Disorientation? - as in Step One: Forget everything they taught you in teacher's college.
or?
Sure, that too. What I meant is that students tend to come into the classroom or whatever the setting is with a preconceived notion of what the subject is, what the course is about and how the person leading it should do it. These are limiting. Limits can be useful in guiding learning, but it's so easy to cross the line of limits to guide and limited opportunity. So, for me step 1 is always disorientation. Both the body and the mind get stronger when challenged. Physically, this is accomplished when the body is forced to deal with stress in different ranges of motion and activity. Similarly, the mind improves when it is forced to grapple with problems or finding the way to solutions. Of course, this dynamic must also be balanced with "rest" times for the "muscles" to relax, regroup, reflect, refocus, etc. Humans that are comfortable are not improving, are not learning. This goes for teachers as well, as I'm sure you know. Teachers are there to learn just as much as students, but for very different purposes.
Give me one specific example of how you might disorient a class. I actually do this every class, every time. I say, "I can't function in straight lines. Perhaps quoting the artist Hundertvasser, "The straight line leads to the downfall of humanity" or "The straight line is ungodly" or "there are no straight lines in nature" (although I'm not sure about the horizon) and then we move desks into some other more circular format.
- Hundertvasser
Well, it depends on how I've read the room. Note that my line of teaching was EFL, so a little different from regular school or even university. If it's a class of people who are already engaged with each other and talking I'll probably refocus their attention by simply beginning my lesson without speaking or instructing them. I generally accomplish this by beginning to do something on the board. Sometimes I won't speak at all, instead eliciting responses from students to get them to work together to figure out what I want them to do. If it's a quiet class, I might hand out a script that students are supposed to read to a partner standing across the room from them. They aren't allowed to move closer together or to spell the words, or mime anything, but they can describe what they mean. Then as they become comfortable, I'd turn on the radio and increase the volume until they're forced to shout as loud as they can. Of course, afterward, I would give some kind of explanation of the methods used. In language learning, people expect to hear words, or to write them. The biggest obstacle in language acquisition is not memorizing words or structures, but really the learner's own hangups and fears of being perceived as foolish. The next biggest obstacle is getting students to understand that communication is the core of language learning and that communication is more than simple words or grammar. When things go "as expected" it's easy to begin fudging details and in a learning situation, particularly language learning, that's not desirable.