The Inner Workbench: Making learning moves visible. Using our inner resources in teaching, we can take advantage of techniques used by successful musicians and athletes. I will demonstrate ways of making the subtle inner moves of learning more visible, so that we can interact more precisely with learning itself. 14 techniques you can easily include in your teaching.

1. Four encounters that changed my teaching
Universidad de Sevilla 13th
December 2014
The Inner Workbench:
Making learning moves visible
Adrian Underhill
demandhighelt.wordpress.com
adrianpronchart.wordpress.com

2. Outer and inner processes
Much of what happens in classrooms involves external, observable
activity.
Such activity may or may not indicate learning
However learning is essentially an internal process
Teachers need to work with the internal as well as the external
To challenge internally we need to get inside –
This is the purpose of The Inner Workbench

3. Inner processes
We need to get into the world of the:
•Inner hearing
•Inner speaking
•Inner seeing (visualising)
•Inner muscles
•Also inner taste and inner sense of smell
•And the inner world of assembling, testing and rehearsing
utterances

4. Mental arithmetic
As an example: Did you practice Mental Arithmetic at school?
This relies on and develops an internal process
Teachers can choose to explore that inner process or ignore it
We cannot directly see the inner moves. We have to make them
visible.
This opens a whole new world of resources

5. Before and after muscles…
With language, the inner moves are amplified into outer moves
through the movement of muscles that create sound,
intonation, expression and gesture
So there is the world of inner language “before muscles”
…. the inner voice.
And the world of outer language “after muscles”
… the private voice and public voice

6. Practice without moving
Musicians and athletes make use of these two worlds all the
time….
The inner world in which they rehearse and prepare internally
without moving a muscle
And the outer world where they work out and perform
externally
Violinists may practise a piece without moving… seeing and
hearing the notes with only the mind’s eye and the mind’s ear,
thus activating the inner (neural) fingers without moving the
outer fingers.

7. And the language classroom?
Problem: our classroom methodology demands the Public Voice
from the beginning. And processing in the Inner Voice loses out.
Research by Brian Tomlinson shows that L2 learners did not use
the Inner Voice and if they did, and let it out as their Private Voice
for experimenting and rehearsing the language, they ran the risk of
being corrected.
Without the Inner Voice in L2 we cannot self regulate…
The IWB is not new, we use it all the time
But it would be new to study it, talk about it, and integrate it in our
methodology and learning

8. Here is a game to illustrate:
You know this game
But I am changing the rules
The winner is not “how many you get right…”
But to win you have to …
Notice what you are doing internally while you play

10. Inner Workbench Activities 1
Hear a sound/word/phrase ONCE only
Then LISTEN to it INSIDE
Then SAY it aloud with the Outer Voice

11. Inner Workbench Activities 2
Hear a sound/word/phrase ONCE
Then LISTEN to it INSIDE
Then SAY it INSIDE
Then SAY it EXTERNALLY

12. Inner Workbench Activities 3
Now you say it inside AND then outside
You have a COMPARISON
How can this be helpful to the learner?

13. Inner Workbench Activities 4
Let’s do the same with another language
Hear once, listen several times internally…

14. Inner Workbench 5
Now recall a friend who speaks English well …
With your inner ear, listen to her/him speaking English …
Now choose a friend who does NOT speak English well
With your inner ear, listen to her/him speaking English…
Get your students to find personal ‘hero –speakers’ of English,
movie stars, musicians, celebs etc . Need not be native speakers,
and get students to hear, in their ‘mind’s ear’ the voices of these
people speaking English. To establish an inner reference

15. Inner Workbench 6
Now I’ll say some more words once only, and you listen many
times internally…
How many syllables?
How many sounds?
How many letters?
Where is the stress?

16. Inner Workbench 7
Count the sounds in these words….
What do you have to do… in order to do that?

17. IWB Activities 8
Scanning a text for a sound….
What do you do inside when you do this?

18. The Farmer and the Sky Women…
In the dark hour before dawn golden ropes dropped down from
the stars, and sky women climbed down into the field and began
to milk the cows.
As they filled their bowls they returned to the ropes and climbed
elegantly back into the sky.
In spite of pinching himself repeatedly, incredulity prevented the
farmer from running out from behind his rock and saving even
the last of his precious milk.

19. Inner Workbench 9
Listen to this sentence:
How many words?
Highest pitch?
Lowest pitch?
Main stress?

20. Inner Workbench 10
Use the Inner Workbench when students prepare answers to
questions
Compose and rehearse in the inner ear and inner voice, before
speaking aloud
Give a clear instruction and give time…
Students improve fluency, reduce mistakes, invest in their
creation

21. Inner Workbench 11
The Cake Shop experience….
you’ve been to this shop…!!

22. Inner Workbench 12
Compose a TRUE sentence of exactly 5 words.
It must be true for you now. Don’t write it down
Prepare and rehearse it inside.
Now say it aloud, delightfully!
Now rehearse your sentence in the following way …

23. Inner Workbench 13
How would you like to say it?
What tone, voice, meaning, feeling? Where are
the stresses, join the words, what intonation?
Practice it like that internally
Now say it aloud

24. IWB Activities 14
Take the same sentence…
Try this sequence: Inner ear inner voice  mime it whisper
 say aloud
Now do the same in REVERSE

25. Inner Workbench Activities 15
The COURSE BOOK DIALOGUE:
BEFORE you listen, CONSRUCT the dialogue using the tapescript,
in your inner ear
Link the words, add stress, intonation, mood, make it ENGLISH!
NOW listen to the recording: How does your inner version differ
from external the recording?

26. Inner Workbench 16
Take a word your students MISSPELL
See it written in your mind’s eye
Imagine a pen in your hand.
Without moving a muscle, write the word with
your ‘mind’s pen’ and see it in your ‘mind’s eye’
Now, put the ‘mind’s pen’ in your other ’mind’s hand’
Write it again. Does it feel different?

27. Inner Workbench Activities 17
After a dictation
What was your best mistake?
Now INTERVIEW your best mistake:
“Hi mistake, where did you come from?
“How did you get here?”
“Will you come again?” etc
Tell the story of that mistake to the class

28. Inner Workbench Summary
1.SINGLE MODEL PLUS HUSH
2.PREPARE, REHEARSE, UPGRADE
3.INNER DRILL
4.SPELLING, GRAMMAR, VOCAB, PRON
Notes:
Allow time for inner responses and processing.
Requires some silence

29. Four encounters that changed my teaching
Universidad de Sevilla 11th
December 2014
Thank you!
The Inner Workbench: Making learning moves visible
Adrian Underhill
demandhighelt.wordpress.com
adrianpronchart.wordpress.com