Classroom Tip #6: Deliver Entertainment

I don't like being bored. I dread it.  I want to be entertained.


Not much has changed in this confession of who I am now and who I was at virtually all stages of my life!

Nothing hurts more than experiencing boredom-- in a job, at a party, a phone conversation or a movie I'm watching.  Boring is downright painful, so please don't ask me to sit through it.

My superstar learners get a pizza treat

Ki-Youn, Chan-hyuk hold up their point cards with my co-teacher

Just before our school's winter break, I threw a small pizza party for the class I call my "superstar class"; the students who were challenged this year and required a little extra help. We started out with almost 8 students in the first semester; second semester, our number count dwindled to 2.  The class was only held for 20 minutes after lunch once to twice a week.

This semester the tiny handful of students held spotted attendance, with the exception of two. Surpringly Ki-Youn and Chan-hyuk (read post here) were our near faithful attendees.

Confidence beats intelligence

In the case of slow learners, confidence is often what I strive for over intelligence. If you can give any child the feeling they can succeed, then it's enough incentive to keep them trying even if they get wrong answers.

Take for example, Ki-youn, who has made grand improvements in confidence and in growing "smart brains". He's been participating a lot in English class and our superstar class and you can see his
excitement and effort towards his learning. His confidence has gotten so bold that even when gets an answer wrong, he keeps trying like rapid fire until he gets it correct. This is when confidence turns into a never-give-up motto and one of "keep trying until you get there".

Chan-hyuk is getting closer to confidence, though he occasionally has difficulty. Still, we let him earn enough success and achievement that he continues to come to class and try even when the attendance dwindled. Confidence is key. 

Employing incentives and rewards in the classroom

As an added incentive to keep our attendance numbers from dropping further,., I made point cards for attendance and participation. I told the class that if they got 30 points they could attend the pizza lunch that I would treat them too.

I don't always understand why my co-teacher occasionally wants me to speed up the process of rewards, when I'm the one who initiates the idea of point cards, pizza and spends the time/money implementing it. She wanted me to have the pizza lunch earlier that I had scheduled, because the "kids were looking forward to it". She might have assumed I was treating all the students to pizza despite the lack of attendance and such. But with me, that's not the case...

Some award stars I made for my 4th grade star pupils and for my 2 slow learner stars

Rewarding students only when they do a good job

Life doesn't reward lazy people, does it?  As such, I don't reward students when they continually fail to show up or make no effort. I don't reward laziness. Some teachers may bend in their standards in order to appease all students with a reward. It isn't fair to the students who worked hard and enforced their own self-discipline.

A promise is like a contract-- rules are rules and you must honor them.

When I make a deal with my students, I state my conditions and leave the rest up to my co-teacher's translation of the rules and my students' responsibility.

When one of the students, Chan-hyuk had 25 points (not the required 30 points) and my co-teacher wanted me to reward them early, I had to put my foot down.  The agreement was 30 points.  No 30 points, no pizza. Simple.

Thus, they had to wait out our regularly scheduled date, so that Chan yuk could get his points. 

And he did.

Classroom Tip #4: Communicate the Goal

Photo credit: www.Learnthat.com

In an earlier post, I touched upon the need for stakes. Not only do students require them for self-discipline, but classroom activities occasionally require them as well.

Lessons without goals and stakes can feel pointless or meaningless to kids. 

What is the value of learning something if it won't be used?  Why practice, perform or participate in a task that has no foreseeable value or significance? If you're thinking this way about the tasks you do on a daily basis at home or in your job, then it's easy to assume your students feel the same in your class.

This is why teachers often incorporate either individual or class incentive point systems to teach and encourage the value of participation and good behavior.

Stating the goal (and the stakes will follow)

Not all lessons however, need to resort to bribery in order for a student to want to perform. A
goal is a hint of what to expect in the future. Without one, students won't feel that the lesson, classroom tasks and/or activities has any significance or value to their future. Sometimes, getting students to perform better is as simple as stating the goal in advance and letting the students determine their own incentive.

"Leapster Learning Game Cartridge: Pet Pals"

2 Great Things about Goals:

-- It assesses value and importance to a task.
Communicating a goal allows students to determine meaning in their tasks and the resulting and/or consequences of their actions.

--It makes the student responsible for their choice and destiny.
Knowing a goal in advance allows students preparation time, but mostly, it gives your kids a choice as to what they'll attempt: success or failure.

No student wants to be a failure, yet slow learners might choose this stance at the start if they automatically think they can't achieve something.  While springing surprise tasks on advanced students might add to the thrill of their challenge, surprises for slower learners is an automatic way to discourage and defeat them. If however, they can see a goal in advance, feel it manageable, then they have the option to change their decision and attitude towards achieving their task.

A classroom example

Many of our lessons are made of tasks which prepare the students for the final execution. One of my co-teachers occasionally forgets to explain to the class the goals and importance of a task or lesson activity. Instead, she just communicates the task:

Task: Memorize the dialogue/script in this role-play (aka skit).
But the goal is...
Goal: You will perform it for the class.

This goal is built in with stakes every child knows if they don't perform successfully.

Shame & Humiliation in front of their peers.
In the past, we hadn't placed an importance on role play/skit activity, but often dismissed it; we created a bad habit. This taught them that this activity lacked meaning.  When we finally wanted them to memorize and perform the skit but didn't communicate the goal, the students reverted to habit and didn't take the task of memorization seriously.

After a disappointing pattern of our first two classes, I started communicating the goal in additional direction to my co-teacher. The change in the students behavior was drastic-- it went from sluggish and lazy to pens in hand, ears strained to attention concentrating on the dialogue to take notes.

Always communicate the goal.

GRRRL TRAVELER © 2008
All written publications are licensed and must be credited or linked back to this site. Non-commercial use only. Further permissions: contact www.grrrltraveler.com.

Classroom Tip #2: Employ the Art of Listening

Photo from: mentalhelp.com

Listening is an important art that many of might have heard about, but don't always apply. Most of the time as people, we're too self-preoccupied-- we try to push learning onto our students and worry about making the classroom schedule match the clock. Also, there's another problem. As a teacher, one shouldn't merely reduce "listening" to having good ears that pick out incorrect pronunciation and patterns. No, that's called "hearing". What I'm talking about is an entirely different sort of art focused on the ability to read your students and scan over them with your entire awareness

Reading your students will shed insight into your class's ability to learn from you.
Something as simple as reading your students can lend you clues about what and how they're processing what their lessons. It's the difference from getting  a look of "I get it!" vs. "I'm completely lost".  Aside from getting to know your students' habits and personalities, this can also shed insight
into deeper concerns like whether a student is having trouble with the lesson or simply lacks confidence in their speaking ability; whether they are shy, is lazy or bored.

For example, when I'm in front of my class speaking, I try to listen to what's being said and what isn't... 70% of the time, I'm not only reading lip syncs as they're doing repeat speaking drills (you'll catch at least 1/3 of your students faking -- either mouthing the words or pretending to mouth the words)  but I'm also reading individual facial expressions, actions and postures.  If I see a majority of my students bored and sleepy; I've got to change my approach to wake them up or my lesson is as good as dead.  If some of my students look "lost", then I know who to give more attention to when I walk around the classroom.  If someone has crippled self-esteem, I try to find ways to challenge them with material that might boost their confidence. And when enough patterns establish themselves, I know what I have to work on troubleshooting...

If you can read your students you'll be able to troubleshoot their learning problems, know how to change your teaching style to spark more enthusiasm, you'll become a more effective teacher!





GRRRL TRAVELER © 2008
All artwork/publications are licensed and must be credited or linked back to this site. Non-commercial use only. Further permissions: contact www.grrrltraveler.com.

Classroom Tip #1: Raising Stakes

When I wrote my post, Raising Stakes on Learning English?, I realized that I stumbled upon a valuable concept and goal for students in the classroom.Thus, I'm modifying it a bit here when I talk about teaching young students.

Stakes, motivators and incentive goals.
From the standpoint of a student-- if you don't think you're going to need to use what you're learning, then why learn it? 

But if you need it because you will...
-- perform it in front of the entire class.
-- need to use it for an important activity (i.e. to compete in a game, have a test, etc).

Then these are motivators which will make you concentrate harder to focus on your learning. Why?
Your learning the lesson is necessary to your survival in something important. These are called stakes.

Whether it's adults or children, it's up to you to occasionally create stakes in your lesson activities. Adults are sometimes said to be easier because their sense of stake is created internally. Children however, haven't learned that ability yet and motivating stakes are often external. This is why in Korea, many English lessons in the public schools are taught through games and incentive points. The one thing Korean students are is highly competitive.

What are some other ways you can create stakes in your classroom lessons?