Tango teachers talk too much!

In nine out of ten tango classes I have attended I have experienced how good dancers, eager to transmit their knowledge, have talked so much and given so much information, that I after ten minutes were more confused than clarified. Often, in these situations I can see other people suffering from severe information overload just like me (they get pale, uninspired and frustrated). I have seen this over and over again, and for that reason I rarely take classes anymore.

I have experienced classes where the teachers were killing the class by talking more than 50% of the time, but why is all this talking a problem? One would think that teaching is about explaining and therefore it’s natural that the teacher jumps to the conclusion that “the more I talk the more I teach” but it’s wrong:

Teaching is not the primary activity in a class, learning is! 

But with teachers talking so much learning becomes very difficult for the student. Focus has to be moved from the teacher to the student, from the teaching to the learning process.

Seven, plus or minus two

In 1956 the cognitive psychologist George A. miller published the article “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information” in which he describes the limits of short-term memory and working memory capacity. In his research he presented a person for a number of stimuli to which there was a corresponding response (learned before). Performance is nearly perfect up to five or six different stimuli but declines as the number of different stimuli is increased. This means that a person can perceive up to six information’s and keep track of them but more than six is more or less a waste.

How many information’s are not given in just one instruction in a tango class: left foot there in this angle, lead with your chest, remember to wait for the follower and all this together with the information’s about the sequence, the student is supposed to learn.

The second cognitive limitation Miller discusses is memory span. Memory span refers to the longest list of items (e.g., digits, letters, words) that a person can repeat back immediately after presentation in correct order on 50% of trials. Miller observed that memory span of young adults is approximately seven items. And since the information needs to enter working memory before it can be stored into long-term memory, the teacher has to organize his teaching without overloading the short-term memory.

It’s clear, that most teachers are unaware of this. A consequence of should be that a 60 minutes tango class should consist of cycles of instruction, demonstrations, practice, feedback and correction distributed on:

10 minutes of instruction

10 minutes for demonstrations (visual information is better than logic information)

10 minutes for feedback, questions and corrective instructions

30 minutes for practice (trial and error)

For all teachers (not only tango teachers) this means, that the value of their teaching not is in the quantity but the quality, and that quality is defined by what you say and demonstrate and even more important what you leave out – what you don’t say. A good teacher understands that not everything can be told and that the student can absorb very little information.

Five classic mistakes made by tango teachers

Mistake N^o 1: The preframing is poor or non-existent. The teacher takes it for granted that the students know what it’s all about but the student need headlines on what is going to happen, what the goal is and what they can expect from the class.

Solution: In the beginning of the class explain the topic and the goal of the class, and what the student can expect to learn and not. This releases working capacity memory which would otherwise have been occupied by asking (consciously or unconsciously): what is this about, why are we doing this, what is the goal, why is this important?

Mistake N^o 2: The teacher forgets how long time they spend to learn a certain technique and expects their students to learn it faster than they did themselves. As a consequence the program for a class is too comprehensive and not meeting the needs of the student.

Solution: Open your eyes, look at the student and start the teaching at his or her level. Be flexible: if you see that your program is too complex, change it.

Mistake N^o 3: The teacher talks too much and overloads the short-term and working memory capacity so the information is wasted (and people get bored, unconcentrated, tired and unmotivated. How many times have I not heard a desperate teacher beg for feedback: “hey, where is the energy?” but I can say where it is: it drowned in all the bla bla bla).

Solution: talk less, show don’t tell, demonstrate limited sequences.

Mistake N^o 4: The teacher gets frustrated because the students are not learning fast enough or with enough quality. An international tango star dancer once let his frustration out on me. After talking for half an hour (in bad English) and no one still didn’t get it he finally whistled in frustration through his teeth: “just do like me”! 

Solution: lower your ambition, meet the student at his or her level.

Mistake N^o 5: At the end of the class teachers tend to show off and demonstrate much more than they have been teaching. As a consequence of that the student leaves the class confused and with a lot of new information in the head.

Solution: At the end of the class repeat the goal of the class before demonstrating the sequence or technique the class has been about (and only that). Repeat it five times so the student leaves the class with a clear picture in their mind about what they have just learned.

Teachers Training

If you’re a teacher and want to improve your teaching and learn more about how people learn, then you can book me for a Teachers Training. It’s a program designed for tango teachers where you learn methods for teaching with high quality. You learn how to close the gab between teaching and learning.