LEARNING LEARNING ÙŲ(ÙŲVolume 24 Issue 2 Summer 2017

Why Don’t They Listen to You? Teaching Sports Students andChallenges in Classroom Management%"ÙŅ)ŵ&(ǋRiyWÙŅ$ďĭŭÁ

Koki Tomita ¡ŇĻƛ
Tamagawa University ŁêÑÙEmail: ktomita.koki@gmail.com

In participating in the Creating Community Learning Together 3 (CCLT3) event hosted by
Learner Development Special Interest Group (LD SIG) in December 2016, I was very
curious to see how my audience would react to my teaching experiences with 25
students in the baseball team. The presentation itself went relatively well. Some people
were interested in the teaching practices and what the results of my action research offeredto overcoming the challenges that I had faced in teaching the course. However, in closing
the presentation, I was feeling a slight contradiction about what I had just presented.
Let me begin my story by explaining what I had felt before taking part in CCLT3. Before
the 2016-2017 academic year started, I strongly believed in (and still do) the importance ofremedial education offering level-appropriate learning for those students in sports teams.
Sports students’ low academic profiles shape their feelings of incompetence and turmoil
while they are in class; hence, they tend not to attend classes, sleep during the lectures, anduse mobile phones, for example. I hoped that I would be able to get agreements fromother university teachers to do something about this at my university.
For a number of teachers, instructing a mixed level class is a big challenge. Often,
athlete-students are mixed up in a class with students who meet the academic standard of
the university; hence, the sports students are supposed to be “equally” taught and graded.
Luckily, the students in my course were all in the baseball club, and I did not have suchparticular teaching or grading issues. Plus, I had a great deal of teacher autonomy indesigning this course, so it was possible for me to set up the course level appropriately.
Over the 2016 academic year, I had to invest quite a lot of time in designing this course.
The course development process was not as easy as I had expected because I had to makethe curriculum motivating for the students with low academic profiles. As a former soccer
player myself, I had failed entrance exams because of my devotion to three years ofintensive high school soccer practice. Based on my own experiences of academic failure, I
wanted my students to at least find the meaning of being in the class and experience thejoy of using English at most. So, I decided that the themes for the course would be
motivating and interesting, and these are the two keywords that I kept in my mind indeveloping the course.
Course Structure
I had two main concerns in creating the course. The first was improving students’English proficiency to allow them to talk about baseball in English. Based on the precourse questionnaire, many students wanted to learn baseball-related content which would
improve their motivation to learn English. Second, given that they would have a chance to
use English outside of the baseball field in an English-speaking country, general English(still related with baseball) had to be taught.
Speaking of their English proficiency, I need to take into serious consideration the wide
range among the students. In broad terms, they were at junior high school graduate level.

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Misuse of basic grammar expressions could often be found in their answers. They had
many spelling errors that emerged from discrepancies between written and spoken
language. There were a couple of students who couldn’t spell their name using thealphabet. However, as far as I observed, their willingness to communicate was very highcompared to “normal students” at the same level of English proficiency. The onlybaseball-students situation worked to reduce their anxiety and stress about speaking infront of the class and making mistakes. This emotional advantage allowed me to include
more communicative aspects in the course in the end.
Addressing Challenges in Classroom Management
The biggest problem for me in teaching this course has always been classroom
management. This was the very reason why I joined my department’s Action Research(AR) group although this project started when almost half of the final semester hadfinished. (And this is how I came to present on my struggles and practices to solve theissues at CCLT3.) There were four members in the group which was formed after Anne
Burns—a specialist in action research—conducted a Professional Development (PD)session at my university in early November. In the PD session, Anne talked about theunderlying principles and logistics of conducting AR and shared concrete examples of AR
conducted in different contexts. At the end, she encouraged the PD participants to form
an AR group and test it out by exploring the challenges that they were facing in theirdifferent courses. Following her suggestion, we formed a group to grapple with the uniqueclassroom issues that we each had. AR is usually conducted with the sequence of “planning,”“action,” “observation,” and “reflection” (Burns, 2010). For this project, I videotaped four
lessons and had two project members observe two lessons in the course to go through theaction research process. This became the major turning point for me to reflect on my wayof teaching the course.
Before participating in this project in November in 2016, I was sure that something
was not going well in managing the class. Students’ energy level, attention span, and lesson
tempo were far below what they used to be, but I wasn’t able to detect the causes of theuneasy feeling growing in me.
Moving the clock a little further back to May 2016, my biggest classroom management
issue through the year had been students’ constant chat during lessons. I do not agree with
the idea that the typical teacher-oriented learning environment in Japan—the teacher
serving as a purveyor of knowledge, with students merely listening to what the teacher
says—is effective in language education. As a researcher of learner autonomy, I believethat students can learn from each other once they work in a group where students share
their strengths to cover each other’s weaknesses (Murphey, 1989).
According to this principle, I created groups of four and had the students work on
activities for a couple of lessons. The result was a big failure because they were too
comfortable with being in the groups made up of familiar faces and couldn’t stop chatting.
Eventually, I lost control, ended up breaking up the groups, and made the traditional“everyone-looking-at-the-teacher” setting. This surely worked in controlling the class, and I feltthat I had overcome the chatting issue, but I was feeling guilty about using this method forthe peace of the class because this was not a teaching principle that I believe in. After a
few lessons, I started looking at the bright side. I realized that I had succeeded in making
an environment in which actually language learning could finally take place rather than achaotic uncontrolled classroom. I also remembered that autonomy is a continuum,
meaning that I can start from a teacher-centered classroom and transform it over time toa more learner-centered classroom where students can exercise their autonomy.

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Participating in the Action Research Group
Participating in the AR group, I watched the videotaped lessons to analyze my teachingpractices and students’ attitudes during the lessons. I became aware of the causes of myworries that I had constantly felt while instructing the course in November. Probably I had
paid too much attention toward getting things done during the lessons and taking care ofthose “good” students who finished the given tasks or activities. In other words, some ofthe students had been left behind in the classroom and had gradually lost their motivation
to learn proactively. What I had witnessed in the recorded lessons was that students withlower proficiency were chatting, fooling around with each other, and falling asleep while I
was giving instructions. Not only that, but the partners sitting next to them also got
affected. Seeing this, I realized that this was the source of my unpleasant inner feeling
during each lesson.
I started analyzing the causes that led them to behave in that way by using Classroom
Observation Tasks (Wajnryb, 1992), which offers different points of view to examine lessons.
I also began searching for solutions by asking AR group members to observe my lessons
and look at the videos. The main reason for my students falling asleep during the classes
was their devotion to baseball practice. The students were physically tired because of theireveryday baseball practice. They nearly always came to my lessons after finishing fullbaseball practice and some classes for other registered courses. To solve this issue, I
confirmed with them a policy that they could move their bodies during lessons or even gooutside to get fresh air. During the class, I talked to those sleepy students to make surethat the series of options were available for them to take.
Second, I realized that the baseball-related English dealt in the course was beyond theirability to work on. This might have resulted in reinforcing their sense of failure and taken
away some of the students’ willingness to participating in the lessons. Because baseballrelated English was context specific, it required them to remember and utilize unfamiliar
baseball specific vocabulary and phrases on top of basic English structures and vocabulary
items that they should have learned in the first place.
Specifically, the biggest demotivating factor for some students probably was theconversation tests taking place at the end of each lesson. I set up this 1-minute test toassess their performance in producing conversation structures they had learned in theprevious lesson. I often shifted lessons to the speaking test three-quarters of the way
through a 90-minute lesson. This was part of the autonomy-enhancing elements that I
wanted my students to develop while taking my course. It leads to a learning cycle wherestudents leave the class, check their strengths and weaknesses in producing the target
conversation structures, and spend their own time practicing the structures. In this way, I
thought that students could prepare themselves for the test based on their needs.
The pitfall that I didn’t expect (or should have expected based on my experience) wasthat the lower students’ proficiency level was, the less often they prepared for the speaking
tests. Well-prepared students came to me to take the test and left the class early. As far as
I had observed the behaviours of the lower proficiency students, they did not prepare forthe test while they were waiting for their turn to come. Thus, they stayed the whole 90
minutes in the class but left the classroom without taking the test.
Acting on advice from my colleagues, I made two new changes to the baseball related
English section although the changes took place right before the end of the semester. First,
I took longer for scaffolding each activity. Second, I made baseball-related conversations
way easier and simpler. Both more proficient and less proficient students benefited fromthis revision to the course. After the change had been implemented, the number ofproactive lower proficiency students increased. In the meantime, the number of “non-test
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takers” decreased in the last few weeks of the Fall semester. Higher-level students had
previously kept their heads just above the water. Now with the change in the content, they
had some room to help less proficient learners.
The third cause of the classroom management issues was my failure in getting theirattention before and while I was giving instructions. Some of the lower proficiency
students were not able to keep up with the pace of the lessons due to the difficulty of theactivities. On the other hand, higher proficiency students started chatting or fooling aroundwith other group members because they had finished their tasks already. Thus, theclassroom was very noisy as the end of each activity was approaching. Observing thevideotaped lessons with my AR group, I could realize how soft my attention grabbers were.
Before watching the videos, I thought that I was making good transitions from one activity
to another. However, the reality was that half of the students were not following me.
As for the solutions to this issue, I started using a microphone to make sure my voicereached all the students. With the videotaped observation, I was bewildered that my voice
was not loud enough to be heard by the students sitting at the back of the class. Anothersolution I tried was to make a long pause to give a sign that the lesson was transitioning to
the next phase. This solution was proposed by a project member because she noticed that
I often gave a weak attention grabber and started instructions without stopping students’conversations.
After the Educational Interventions
After applying all of the educational implementations discussed above, I started feelingthat my emotional burden was gradually fading away. The rhythm of the lesson becamemuch smoother as the number of proactive and disciplined students was growing in eachlesson. After a while the number of the “non-test takers” dropped over the weeks, andsurprisingly some of them came to me to finish the speaking tests that they hadn’t finishedat that point.
The educational interventions were successful in two ways. First, students were able toboost their confidence in working on activities. I witnessed this through the level ofstudents’ attitude toward working on activities and willingness to share their answers withclassmates. As each student built up their successful experience by completing the activities
that were slightly higher than their levels, every successful moment led to pushing up thegroup confidence level. Second, I contributed to nurturing their attitudes toward taking
English lessons. Compared to mid-November, I felt in December that they are more
focused, responsible, and hence prepared for taking English lessons. With the different
classroom management issues that I have experienced in teaching this course, I can pass
the record on to the teachers who teach those baseball students in the next school year.
CCLT3 and the Future of Remedial Education
Now, I would like to address the reasons for that sense of contradiction that I felt as I
finished my presentation at CCLT3. First, I was happy because my struggles in classroom
management and proposed solutions had gained participants’ attention. In the reflection
circle that followed the presentations in my room, the classroom issues in my baseball classsparked heated discussions regarding struggles when we teach students with lower
proficiency.
The greatest challenge shared in discussion was keeping the balance of “disciplining”
students’ behaviours in the classroom. We all agreed that university is not a place like
Japanese junior/high school where teachers control the class with absolute power, andstudents follow the given rules. More likely, university is a place where students canSpecial Issue: Reflective Writing on Learner Development

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exercise their autonomy to learn because we expect our students to behave as adults andwe treat them in that way. But the truth of the matter is (and my next claim might sounda little biased) is that a majority of the discussion participants reported the connection
between lower proficiency and reduced accountability for students’ behaviours. What I
learned from this sharing was that teachers need to clarify their expectations andconsequences for misbehaviours in the beginning of the semester and gradually loosen up
rules as time goes. Such a statement might sound a bit naive for autonomy-promoting
educators who try to push the idea of students taking responsibility forward. But again,
learner autonomy is a continuum, and students who have grown up in a Confucian culture
need scaffolding to take their own responsibilities in language learning.
My frustration—and this is the source of the contradiction that I felt in closing thepresentation—was the limited amount of educational support offered to sports students
in Japanese universities. The discussion group members agreed that Japanese universities
should reach out more to sports students who are struggling from falling behind in class.
Universities need to put more human capital and resources into academically supporting
sports students in the same way that US universities, for example, have been doing for
baseball, basketball, and American football students.
In closing this short reflective paper, taking part in CCLT3 gave me so many
opportunities to look back on my teaching practices and philosophies. As I mentioned, I
experienced the use of teacher power to bring peace to a vulnerable class situation in
exchange for giving up the promotion of learner autonomy. I still don’t know whether mydecision was right or not, but I will try to look for ways of learner autonomy-enhancing
classroom management which raise students’ awareness toward their progress in language
learning, foster a sense of ownership toward the content, and establish learning
communities where students can learn together.

References
Burns, A. (2010). Doing action research in English language teaching. New York, NY: Routledge.
Murphey, T. (1989). Sociocognitive conflict: Confused? Don't worry, you may be learning!
Et cetera, 46(4), 312-315.
Wajnryb, R. (1992). Classroom observation tasks: A resource book for language teachers and trainers.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Reader Response to “Why Don’t They Listen to You? Teaching Sports
Students and Challenges in Classroom Management”
Peter Joun
Meiji Gakuin University

A

group of student-athletes in one’s classroom can potentially be thegreatest gift one could hope for (well, in any case athletes can be asource of positive activity—more on this later), or one’s worst nightmare.
Student-athletes are often “the boss” in secondary school, and other students
have often been conditioned to make way for their robust counterparts. An
instructor who is outwitted, or worse, intimidated by student-athletes willinvariably lose both control of and the respect of the class. Indeed, Tomita
Sensei confessed that his biggest issue was classroom management, and that
he did indeed lose control of his class, which led him to join an action researchgroup at his university formed to address issues instructors were having with theirclasses. Videotaping and then observing the lessons with his colleagues
allowed him to zero in on the core problems which led to the usual hiccups,i.e., tilting the presentation of the lessons in favor of the stronger students.
Luckily, with the support of his colleagues, Tomita Sensei was able to admit that
he was neglecting his student-athletes, and therefore made adjustments whichbrought dramatic improvements even though they were introduced after
more than half the semester had elapsed.
Specifically, this included adding more scaffolding to his activities, making
classroom tasks easier and simpler, and using a microphone in order toestablish the authority of his voice and focus the students’ attention. He thereby
succeeded in addressing the student-athletes’ hidden fear of being
embarrassed on account of not being able to complete tasks beyond theirlevel of understanding, while simultaneously legitimizing his leadership. For
those of us who have participated in team sports, one of the unstated rules isthat respect is only garnished to those who demonstrate courage and thewillingness/ability to make others shine. By implementing the steps outlined
above, Mr. Tomita was able to demonstrate he was an authentic leader, one
who was capable of doing whatever it takes (even admitting he was wrong)in order to include all the students in the flow of the classroom activities, andmaking this imperative the strongest voice in the class.
His experience resonated with my own experiences in dealing with “problem”
students over the years. Upon reflection I have found that invariably the root of
the situation usually resided in students’ anxieties at being shown up or losing
face in front of others. After realizing this is generally the case, I have made it apoint to structure the class in such a way as to include the lowest member inthe flow of the class activities, even if this means using the student’s native
language when doling out activity instructions so that every student canparticipate on a level playing field in a timely manner. Regarding studentathletes, I have found that they can be a huge asset if their sense ofcompetitiveness is tapped into. Creating quizzes and activities with points
awarded to the winner has on more than one occasion resulted in transforming
once motivation-challenged/“English class=sleeping time” third basemen andshortstops into vocabulary-devouring maniacs hell bent on stomping theSpecial Issue: Reflective Writing on Learner Development

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opposition, with the upshot that the so-called “good students” (often used to
cruising in mixed-level classes) have on more than one occasion been moved
to “up their game” to deal with these unexpected developments.
Where I once sought to minimize damage, I now look forward to working
with lower-level students and affirming the great strides they are capable of if
given the chance and the appropriate support, and my faith in that proposition
has on more than one occasion been rewarded. Of course it needs to bebalanced with a willingness on the part of the teacher to be firm if challenged
by the insolence of youth, as well as with the ability to bring to heel theoccasional saboteur. In Japan it is still largely the case that the instructor is thecentral figure in the classroom. Embracing this role and leading lower-level
student-athletes to a place of security and mutual respect can be an enrichinglearning experience, a sentiment which perhaps Tomita Sensei would now also
subscribe to.

Reader Response to “Why Don’t They Listen to You? Teaching Sports
Students and Challenges in Classroom Management”
Sean Toland
Nanzan UniversityT

his reflective article provides readers with a realistic window from which toview your struggles to create and teach a communicative English
language course to a group of disenchanted Japanese university student
athletes. While your reflection is situated in a higher education context, it will
nevertheless resonate with teachers working in a wide variety of learning
environments. My response will focus on the following three important themesthat emerged from your article for me: the role of genuine critical self-reflection
for teacher development, the concept of control, and the powerful effects ofa group-based Action Research (AR) approach.
Many English language instructors would agree that examining their own
actions under a critical spotlight is not an easy thing to do. Carefully scrutinizing
your own teaching performance takes time, and it can generate a significant
amount of discomforting friction. Perhaps that is why many teachers have atendency to downplay any thorny situations they encounter in theirprofessional practice. In contrast, you have embraced critical self-reflection
and used it to look closely at yourself as well as areas that can be enhanced
in your classroom. There were a number of striking similarities between thelearning environment you described and a class of university athletes that I
previously taught. Like you, I also had to devise strategies to deal with theconstant chatterers, slumbering students, clandestine texts and tweets, as wellas competing comedians, so your experiences were most insightful.
Your reflection raises the issue of control (i.e., “Eventually, I lost control …”;“This surely worked in controlling the class”; “a chaotic uncontrolledclassroom”). Do educators put too much pressure on themselves to keep theirstudents on a tight rein? If a teacher relinquishes control, will a classroom turnSpecial Issue: Reflective Writing on Learner Development

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into a chaotic circus? How can educators provide guidance without assuming
control over the students’ decision-making and learning? Can language
learning take place in a controlled chaotic environment? Undoubtedly, many
people would respond to these questions by focusing on an instructor’s
personality and teaching style. For example, “a teacher who does not mind ahigh-energy atmosphere with noise, kinetic movement, and group synergy willbe less concerned with control than someone who appreciates a morestructured classroom environment.” While this explanation may sound rational,
it is nevertheless simplistic as it sidesteps the most important issue, which isfinding ways to enhance students’ control over their own language learning.
You addressed the problematic pitfalls you encountered in your professional
practice by joining an Action Research group. Are group-based AR projects
common in Japanese universities? Why or why not? You did a great job ofhighlighting the advantages of this collaborative research approach. Did you
encounter any unforeseen problems? Was trust an important element amongst
the members in your research group? It is obvious that the video-supported self
and peer reflective feedback helped you tackle a number of significant
classroom management issues and improve the quality of your teaching. How
did your learners react to a video camera tripod or cameraperson being
present in their classroom? Was it difficult to provide critical feedback after
watching your colleagues’ videos? I thoroughly enjoyed reading yourreflection and would be very interested to learn more details about yourfascinating AR project.

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