Building rapport

The main motives I identified behind the interactions I had with the pupils regarded rapport, motivation, scaffolding, technical support and keeping order in the classroom. In this study, I understand rapport to mean ‘relationship, especially one of mutual trust or emotional affinity’ (“Rapport”, 2011).

In the case of the pilot study in Quilcas, rapport with the children was mainly built around the use of the ICTs. Indeed, most participants would not initially say much when entering the classroom, and they would often go straight to play Graphogame. But the video recordings captured in detail the development of the relationship teacher-pupil around Graphogame:

“Session 24/10: Sitting next to O. and looking at his work. He’s regularly looking up at me, telling jokes and stories about the game, and smiles excitedly. When something happens to him in the game, he looks up and smiles at me, as if to check that I saw it too. He positions his body towards me, and places the tablet between us. He communicates much more now when he’s playing than he used to.”

On a physical level, eye-contact, smiles and nods were found to be regularly exchanged between the teacher and pupils to build rapport, and the kids would usually look up at me after each answer or level to check that I was indeed paying attention.

“Session 7/11: At the end of the level, E. checks again that I'm looking at him. But I'm jotting down some notes about his playing performance. So he grabs my shoulder and tells me: ‘I got it correct, did you see?'” (video data).

Moreover, the two female participants, M. and B, most often wanted to build rapport through physical interactions. They would for instance insist on holding my hand when they were playing.

On a verbal level, jokes were also frequently used to bond with the participants and were found to help them relax and sustain their effort. For example, H. would try to stop playing most days before the end of his 20 minutes session. So, I would joke frequently with him, gently shaking his head and telling him ‘we have to wake up this brain then!’ when he would complain he was tired or bored, or we would vent each other with a copybook when he would complain about the heat.

Most of all, the participants enjoyed building rapport by co-constructing meaning around the game. They enjoyed sharing with me their game experience and how they understood it, such as what their character was doing in the different exercises and in the maze. I encouraged them to do so as it seems to help motivate them by increasing their interest in the game, as in the cases of the ‘star game’ or the ‘sea game’. The ‘star game’ was an exercise that most participants found rather uninteresting at first. The background of the game is dark blue and initially, there did not seem to be much happening except for the traditional instruction of listening to the sounds and identifying the correct answer. After a couple of weeks however, O. shared with me that there was a white star in the background, and that it was getting bigger with every good answer, until it eventually exploded. After that, all the participants were invited to look at the star, and it increased their interest in the game and their motivation to get the correct answer option. They would also call me to witness the explosion of the star. In the case of the ‘sea game’, the character of the game is a sea worm which comes and eats the answer option selected by the player each time. Once again, the players did not find this game particularly exciting at the beginning, but after a few sessions, G. discovered that the sea worm was getting bigger too after each correct answer, and the pupils would often comment to me on the length of their sea worm and the reasons behind it. Some participants cared more particularly about developing such a narrative and sharing it with me, such as O. and G.

Another way that rapport was constructed was through praising the participants, as a mean to give positive feedbacks, to acknowledge the child’s effort and to encourage to continue.

I would give verbal praise to the players when giving a correct answer, for instance by telling them ‘well done’ or ‘you’re a champion: you finished an entire level correctly!’.

Additionally, I would nod, pat their back, give a high five or raise their arms in victory.

Some participants even developed their own preferred way of receiving praise, such as M. who would touch my head with hers when she completed a level without making any mistake.

Acknowledgement and praise were found to be very important for the participants and they would gradually ask for it when they finished a level, completed the animal picture or ‘went on holiday’. In fact, Graphogame includes its own system of rewards as described in chapter 6, but it did not seem to be fully satisfactory to the participant until the teacher had also witnessed the child winning the reward and acknowledge the activity mastered. So increasingly, the participants would call me to come and witness the rewards obtained. If I was unavailable to come observe the participants, they would signal their progress to me for instance by shouting ‘Teacher, I won a prize!’ or ‘I finished the level teacher!’. They would also usually manifest their victory in a diversity of other ways such as shouting the animal they got, singing a victory song, moving their hands in the air as if they had finished a competition.

However, building rapport also progressively entailed conversations that were not related to Graphogame. As we got to know each other better, the kids became less shy and they would increasingly comment for instance on what was happening to them at home, or outside the classroom. They would ask me random questions, regarding for instance the different buttons of the tablet of which they were not making use.

Therefore, rapport was built with the participants throughout each session in diverse ways to set the stage for the learning opportunities and encourage the pupils to sustain their effort. Rapport evolved throughout the intervention, being at first completely centred around Graphogame and progressively becoming more organized around the teacher-student-ICT triangle.