Issue 6 One Idea

One Idea Here's a series focusing on easy-toimplement strategies which you can adopt or adapt for teaching and learning.

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Fostering Empathy through English Literature Why did you embark on your PD project, Fostering Empathy through English Literature?

Empathy provides the individual with the capacity for taking another’s perspective in order to better understand their thoughts and feelings, and to act accordingly. This ability has been directly associated with pro-social behaviour, to act for the benefit of other people and for society as a whole. As an English teacher, I want to expose my students to multiple perspectives and world views. I want them to step into the shoes of people who are different from themselves and understand them.

Stories are a wonderful vehicle to enable this! I want to focus on equipping my students with social skills that are uniquely human, such as empathy. These traits, always valuable, are even more critical today in the face of a future where automation promises to play a big role.

These are traits that cannot be replaced by machines.

How did you and your team go about creating the lesson package?

We created the lesson package using Dialogic Pedagogy as a guide. Dialogic refers to conveying the meaning of the content, building on the views of others, clarifying by seeking information through questioning, summarising information, giving reasons to support views, and listening actively and responding appropriately to other individuals.

Dialogic Pedagogy considers students as participants who have equal voices to that of a teacher's. An authentic dialogic lesson allows students to be authors of their own learning as they initiate inquiries, delve in wonderment, and draw connections from their prior experiences, or respond to questions raised by others.

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How effective is the use of stories in teaching empathy?

By giving students an idea of what it is like to walk in someone else’s shoes, all literature that deals with big ideas and emotions is good for teaching empathy. It is important to select stories with characters and settings that students can relate to so as to generate deeper discussions. Hooking students with an emotion or experience that they can relate to is a great way to get them thinking about people whose lives are very different from theirs. By helping my students to feel compassion, understanding, and patience for people whose lives are nothing like their own, I hope that I can push them to grow up to be responsible citizens who will make a difference in their worlds.

Describe the strategies used to teach empathy in English lessons.

With Literature texts and movies, we allow our students to experience literature that awakens their emotions and piques their sense of wonder. We promote literary growth through reading, reflecting and re-evaluating one’s response in light of the responses of others through group discussions. Students will also be given opportunities to articulate, whether orally or in written form, their thoughts, reflection and experience of a literary work and explain what an author has done to make a story work. They will then apply their learning through assigned tasks, presentations or Values-In-Action projects.

DESMOND LIM Outstanding Youth in Education Award Recipient (2020) Level Head, English Language Oasis Primary School