Reciprocity in the Classroom
Thank you for joining me again. I am thrilled to share my observations and suggestions with you. If you haven’t read my last post, Influence in the Classroom, you should take three minutes and look it over.
Without much further ado, my reciprocity fondue.
How Reciprocation Works
You are walking tall through your favorite mall because you just purchased a new watch guaranteed to last you a lifetime. You’re so excited you put the watch on your wrist right away. As you’re walking toward the exit, you’re stopped by a short, dark-haired woman in a small kiosk with white bottles of lotion on display. She interrupts your path and says, “Hello. It’s cold and dry outside, would you like some lotion to moisturize your hands?”
“Well, sure,” You say as you look at your watch, “it’s brutal out.”
“Yes. I’m Jessica. This lotion works great in these conditions,” she explains.
A potential buyer walks up to the kiosk and asks to have a sample, but Jessica politely asks her to wait and the customer walks away. You feel something strange in your chest after seeing a potential customer walk away. Jessica, meanwhile, is busy explaining every rare mineral the lotion contains along with the benefits of each. Another customer walks close to the kiosk and leaves because Jessica is busy rubbing your hands like a genie lamp and all of a sudden, you just want to buy the damn lotion and get out of there.
As you’re walking back to the car with $30 worth of lotion you ask yourself what the hell just happened. You may have even known you were being greased up all along, but you fell prey to her persuasion tactics regardless. Maybe you were impervious to her tactics when she had less skin in the game, but the longer she pitched her product and the more you saw her turn away business, the more you felt indebted to Jessica for her friendly, free, yet uninvited service.
This is reciprocity at work from a marketing and compliance perspective, but I believe in its utility in the ESL classroom.
Using it to Your Advantage
Every class will present unique challenges to the instructor. Challenges are hard to prepare for, but if we paint the classroom inside of a social frame, we can more easily predict student behavior before stepping foot in the classroom. Even if your only advantage is realizing that some of your students will like you and some will not, being conscious of this truth can make a huge impact.
Take the following situation for context:
Teachers who are focused on building instant rapport should focus on the English enthusiasts in every class. And trust me, every class has them. Whether it’s the student who is going to be a pain in the ass later because she’s way above everybody else’s level, or the eager beginner who’s just excited to meet someone from another country. Every teacher should spot their passionate pupils in the first class without fail. Here’s how you can engage in the reciprocity principle with an English enthusiast:
You’ve taken notice of your enthusiastic students and you want them to act as facillitators for slower students in class. You’ve seen one of your enthusiasts, Benni, wear a Michael Jordan jersey twice in the same week. So, you print out an ESPN article about the NBA and give it to Benni after your next class together. You talk about your favorite players for a minute and Benni’s excitement is noticeable. Here is your chance to get Benni to help you. You begin by warming the student up to the message by throwing out a compliment.
“Benni. I love the hard work you have done in class.”
“Thanks, teacher.”
“I want to do some fun and active exercises, but I am afraid other students are too shy. Will you help me encourage the other students to participate in class? I think it would help everyone and I think you would make a good leader.”
Poor Benni. Even if he were the shyest bloke on the block, he wouldn’t have a chance to say no. Your request is so reasonable and you have already gone out of your way to show how impressed you are by his attitude.
Checkmate. Teacher wins.
With this seemingly simple maneuver, you will also engage another weapon of influence, the commitment and consistency principle. More on that in the next post.
Let’s explore other practical examples.
- ESL assessments often contain open-ended questions and essay questions whose answers require evaluation, and therefore are subject to instructor scrutiny. My suggestion for engaging prompting an uninvited debt is to give your students a slightly lower grade than you typically would have. When you hand back grades and review the assessment and students raise questions about their grades, show some leniency and flexibility by grading it on a curve or adding bonus questions. Just be sure to offer the benefit to the entire class. You won’t be conceding anything because they deserved, but the class will undoubtedly feel indebted to you.
- In a classroom with young learners, giving them a chance to speak their native language, chat with their friends, or play games can go a long way. They are more likely to pay attention during grammar lessons and vocabulary drilling when they feel you have given them a gift of sorts. It’s also a great way to break up monotony in your class, work out the kinks, and learn what entertains your young students.
- This one is my favorite. I taught a gifted intermediate class who was always ahead of the curriculum. They were always chomping at the bit for new material, but my job was to make sure they passed their exam at the end of the quarter. So, one week I began writing the class agenda up on the board and for the last ten minutes I wrote “English Idioms and Slang.” This was hotter than Gangnam Style in 2012. Not only did these students create buzz about how laisez-faire the lessons were, I was also able to efficiently focus their attention during the other 5o minutes of class with shorter, more effective lessons. A true win-win.
What are some ways in which you’ve implemented the principle of reciprocity in your class? What could you do in the future? Let me know in the comments section!
¡Adiós!
