Introduction
Monotonous behaviour of the teacher distract learners attention in the classroom. A student who cannot keep his attention fixed for a reasonable length of time is sure to lag behind in his studies. It has been proved that for any learning to take palce, learners have to attend to it. So, one of the most important duties of a teacher is to draw sustained attention (Sustained Attention means concentrating one's activity continuously upon some object or happening or problem.) of the learners. In order to draw learners attention, breaking down his monotony, taechers have to act as a source of a number of stimuli in the form of speaking, moving from place to place, gesture etc. Such behaviours should be deliberate and planned with an aim of getting attention of the pupils. Thus, stimulus variation is described as deliberate change in the behaviours of the teacher in order to sustain the attention of his learners throughout the lesson.
Components of Stimulus Variation
Skill of stimulus variation comprised of following components-
- Focusing
- Eye-contact and eye-movement
- Gesture
- Voice modulation
- Pausing
- Teacher's movement
- Change in interaction style
- Switching sensory channel
Focusing
Here the teacher use such behaviour in the form of verbal statement, or gesture, or both verbal and gestures to draw learners' attention to a particular point which the learners have to notice or observe. Verbal statements like 'Look at this point', 'Listen carefully', 'Remember this' etc are called Verbal Focusing. In Gestural Focusing teacher use gestures through head, hand and body movement. For example, pointing a particular country on the map with his finger, a teacher can gain attention of the students. When a teacher draws attention of his pupils both by pointing a figure and saying verbally like 'Look this portion of the figure carefully' or 'Look carefully here' implies the teacher is using both Verbal and Gestural Focusing simultaneously.
Eye-contact and eye-movement
Eye-contact and eye-movement of the teacher plays very important role securing students attention in the class. This help teachers keeping students disciplined and emotionally controlled. At the same time, teachers eye-contact with the students send a positive vibe to the students that their teachers cares them which ultimately helps in sustained attention of the learners. However, too much or too less eye-contact can be counter productive.
Gesture
Gesture is a very strong medium of communication. Sometimes, information, which cannot be communicated verbally or in written, can be communicated clearly with the help of gesture. Gesture involves the movement of head, hand, and body of the teacher to convey emotion and indicate shape, size, position, etc. Use of gestures makes the class more expressive and dynamic. Teachers should use consciously various gestures to draw attention of the pupils. For example, with the help of his hand a social science teacher can show the shape of the earth.
Voice modulation
Voice modulation acts as a strong stimulous in drawing attention of the students. Teacher should modulate his voice deliberately in between his speech or lecture or in ideal reading. He should change his pitch of voice, stress and intonation in pronunciation, volume and speed of speech, when situation or text demand to. Voice modulation makes speech, reading etc. attractive and easily understandable to the learners.
Pausing
Pausing means short and deliberate intervals of silence during talk or lecture. Sudden silence of the teacher help secure attention of the students, while continuously talking, explaining, or asking question without giving time to respond or ask their queries distract the learners. However, too long pause may also be irritating for the learners. Thus, in order to get sustain attention of the learners, teacher should introduce certain pauses during, before and after asking question. Similarly, in between his lecture or explanation of ideas, a teacher should use sudden pausing for a short while to draw immediate attention of the students.
Teacher's movement
Teacher's movement means, in general, moving the teacher from one place to another. It is necessary that the teacher should change his position time to time during his teaching in the class. A teacher should not teach standing static. It creates boredom in the mind of students. Therefore, he should proceed his teaching-learning activities with some purposeful movements. Purposeful movement implies teacher should not move continuously or haphazardly. Rather, he should move with some aims like, to check what learners at the back are doing or to write someting on the board, or to remove monotony of the class environment. Thus, to secure and sustain students attention a teacher should maintain a purposeful movement in the classroom.
Change in interaction style
Interaction in the classroom means oral-interaction between teacher and the taught. There are three types of interaction and they are - (a) Teacher-group or teacher-pupils interaction, (b) Teacher-pupil interaction, and (c) Pupil-pupil interaction.In Teacher-group interaction, interaction takes place between the teacher and many learners. For example, asking a question to the whole class and getting responses to same question from many learners or one after another. When the interaction takes place between the teacher and individual learner then it is called Teacher-pupil interaction. This type of interaction takes place when the teacher ask a question directing to an individual learner. The teacher may ask a particular learner number of questions one after another to probe into the issue. In Pupil-pupil interaction the teacher ask a question and without any remark redirect the same question by pointing to another learner. With this type of interaction a teacher can engage many students without holding direct discussion on a particular issue. The teacher should remember that in order to get sustained attention of the learners, he should change the interaction styles as much as possible.
Switching sensory channel
This is related to our five sensory organs or channels -Eyes (visual), Ears (auditory), Nose (olfactory), Skin (tactile) and Tongue (gustatory). In general, we, teachers, give information to the learners either through oral medium (saying), or through visual medium (showing a model, chart etc.), or through oral-visual media (saying and showing model, chart etc.). Each of the media has its own advantages and disadvantages. As a taecher, we have to concern about the fruitful use of the each medium. Thus, we should remember that if we continuously giving information to our learners only either through oral medium, or through visual medium, or through oral-visual media, then there is likely to lose attention of the learners. Therefore, we should change our medium of conveying information frequently. For example, a social science teacher can say his learners the symbollic color of water in the map is blue (oral), and then he can show a sea or an ocean in the map (visual). This is an example of changing sensory channel from ears to eyes. After explanation, if a social science teacher, gives his students a Globe to identify the Equator, Tropic of Cancer, and Tropic of Capricorn, then it will be an example of shifting sesory channel from ear to skin and eyes. Research says that frequent and deliberate change in the medium or channel breaks monotony and increases receptivity of the learners.