CCU 7 - Making Connections: Language Activities for Creating Interpersonal Tolerance in the Classroom

Citation

Renaud, S, and Tannenbaum, E. (2013). Making Connections: Language Activities for Creating Interpersonal Tolerance in the Classroom. English Teaching Forum, 1 (2), 24-31.

Summary

This article entitled Making Connections: Language Activities for Creating Interpersonal Tolerance in the Classroom is talking about the importance of making a good connection between students in a classroom. This article’s purpose is to make ESL/EFL learners have interpersonal relationship after being given some treatments or activities such as doing camping. The participants are the students that from the northern border area of Hispaniola, the Caribbean island shared by the counters Haiti and Dominican Republic. 

The mutual reflection and interaction devided into four levels; self, family, community, and the region & world at large. In the first and second level, self and family, some of activities that student can do to improve cultural awareness are name pantomime, what do you usually eat for breakfast, four corners, self-portrait, and my head. Then in the third level, community, some activities are language experience approach, mapping, interviews, and Islamabad procedure. Then in the last, the fourth level is region or world. Some activities that can be used in this level are stories, song & chants, and movies. According to this journal, by using this method or activities, the student be more enthusiastic in English and with their friends, so that the students have a high self confidence in speaking English. Students are more tolerance with their friends from the different background and also be more confident in speaking and delivered their ideas. 

Implementation

Nowadays, some formal school is beginning to implement this camping activity as one of the scout routine events. This method can be implemented if there is a collaboration between both the extracurricular trainer and the language teacher.