Background -- Chapter 5, Peace Education Volume

Chapter 5, Speaking the Language of Peace, deals with developing effective communication skills in order to carry out positive interactions in every day social situations as well as in conflict situations. For a foreign language learner, communicative competence involves knowing the rules of social behavior as well as the rules of language. In this chapter, students will explore the language needed for pro-social behaviors such as cooperation, collaboration, affirming others, and expressing feelings clearly in ways that do not accuse others - in other words, the language of peace. The activities presented in this chapter are meant to give students practice in speaking and listening attentively in an atmosphere of caring and encouragement. Teachers can use the proposed lesson by itself or expand it by adding additional activities in related lessons. The Internet Resources in this chapter provide many ideas for additional lessons that will help students to develop their awareness of behaviors that foster peace and practice language skills that promote positive social interactions.

Learning and practicing communication skills within the framework of peace education means establishing a positive classroom atmosphere in which students work together in cooperative ways. Educators who believe that a peaceable classroom is an opportune place to instill attitudes, values, and knowledge that promote peace and non-violence have identified experiences such as cooperative learning, conflict resolution, structured controversy, and school mediation as the core of any comprehensive effort to create a peaceful school environment.¹ Kriedler (1984) has developed a self-assessment exercise for teachers about responses to classroom conflicts.² This exercise helps teachers to look at their own peacekeeping strategies in the classroom and identify ways that they can expand their repertoire. As teachers model the skills and the attitudes that promote a peaceable learning community, their students’ attitudes and values are positively enriched and shaped.

In addition to the powerful effect of modeling peaceful behaviors in the classroom, explicit teaching of positive communication skills helps learners to focus directly on pro-social attitudes and behaviors and the language that accompanies them. Barbara Birch (1993) calls for teaching pro-social communicative competence in the ESOL classroom and defines such competence to include schemata building through setting up appropriate situations and activities in the classroom. For example, a "rescue" schema for pro-social competence includes being aware of others’ needs, knowing what kind of help to offer, and having expectations about what results will be.³ Other pro-social schemas are awareness of a limited or lacking resource, willingness to share or donate that resource, and an understanding of the consequences of the sharing or donation. Birch includes cooperation, tolerance, acting fairly, and resolving conflicts creatively as topics for classroom instruction. Pro-social knowledge structures can be developed in the classroom through reading literature or watching movies with pro-social messages. Follow-up activities, which include analysis and personal reflection on the pro-social themes, give students opportunities to practice pro-social behaviors and language in a safe and structured setting. Discussions of stories and movies can lead to role play, drama activities, dialogue construction, and personal writing, which give learners experiences in practicing pro-social behaviors. The goal of this instruction is to establish behaviors and language in the classroom that will become an intrinsic part of the learners’ attitudes and values after they leave the classroom.

The following list is a selection of the most common pro-social behaviors and communication skills that have been identified by peace educators for classroom instruction and practice. The first two entries are themes in previous chapters of the Peace Education volume.

Speaking for a purpose. We understand that the perceptions of others may be different from our own and that what is said should serve a mutual productive purpose, such as clarification of the situation. Conflict resolution skills are important for clarifying situations.
Listening attentively and reflectively. Listening to others in order to understand the whole message (the emotions, perceptions, and context as well as what was said) is an important stage in effective communication. Reflection of the whole message back to the speaker communicates that he or she has been understood.
Promoting self-esteem, dignity for oneself, and respect for the feelings and rights of others. Use the language of acknowledging, labeling, and affirming pro-social behavior (e.g., generosity, being considerate, helpfulness) in the classroom in your interactions with students.⁴ Also, encourage students to use pro-social behaviors in the classroom. A basic starting point is to provide language activities that show students the functions of thanking, apologizing, welcoming, and other pro-social norms of behavior. This can be done through dialogues, role-plays, modeling, and other activities.
Speaking about yourself instead of about the other person. It is more effective to describe an issue in terms of its impact on you rather than in terms of what the other side did or why you think they did it. Practice the use of "I" statements instead of "you" statements to clarify facts and feelings in practice situations, skits, and dialogues.
Speaking with positive emotional expression. Sometimes when we are angry or highly involved in discussing an issue, we say things that do not promote effective communication. Speaking clearly and firmly so that the other person understands - but without negative emotion - involves making statements without blaming, name-calling, raising one’s voice, or demanding. It means avoiding "put-downs" and the use of "loaded" negative language. We can help students to be more aware of negative emotional language and its effects on communication by analyzing scripts for instances of its use. Discussing alternative language that would clarify and improve the understanding of the listener will help learners to be more sensitive in choosing what they say and how they say it. After analyzing and discussing the scripts, students can write and act out both positive and negative versions of dialogues that contain emotional expressions, paying attention to the non-verbal as well as verbal expressions they choose to use.
Understanding possible barriers to effective communication and how to diffuse them. Possible barriers to communication are the behaviors of interrupting, dominating the discussion, criticizing, judging, teasing, and using emotional language. Learners need to be able to analyze the discourse of conversations in order to identify these communication "pitfalls". Further instruction on alternate behaviors for similar situations will help learners to communicate more effectively.

The activities in the lesson for Chapter 5 are based on the above list of pro-social behaviors and communicative language skills.