Method 6: Stay a little while, Staying (Staying on the other's speech)

(Staying on the other's speech, preparatory orientation to dialogue II, dialogue scene 15, in English 11)

The goal of this task is to learn to sufficiently stay on another person's speech as a situation requires, which enables the participants to continue the conversation about a certain topic of a dialogue. The objective is to learn to slow down a dialogue so that a certain issue can be reflected upon a little longer. The goal is to nurture the budding ideas that emerge during the dialogue so that they will survive and can be further utilized in deepening understanding.

Remember to consciously observe whether your actions and behaviour follow the principles of philanthropy and reciprocity!

Instructions

• the teacher introduces the method to the participants and explains the significance and usefulness of revealing thinking beneath the surface in learning and knowledge construction situations
• pair up with another participant
• together with your partner, talk about a topic that is relevant to your learning; in this context, for example, ”What have I learned this time?”
• listen to your partner's speech in a word-for-word manner
• choose a point where you ask your partner to pause and tell him/her that you would like to talk more about that particular issue
• spend a moment talking about that issue with your partner
• both partners talk and ask for a pause in their turn
• write down the new ideas or thoughts that occurred to you because you paused to reflect on something that your partner said
• finish your dialogue by explaining to each other the new ideas or thoughts that occurred to you by staying on each other's speech
• the participants use about 15 minutes for this task
• the teacher asks the participants to write down the pearls of wisdom gained from this task so that everyone can see them
• the teacher can use this task for, for instance, self evaluation and for evaluating what has been learned.

Reflection in the learning community: The whole group jointly reflects upon their experiences of the task and thinking that it caused. One useful question for this reflection is ”What did you become aware of through this task?” Another, more demanding question is, ”What did you learn from this task?” A third question could be ”How will you change your behaviour after completing this task?” The purpose of the reflection is that several participants, not only some, share their thinking and experiences. The teacher ought to repeat his/her questions in order for as many participants as possible to explain their thinking. When you repeat a question, you can keep the dialogue going by using, for example, the following expressions: ”What else?”, ”What next?”, ”How would someone else express this?”, ”How would you continue from there with your experiences?” and ”What would you add?” When the reflection part is completed, every participant has gained an understanding of staying on another person's speech which enables them to continue practising on their own in real life situations.