SECURING THE LEARNER'S ATTENTION

Learning can only take place when the learner is attentive and to be attentive the learner should be motivated to learn.Philosophical adage which says,you can take the donkey to the river but not force it to drink .This is a realistic situation to a learner you can't force a child to learn but make him/her to learn.But learning need to be harnessed by the indispensable pre-requisite of attention ,so that teaching never becomes froth and foam.In this script lets endevour to provide the teacher with clues or suggestions on how to capture learner's attention so as to make learning possible.
Communication in the classroom is very important for interaction as teaching and learning is taking place. Interaction between teacher and pupils should be two way process ,at one time children are active participants ,while the teacher is a passive recipient or vice versa. This situation of incessant changing of roles give room to a maximum participation and drive learners to the maximum attention. A teacher who is stifling to the old school of having tendency to feel as the filled bank of all the source of information is depriving children to participate so that they motivated to be invoved in their own learning. If they subscribed to the confidentiality that the teacher is the only source of information they relax and lose focus in learning process. The idea of reciprocal communication will inject into learners an element of unpredictability as to when they will be involved simply by asked questions.
Stimulus variation according to Cohen and Manion(1977) is whereby the teacher make use of various media,methods of instructions,pupils's organisation so that children will not develop monotony. Varying stimuli is motivating the perpetuation of learning need and an introduction of element of novelty.Stereotypes of instructional aids can hamper learning . The use of pitch in voice projection thus descending and ascending tone of voice can also secure prolonged attention.
Setting good objectives is a technique to secure learner 's attention.Objectives like this:By the end of the lesson children should be able to explain how settlements develop. The stipulation of objectives may obviously require children to be attentive rather than sitting on an open lesson without final expectation.
Instructions is not merely ,ordinary command like 'Close the door' . Gagne says instructions meant to retain the learner's attention. The teacher should use the instructions to draw learners's attention into desired direction of the lesson and give special pointers so that children know what they are doing.
Advanced organisation implies the teacher should outline the skeletal series of the lesson intend to be covered. This programme outline should be clear to the learners to have a direction from point A to point B and then destined to point C. Such organised orientation will be purposeful in learner's mind and guided them to specific details of how learning is going. Advance organisation should be either an introductory statement or programme of stages to be followed step by step. Learners shall have a clear picture of what have covered and what is to follow in such technique of a pruposeful learning. For example the teacher might say ,'We have looked at importance of shelters ,now lets look at why settlements developed?' Such distinctions help the learners to have a comprehensive logic of why they learn.
Prequestioning is whereby the teacher technically poses questions before get into actual lesson. This enhences a psychological disequibilium which agitates a child to be in learning mood.According to Gagne prequestions should not be individualised as some learners may easily become passive onlookers and resort to admiring another one learning alone. Have a look at this example:
(1)What is air pollution?
(2)what are the agents of air pollution?
(3)How does it occur?
•How does air be polluted?
•How do people cause air pollution?
•How do industries cause air polution?
(4)How can we prevent air pollution?
In this attempt of what they lttle they know in a variety of concepts learners may be attentive.
There are so many techniques and methods the teacher can use in various lessons to draw learner's attention .However not all of them are always feasible. The ideal is for practising ,intending and seasoned educational practitioner is to discriminate them in selection of the most viable one only to suit the prevalent learning atmosphere.