cleaning, and the order of the classroom play an important role in our classes. Similarly, the seating arrengment, interferences, acoustics, and weather can disturb students´ attention in the class. As a personal opinion, the school I´m teaching at has movable desks, that is a big advantage for me beacause I know the other teachers DO NOT make use of the desks and they don´t move them. So, I try to provide my students a different class by rearranging the desks in different positions. 
There are other things we have to take care of such as the white board use and the equipment use. Talking about the board, it has to be clean since the very beginning of the class. You can paste some charts, draw some graphs, give your own examples, and provide your students visual aids for them to better understand the topic. But, DON´T FORGET THE BOARD WHEN YOU FINISH YOUR CLASS. Now, I understand why some tacher get mad when entering a classroom and finding the board all dirty.

Another thing we have to be aware of, when trying to mantian the order, is our tune of voice and our body language. We have to know that when teaching, we must speak as natural as possible because our voice is going to give us the confidence to teach and we´re going to sound secure about the things we are talking about. Our nonverbal expressions are very important due to they are caught by students easily.
One thing I can tell you is that many topics can arise at very moment of teaching and you have to know what to do. If the topic in question has to do with the topic your students are dicussing, try to relate it in a very smooth way. Don´t cut your students´participation; let them talk about the topic if they´re speaking in English, obviously.

An external question may be born someday, "how can I learn successfully a new language?"
Our answer must be STRATEGIC INVESTMENT; nevertheless, many of you may be wondering what that means. Well, let me tell you that strategic investment means that the learning process has to be match with investment. We all have to be clear that "every set of complex skills is acquired through a combination of observing, focusing, practicing, monitoring, correcting, and redirecting." (Taken from the book TEACHING BY PRINCIPLES, 3rd edition, page 258)