There is growing evidence that the traditional classroom is becoming a center of "edu-tainment." The more that teachers introduce entertaining elements, the more the program looks like a television variety show. For some students, who expect a more structured, limited, controlled experience in the classroom, interruptions are a particular source of discomfort. My experience as a visual and active teacher has shown me the importance of re-emphasizing the curriculum for the benefit of the students who expect a controlled environemnt. Surprises are generally not a ositive experience for these students. I have been told that some classes that I have tuaght were without a focus and lacked a core ... and otehr students in the room have told me that they really enjoyed the change of pace. What can a teacher do to balance the needs of the student who seeks a controlled progression of learning, which is predictable, with the growing abundance of curricular materials that support the notion of the classroom as a TV studio? RECOMMENDATIONS 1. Don't slide on procedures. I made the mistake of not clearly delineating the structure of the class. I posted the goals for a class and then wrote next to the list, about 30 minutes into the lesson. The list of words stood out, the list of goals disappeared. The student who complained about my class was right: the person could not see the list of the next steps for the class. I have resolved to keep the list of clas goals handy for reference for the entire class, not just as a marker at the beginning of the class. 2. Give a list of possible activities to the students so that they aren't surprised when one of the activities is used. I introduced a concept of "relevance" to the class. I noted that the majority of students had not read a newspaper article in the past week, so I thought, "Let's make learning books" the way Waldorf schools do. There are no textbooks in some classes and the students build the textbook from notes given to them by their teachers and from research they do independently. My concept was simple: ask each student to give me their opinion of what was an interesting article. The positive feedbaclk: "Wow. I REALLY learned a lot of new words today!" The negative feedback: "We just sat and read a newspaper. i can do that in my home. This was a wasted class for me." aha! The class method and purpose were new to the student with a negative reaction, so I have now written a list of my favorite extra activities so that my students are not surprised. 3. Structure the activity as much as possible. With the newspaper activity, I no longer hand a section of the newspaper to a student and ask the student to select an article and then find new words and tell their partner about why they like this article. Now, the procedure is "Teacher cuts out 25 articles for 12 students, gives each student two articles and I askthe student to choose one article and talk about it with the partner." A more controlled situation becuase I did not realize that some students will page through two or three sections of a newspaper, hunting for the perfect article, rather than settle on thefirst article they see. This waste of time i interpreted as "just reading the newspaper," when in fact the instructions were "select an article, find difficult words, talk about the article with your neighbor and write a short summary about the article in your own words." REFERENCES: 1. Rigor, relvance and relationships comes form Dennis Littky and Bill Gates. Both have argued that a tough curriculum needs to have elements that relate to the student's interests and also some social connects. That's why I ask them to share a song that they love and try to explain what happens in the song. They have special meaning for the stuydent adn they can build their social intelligence by sharing their insights in the social implications of the song. 2. Interruptions as a source of "reset for the brain" -- an article that is discussed elsewhere on this web site: http://www.freeenglishlessons.com/articlelive/articles/4918/1/I-Encourage-Interruptions-in-My-Classroom/Page1.html also gives you the details of this new research. Commercials might in fact help us remember a TV program better because our attention span is reset at the end of the interruption. 3. Gardner's multiple intelligences. Structure and the need to make categoires is particularly important for students that are used to "Teacher transferring information to the student" rather than a facilitiator model of the classroom. In the Teacher-down-to-student" model, the student expects a certain amount of uninterrupted transfer time. Asking students to explain what they know about a subject is unsettling to some, because they say, ""You are the teacher, you should tell us what we should know." This sort of metntaility needs the reassurance that they are getting their money's worth from buying classroom time. The visual and actie facilitiator (no longer an instructor) needs to establish soem sort of routine to keep this sort of student at ease. "Yes, there will be time for transfer of information. First, let's see what you know and whether you can express yourself." 4. Portfolios in the Classroom> Some progress is found when students show their work when they start a course and then when they look at their work after 6 or 7 weeks. There is often perceived improvement that might not show up in a grammar and vocabulary test that is administered at the beginning and end of a course of study. There are more references for the Visual and Active Method at http://www.geocities.com/talkinternational1/lookvisual.html, which includes a description of the Portfolio method of collecting student work. The portfolio is used in a Gardner school in St. Louis, Mo., which I visited in April 2006. For further discussion and comments, please contact Steve McCrea, FreeEnglishLessons@gmail.com