Everybody has at least once done some monotonous work. What emotions did it cause? Was it of use? Monotonous work is either some boring work you have to do for a long time or some work you just have to do again and again until you get used to it. As long as we’re going to become teachers of foreign languages and work in the educational sphere I’m going to speak about stereotyped lessons. There are some teachers that consider them to be the best activity for their students. Writing essays, dictations, translations, doing exercises relying on one and the same model and stuff like that. Such exercises help to develop stable linguistic skills of different kinds. They make students concentrate. But other teachers claim that without any novelties the educational process becomes dull and boring. Students can’t concentrate at all because they can’t get involved. They are just angry. Their anger disturbs them and the productivity decreases.
As for me, I’m the supporter of the second point of view though I admit that the first one has its right to exist. I believe that monotonous work doesn’t make our brains be fully active, it just causes automatic memorization. On the one hand, it’s good. The aim is finally achieved. But on the other hand, the more we like the activity we have to do the better results we’ll get. And one more thing: psychologists state that our knowledge is stable only when we are fully involved in the process of memorization. Here we come to some certain disagreement between the scientists of different fields: methodologists and psychologists. The first are sire that automatic memorization needn’t be truly involving while the second ones claim that without any involvement there can be no stable knowledge. I tend to agree with methodologists. And what do you think?
Now let’s come from theory to practice. I’m going to tell you a short story first. I study in the University and have German among the subjects I have to study. Our teacher of German is considered to be the best one in the department. her methods of teaching consist in writing dictations-translations and afterwards, when the theme is completely understood and the words are remembered, we come to real communication. So, at first she uses monotonous and boring tasks and then involves us. May it be so? Why not?! We automatically memorize new vocabulary items and grammar patterns and then we enjoy the lesson. It’s a certain compromise though monotonous work preoccupies quite a long time. As for me, I adore this teacher and can say it for sure that I’m completely satisfied with my achievements. And what is your attitude to this situation? Would you like to have such a teacher? So, different viewpoints have their right to exist. I’ve expressed mine and want you to tell me your thoughts. Are novelties in the educational process unavoidable? Are your teachers conservative or creative? Is it difficult for you to do monotonous work? I suppose it may turn out to be an interesting discussion. P. S. These links may be of use to you To make your speech reacher Boring work Why are some lessons boring?!
