Mary Ritter, New York University, Manhattan, New York, USA
Abby Mack, New York University, Manhattan, New York, USA

Planning Student Activities: Challenges

Believing in the benefits of activities for our students, we tried a number of different means to organize and execute them. In the past, we have had a full-time staff member in charge of student activities, but when she moved on to a different position, student activities languished. At one time, our intensive English program coordinator and an administrative aide took charge of student activities; however, activities tended to be buried amid items on the coordinator’s extensive to-do list.

We then created a Social Activities Committee, which developed programming including movie nights, book clubs, and field trips, but the burden on the faculty members who joined the committee was considerable. We also found it hard to come up with activities as a committee that individual faculty members were genuinely interested in leading. Deciding that we needed someone to coordinate our efforts and take care of logistical considerations, such as booking transportation, we later hired a student worker; however, student workers, with their high turnover rates, require time-consuming training and managing. We also tried giving the responsibility brief to an administrative aide, but lackluster programming led to a decline in student participation rates.

Practically moribund on the program level, student activities were then left up to individual teachers to run in their classes—or not. Students sometimes complained, therefore, that their friends in other classes got to do more interesting activities than they. Another disadvantage was that students did not often have a chance to socialize with their peers in different classes. As participation in shared activities helps build the spirit of a program, our students’ sense of what being a member of our school meant suffered, as well.

A Faculty-Led Student Activities Model

After experimenting with these various models, we finally hit upon one that has worked well for faculty, staff, and students, a truly faculty-led student activities model. In a shared document, faculty members specify the time, date, location, cost, and maximum number of students for an activity. Teachers put their plans into this spreadsheet, and the first trip is typically scheduled for the first or second week of the semester. Trips usually take place on Fridays, when students are out of classes.

Activities from the past year have included day trips to a spectacular art museum, Dia: Beacon in Beacon, New York; a food tour of the iconic neighborhood Greenwich Village; trips to the Pierpont Morgan Library, which is a national historic landmark; the Brooklyn Botanic Garden; the art collection at the Frick Collection; and tours of the New York Supreme Court and the Federal Reserve Bank, to name a few. The marketing of field trips is done at the program level, but individual faculty members are responsible for devising a plan and taking care of all the logistical aspects of their outing. Faculty members have been delighted to follow their own instincts about what the best things are to do with students.

Student Response

They are fortunate to receive words of gratitude in cards and emails, such as the following.

• “The Natural History Museum was a very interesting trip. IMAX movies, butterflies, sea, library…It was a new program. Thank you very much”
• “Studying in the ELI is not only an English course, but a special life experience. It is different from studying anywhere else.”
• One student who attended a comedy club with us reported that “Last Friday night at the [People’s Improv Theatre] was amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, albeit only from off the stage. It was actually my first time at a comedy theater, but I can see a whole new world waving wildly at me. Next time you'll see me on stage.”

Further evidence of success is the waiting list to get into our student activities, the crowded and smiling photos on our Instagram account, and the lack of complaints of faculty members formerly obliged to participate in activities of little interest to them. Trial and error is not perhaps the most efficient method by which to come up with program models, but in this case, it has definitely worked.

Teacher Response

Teachers who once dreaded serving on the Student Activities Committee now look forward to leading their individual activities. The secret of this model’s sustainability and success is likely its appeal to our faculty’s sense of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. According to the work of Pink, these three factors dependably motivate workers in a variety of workplaces.

Autonomy: Pink (2011) defines autonomy as “behaving with a full sense of volition and choice….Autonomous motivation,” he continues, “promotes greater conceptual understanding,…enhanced persistence,…higher productivity, less burnout, and greater levels of psychological well-being” (2011, p. 88). Because faculty members consult their own interests in devising their trips, students have been able to choose from activities as different as cheering at a professional basketball game, photographing butterflies at a science museum, and indulging their inner foodies by sampling Italian pastries.

Mastery: Mastery is the sense that, with practice, one can improve over time (Pink, 2011, p. 122). Leading a successful activity, with its attendant thank-you notes and photos of excited students, encourages faculty members to consider what worked well and what might be even better next time.

Purpose: Of purpose, Pink (2011) writes that “the most deeply motivated people - not to mention those who are most productive and satisfied - hitch their desires to a cause larger than themselves” (p. 133); in this case, faculty members were already deeply invested in the development of their students, and the trick was to allow faculty the freedom to add a student activity component to the work they were dedicated to.

Faculty, administrators, and students alike are pleased with this model, which requires little oversight but produces a lot of engagement.

Why It Works

Observing what worked and jettisoning what did not, we have discovered a sustainable faculty-led student activities model that delivers what it sets out to achieve: to lead students through engaging and productive learning experiences beyond the classroom. Teachers are eager to lead a trip that appeals to them and because they do this infrequently, it is not burdensome. Students have a wide variety of options for trips and are able to develop camaraderie with other teachers and students in our institute in a more relaxed environment. We have found that there is a positive feedback loop in that a student whose curiosity is activated by a field trip is often a good participant in class and vice versa (Plutino, 2016).

The Faculty-Led Student Activities Model: Adapting for Your Context

In adapting this field trip model to other institutions, the organizers should emphasize the benefits of student activities and the relatively minimal expectations of the teachers. Some leadership to provide support to teachers as needed is also useful. Perhaps they will need some initial help with brainstorming potential trip ideas or finding an appropriate means of transportation. Canvassing students about places they want to see or activities they like to do may inspire unthought-of plans, as well. We are fortunate to have an extensive choice of destinations in New York City, but for institutes located in smaller cities, some more creativity may be needed to plan events. In this case, university tours, visits to local libraries, jaunts through farmers markets, matches at bowling alleys, or even game or craft nights might work well.

Another idea for programs with a small faculty is to ask returning students to lead a trip to one of their favorite destinations. Providing support to students to make the plans and lead the trips themselves, which would necessitate the negotiation of meaning with others and the delivery of clear instructions, certainly qualifies as facilitating task-based language learning. Conversation partners or other volunteers involved with ESL programs, as well as host family members, may also be willing to lead field trips or activities if given some encouragement and a few guidelines. Graduate students in TESOL or higher education administration programs are also often willing to participate in student activities, though faculty oversight would likely be required.

Part of the magic of learning English is seeing the results of one’s studies manifested in the real world. Unaided by the reliably sympathetic interlocutors who teach them, students make their way with whatever linguistic tools they have picked up, building meaning, connections, and memorable experiences out of the activities we facilitate. Happily, doing this and making field trips work for all turns out, with the right model, to involve less work for all.

References

Falk, J. H., & Dierking, L. D. (1997). School field trips: assessing their long-term impact. Curator: The Museum Journal, 40(3), 211–218. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.2151-6952.1997.tb01304.x

Pink, D. H. (2011). Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us. Penguin.

Plutino, A. (2016). Anything can happen out there: a holistic approach to field trips. In C. Goria, O. Speicher, & S. Stollhans (Eds.), Innovative language teaching and learning at university: Enhancing participation and collaboration (pp. 113–120). Research-publishing.net. http://dx.doi.org/10.14705/ rpnet.2016.000412

Salmi, H. (2003). Science centres as learning laboratories: Experiences of Heureka, the Finnish Science Centre. International Journal of Technology Management, 25(5), 460–476. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1504/IJTM.2003.003113

Wolins, I. S., Jensen, N., & Ulzheimer, R. (1992). Children’s memories of museum field trips: A qualitative study. Journal of Museum Education, 17(2), 17–27. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40478925

Abby Mack is a language lecturer in the English Language Institute at New York University. She has a master’s degree in applied linguistics from Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research interests include second language literacy, second language assessment, and CALL.