[Kieran]

Hi Mª Penya,

Thanks very much for introducing yourself. Great to have you on the course.

I’m interested to hear that you’re familiar with the work of Daniel Goleman who’s done so much to popularise the concept of social and emotional intelligence, and that you’ve studied this subject in your MA.

I’m looking forward to working with you on the course.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Emilie,

Thanks very much for your great answers!

✅ What I do : enthusiasm, adapting my voice tone, affirmative approach, definitely seeing the student as a indivual, as a person, thinking of my own experience and trying to be and do what I teach (role model) and good manners (politeness and kindness above all)

These are all wonderful things to do in order to foster empathy. Being enthusiastic is so important to empathy and often overlooked. Thinking back to your own experience and how you would like to be treated by a teacher is really helpful to fostering empathy. Acting as a role model of a moral person is one of the best ways of embedding a culture of empathy in the classroom. Good manners are absolutely fundamental but, unfortunately, often overlooked.

? What I could do more : finding the time for more 1-1 discussion and to build up a more complete knowledge on each of them

Finding time to give individual time to each students is a real challenge especially in large groups. Building up an in-depth knowledge of each student is a great thing to do.

Thanks again for your excellent responses, Emilie.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Emilie,

Thanks so much for your thoughtful response to the questions.

She was expliciting with details everything she was expecting from her student and she was making sure we understood. She was kind & strict on the same time. She knew me well and I like her transparency. She was taking the necessary extra time with every student. Our work was being assessed and he was separating our results work with our person (“you are not your result”).

She sounds like a brilliant and empathic teachers. It is quite possible to be strict and kind at the same time, isn’t it? They’re not mutually exclusive. This teacher gave extra individual time to each students and this is one of the characteristics of profoundly empathic teacher proposed by Bridget Cooper. I really like how the teacher separated the result from the person. In the West we have too great a focus on the result while in Asian culture there’s a greater focus on the process.

He was saying to my parents that I was too introvert, as if introvert was a problem ! But he never gave me any tips to get better or strategies to express myself differently in the classroom. He was in a way judging me without helping me. And it was even worse, because I was excluded as he was only talking to my parents (no direct communication with me).

It’s such a shame that being introverted was seen as a problem by this teacher and indeed that in the West being introverted is often seen as a character defect when it’s absolutely not. I like the way you analyse this situation by saying the teacher was judging you without helping you, without offering you any strategies. the teacher’s approach was definitely lacking in empathy and sensitivity.

She was : Encouraging – Not pointing out mistakes all the time – Adding value to everything I could already understand alone – Letting me freedom of choice – And a lot of physical moves showing me that she was perfectly understanding what I was saying

Being encouraging is definitely a characteristic of a profoundly empathic teacher. Giving students choice is recognising that not all students are the same and is an empathic approach.

She is always showing her will to communicate, share experience, help, being on service in a way.

These are all characteristics of a profoundly empathic teacher. Wanting to be of service to others is perhaps the single most important quality of an empathic person.

Thanks again for such a thoughtful and insightful response to the Activity, Emilie.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Emilie,

Thanks very much for your great answers!

I admire how educators give the same importance to social and academics skills, take care of every students, but as well of the the classroom as a community.

The focus on both academic and social skills is of great importance. Seeing the classroom as a community helps to foster empathy.

The teacher used the word “teachable” in the interview and it sparked some thoughts in me : what are the emotional and social prerequisite for a student to be teachable ? That’s such an important question.

Absolutely. The use of the word “teachable” is really interesting. I like your question about what emotional and social prerequisites are for a student to be teachable.

To create a good climate in the classroom – Reduce distances between the teacher and the student – The teacher can aim better the interests of his students (choosing a topic, materials, etc.) – To develop listening – Less stress – To understand the multiplicity of perspectives – To be kinder to ourselves

These are all excellent reasons for why empathy is important in the classroom.

With activity at the beginning of the class to share how we feel, explicitly emotional activities – With groups and pair work – With more strategies to self-evaluate – With social and emotional learning frameworks giving to the teachers – Explicitly assessing social skills – To reach the heart of our learners ! = so we should have flexibility in our school curriculum on the ways and materials we are using so that the teacher can adapt his course

These are all superb ways of fostering empathy in the classroom. There some excellent social and emotional learning frameworks. I like your idea of explicitly assessing social skills – they skills can definitely be developed. I completely agree that teachers need to have the flexibility in their methods and materials to be able to do this.

Two quotes I like on this topic to finish ?
Plato – “All learning has an emotional basis”
Roni Habib – “All deep learning happens through relationships”

Two lovely and pertinent quotations!

Thanks again for your excellent responses, Emilie.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Emilie,

Thank you for your excellent response to the task.

1. Empathy has three components : cognitive (taking the perspective), affective (understanding the emotions) and the empathic one (the action being taken to help after taking the perspective and understanding the emotions of the other person). What we experienced as a child has a consequence on how much empathetic we are as adults. But the good news is that empathy is a potential we can develop.

This is a great summary of what empathy is!

Empathy enable us to live together ! I keep in mind the expression “universal solvent”.

Yes. ‘Universal solvent’ is a lovely way of expressing the importance of empathy.

We should all consciously choose this mindset (using empathy) to solve any kind of problem or difficulty. Without empathy, no democracy. How could you live together without trying to understand others’ perspective ?

Simon Baron-Cohen and david Howe both argue that without empathy democracy is impossible.

Empathy has declined. Three main reasons for this : less social activities, the use of tech and the competitive atmosphere (less time to pause and really listen).

Yes. These are the three main reasons given by the researchers for the decline in empathy

Personal note : (really) listening to somebody means being present for him. That’s a good start for empathy.

Yes. Being present would seem to be an absolute prerequesite to being empathic.

2. Completely. An empathetic mindset and will for action can be used by anybody (“universal”) and has a quick, effective, beneficial regenerative effects and ability to support healing, soothe and soften relationship (“balm”)

‘Solvent’ and ‘balm’ are really nice metaphors to describe how empathy works, aren’t they?

3. I was not aware that this could be more a generation problem (“students between 1980 and 2010”). Being French but living in Greece, I could say that there is a higher level of empathy among Greek people. Maybe due to that fact that people here are still engaged in social and community activities (from children to elderly).

I’m very interested to hear you say you think people in Greece are more empathic than people in France. As you point out, the involvement in community actvities may be the explanation.

In general, I feel that on a society and political level, there is less and less space for nuances in our debate. Debates are often tending towards the domination of a unique truth, whereas to my opinion, we should more appreciate the multiple truths and perspectives.

This is an excellent point. The lack of nuance in debate is a real problem as is the reluctance to listen to and try to understand the perspective of people who have a different opinion to our own.

Thanks again for your insightful comments.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Emilie,

Thanks very much for introducing yourself.

Your work training actors and developing materials for television sounds fascinating.

I’m interested to hear you’ve always implemented social-emotional learning in your teaching.

I very much hope this course will be of great use to you in your teaching and training.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Daniela,

Thanks very much for your great evaluation of the filmmaking framework.

In my opinion, the framework is really helpful for us teachers need to have a simple and solid plan to carry out our activities in a tidy way, and this is appreciated by the students. I see that many times students don’t clearly understand the assignment or do not respect the order, so it is very useful to work with such a framework that I think could be shared with the students. Students may use it as a check-list as they go on with the project. So they make sure they do not miss any of the steps.

Great analysis. As you point out, students can use the framework as a checklist as they work on the project.

I cannot force any particular problems, but probably once we try it out with a specific class we might discover that some adjustments could be made. I think that it is vital to make it clear from the start with the students, that the teacher is going to evaluate the project considering all the elements listed in stage 7. So we could specify those evaluation criteria and give them to the students from the beginning when we present the project.

Good points. As you start working on a project, issues will come up but the framework will help to overcome them. It’s excellent that you’ve pointed out the importance of letting students know the evaluation criteria from the very beginning.

Something difficult could be to make sure that the students use English as a vehicular language as they make the film: they tend to shift to Italian when speaking to each other and this is something we should work on.

Excellent point. This is always one of the main problems with projects. I think there has to be some tolerance of students using their L1, but we should try to ensure they use the L2 as much as possible.

If this activity had to be carried out through distance-learning, it would be necessary for certain stages to exploit the video-conference separate rooms so that the teacher can support and monitor groups of students effectively. This means that step 1 for example could be done in an online lesson that is divided in a collective session (including all students) and a separate session with small groups into different “rooms” (in my school we use Microsoft Teams and it has rooms) where the teacher can access.

Great analysis of how the framework could be adapted for online classes.

Thanks again for your great evaluation, Daniela.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Daniela,

Thanks very much for your great analysis of the film-making activities.

The activities are all very good and definitely worth trying!

I’m delighted you like the activities so much.

I’d use the “film review” and the “how to” video probably with the higher levels, while I think that the “five-second film”, and the “one- minute film” are perfect also for the “biennio”, and I mean A2 level of English, students aged from 14 to 16 more or less.

Yes. The “five-second film”, and the “one- minute film” are perfect for all levels. I think the how-to videos can also be used at lower levels as students could use mainly the imperative.

The one-minute film activity is really interesting to accompany the learning of vocabulary to talk about personal interest, describing people you know/like, and I think it may be adapted in the sense that students may choose to talk about their favourite singer, or footballer, or any other inspirational famous person they follow.

Yes. This one is great for talking about personal interests.

Which ones are your personal favourites? Why?

I definitely liked the idea of “filming a dialogue” activity: I’d like to try it with my students, as acting is an important way to express feelings and usually very amusing as well. At least, I’ve always enjoyed it since my school years. It’s also a way to foster empathy, why not? And I also liked the idea of going further and letting the students invent a dialogue on a specific situation.

Yes. This one works very well. Acting and role play are two great ways to foster empathy. Getting students to write their own dialogues is more ambitious but also more motivating and satisfying.

Thanks for these activities, really interesting!

Thanks again for your great analysis, Daniela.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Daniela,

Thanks very much for your great evaluation of the new film genres.

Everything in this topic 7 was quite new to me from a didactic point of view. I didn’t think that all these new kinds of short films and videos (many of which circulate on the social networks) could be exploited in the language lesson.
But there is one video that I usually show to my students on Women’s Day, and it can be classified as an Infographic Short. It explored the numbers and highlighted the connection between education and health preservation for girls in poor countries, especially dealing with the AIDS problem. I must say it was appealing and interesting for the students and I used it as a discussion prompt.

I think Music Shorts could be really popular, and maybe some more time could be dedicated to singing or playing if the students show they like singing or if someone in the class plays any musical instrument. I think songs are a big help in memorising new chunks of language, new vocabulary and improve pronunciation a lot.

Yes. These music shorts work well with teens. I agree that songs are great for helping students memorise new chunks of language and to improve pronunciation.

Branded shorts would be particularly suitable for my students of Graphic Design, as I mentioned before, as they also study advertising.

Yes. Branded short would be perfect with these students.

Social shorts could be very interesting as well and allow the students to discuss and write about some important social issues.

Social shorts can be used to present themes often ignored in coursebooks and can be popular with teens.

Thanks again for your great evaluation, Daniela.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Daniela,

Thanks very much for your great analysis of the vocabulary activities.

As regards the vocabulary activities, I think my students would like n° 1: noticing who is the character saying that word or expression. I think in the case of longer expressions it might be structured also as a pre-viewing activity where we introduce characters and students might guess. Then, as they watch the movie they confirm or verify their guessing.

Great idea. I can see this adaptation working well as a pre-viewing task.

I thinks they might also like the activity n°3: listening for words/expressions to match the definitions. I think that this is similar to finding collocations, as far as there is a sort of completing exercise that they might like.

Yes. Listening for words/expressions to match the definitions works well with teenagers.

I would also like to experiment the Venn diagram: I think this would be very useful when practicing or reinforcing vocabulary (adjectives) to describe people’s aspect or personality.

Yes. This one works very well for describing a character’s personality and physical aspect.

I’ve never used any other activities with short films and videos to teach vocabulary, but I’ll do more of it in the coming school year.

I’m sure they’ll work well with your students.

Thanks again for your great analysis, Daniela.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Daniela,

Thanks very much for your great evaluation of the short film to foster empathy.

What is it about the short films and videos showcased in the text which makes them good for fostering empathy? Think about camera shots, colour, music, and dialogue.

In my opinion, the first aspect that makes these short films good for fostering empathy is their theme. If poverty or illiteracy may be problems that my students are not so close to, camera shots, very gradual development of the actions, music crescendos help the viewers enter the story slowly and understand the meaning of it while imagining how it feels to be in that situation. On the other hand, themes like disability, bullying and homophobia are themes that are very close to our students’ experience, either directly or indirectly, and as you pointed out they are shamefully neglected themes.
THey’re important aspects of our lives and textbooks are so ordinary that they’ve ended up being unrealistic. That’s probably one of the reasons why school language is sometimes too far from teenagers’ language and lifestyle.

Excellent point. The themes of these films and videos often strike a cord with students. the fact that these themes are usually ignored in the classroom, means that when we use films related to these themes, the impact is even greater.

The focus given by specific camera shots, the music and colours (for example in “The Alphabet of Illiteracy”) are all used as devices that can let the viewers “enter” into and feel the story.

Yes. The camera shots, the music and colours are all used effectively to grab our attention and make us empathise.

Thanks again for your great evaluation, Daniela.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Daniela,

Thanks very much for your great analysis of the short films and videos.

Did you enjoy the films and videos? – Yes, I did!

I’m delighted you enjoyed the films and videos!

Probably the one I found less “enjoyable” and probably would work less with my students is “Wisdom”. But not because the theme is not interesting, just because I think the dialogues are a bit more difficult to follow, there are no scripts or subtitles, so I see this short film as more suitable for adult learners at a higher level maybe.

Yes. It’s only really suitable for high levels.

Are the values presented in the films and videos important in the culture of your teaching context?
– Yes, those values are really important but at the same time they have been quite neglected so far in high schools especially.

Yes. Mainly of these values do seem to have been neglected for a number of decades.

Some of these short films would be good also as lessons in “Educazione Civica”, that is to say a subject we may call “civic literacy”: it has been re-introduced in Italy in 2020, as a compulsory subject to be taught by all teachers of different subjects. We must teach at least one hour Educazione Civica in each class per week, for a total of 33 hours a year and we must deal with themes that range from law and constitution, civil rights, solidarity, ecology, environment, etc. These videos could provide perfect material for an English lesson of “Educazione Civica”. Especially “Kindness” and “Saving Grace”.

I really like the concept of ‘civic literacy’. I’d never heard the phrase before but I like it! I think it’s really interesting that the Italian government has taken this step. It’ll be interesting to see how this develops in schools.

Are there any short films related to values that have worked well with your students?

I want to say here that my favourite one was definitely “Saving Grace”: the music is top! It’s appealing and involving; the scripts are numerous and really helpful to follow the meaning and they make the cognitive-linguistic load much lighter. I think this would work just perfect with my students. It would be a nice way to start a solidarity event, let’s say before Christmas, leading the students to know more about Mary’s Meals and to donate money to this charity. I think students really appreciate when they feel they can do something, to make a difference. This video inspired me in this direction.

I’m delighted you like this one so much. i think the video shows how effective solidarity campaigns can be.

Thanks again for your great analysis, Daniela.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Angie,

Thanks very much for your great analysis of the Black Button.

Black Button

A good choice.

Pre-viewing
Intriguing title, speculate
Pic of characters, speculate

Both of these pre-viewing speculation activities would work well with this film.

While-viewing
Stop and go viewing, speculate where they are, why

Pausing and getting students to predict/speculate works well with this film.

Post-viewing
Discussion questions on morals, afterlife

Two excellent discussion topics for this film.

Thanks again for your great analysis, Angie.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Angie,

Thanks very much for your great lesson overview.

Black Button

This is a good choice.

level B1+, B2, C1 (depending on tasks)

Yes. I agree that this one is probably B1+ and above.

student type teenager, young adult, adult, older adult

Yes. This one isn’t suitable for younger learners.

language vocab not too difficult, only two speakers, one mumbles a bit

Yes. The language isn’t too difficult and there are only two speakers. There is some mumbling, as you point out.

length 6:55min a wee bit over the 5min mark

7 minutes is still fine as there isn’t too much language.

relevance and interest questions of morality and the afterlife are of general interest
task potential

Morality is a good focus. The afterlife is an interesting one.

Give title, have them speculate

The intriguing title here is excellent for speculation and prediction.

Show pic of two characters, have them speculate

The two screenshots for speculation and prediction would work very well here.

Stop and go viewing, speculate what’s going on/how he will decide

This film definitely lends itself to pausing and predicting/speculating.

Discuss morals/afterlife

Two good discussion topics.

Risky: Play Cards against Humanity

I’d never heard of ‘Play Cards against Humanity’ before but I’ve just checked it out. Really interesting concept! It would work really well with this film!

Thanks again for your great lesson overview, Angie.

All the best,

Kieran

[Kieran]

Hi Daniela,

Thanks very much for your great analysis of the short films as narratives.

My favorite ones were “intriguing title”; “empathizing with the character”. The first one because it stimulates creativity and probably will be a chance to show the students that they can write many things in English when given a stimulating prompt. I think they do not like writing a lot (I didn’t like writing tasks as a student myself) because the tasks we normally give are not so intriguing!

The “intriguing title” activity is one of my favourites and, depending on the title, can work really well. I think it’s a more creative and engaging wriitng prompt than more traditional prompts.

The second one struck me especially in the letter-writing activity: I think it is an original way to help students explore and express their feelings ant also understanding other people’s feelings imagining what they would do in their shoes.

This is another of my favourites. Putting yourself into the shoes of anothe rperson is an engaging and motivating writing prompt.

2) Which of the activities could you use with your students?

I think that the “intriguing title” and the “stills story” are very adaptable and useful to be done at school.

Both of these are easy to implement.

3) Have you used short films and videos as writing prompts before? Did your students enjoy them? Have you used any other writing activities inspired by short films or videos?
I must admit that I have never used short films as writing prompts so all this is new to me!

I hope you’ll be able to use some of these with your students. I think you’ll be happy with the results!

Thanks again for your great analysis, Daniela.

All the best,

Kieran

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