Revista simpozionului Eficienta si calitate in educatie 2018 Revista simpozionului | Page 41

8.
Encourage them to ask questions.
Instead of launching into long and tiring explanations and too abstract definitions,
let your students ask questions and build on them. They may be/seem off the topic,
but they are excellent conversation opportunities. I remember a class when I was
preparing to discuss the topic of human qualities/moral values, when, right after
having taken the attendance, a question popped up: “Teacher, did you see the
match last night?” Truth is, I hadn’t, which I immediately confessed and asked for
details. It took only a couple of minutes to lead the conversation towards the
qualities of the student’s favourite team/player and from here, to proceed with the
brainstorming I had intended, thus bringing the lesson back on tracks.
9.
Encourage and stimulate your students’ creativity.
Studies show that creatively working on a topic will not only bring more satisfaction
to the learners, but also enable them to understand better and transfer that
particular bit of information /concept into the long memory area. Therefore, any
piece of “literary work”, any drawing or song lyrics your students might bring in the
class should be appreciated and offered fair and supportive feedback. Giving the
students a creative “supplementary”( but not compulsory) task, as homework or
during a test will help in keeping the most advanced ones interested in the topic
and prove their abilities and understanding. A round-up test on conditional clauses,
which the best students may finish way ahead their less prodigy classmates, is
usually followed by the supplementary task of writing a poem with the title “If..”.
The poem will be checked and given feedback on multiple levels (grammar,
vocabulary, literary significance and connotations, etc.) If the students’ level is too
low for such complex tasks, ask them to draw something related to the topic and
add “comment bubbles” I was surprised to discover that this rather childish
approach really stirred their enthusiasm and interest and kept them busy and quiet,
allowing their classmates to complete the task /test in their own pace.
10.
Include multi-media activities.
Of course, an ideal lesson will include some video-projection(s), some listening
exercise(s), and so on. The more diverse the media we use in the class, the better
we capture their attention. Change the media you use every 10-15 minutes or so,
as the new type of learners get easily bored and distracted. When the school
equipment doesn’t help (not all schools have a video projector, a computer in each
classroom or a well-equipped English lab) use your own laptop, tablet or even
smartphone. If asked beforehand, students can provide with their own photos or
objects( a favourite piece of clothing for discussing fashion or the best/worst
present they have ever received for expressing likes/dislikes or describing objects,
for example).A procedure very appreciated by my students is the “pass-the
marker-on” one, which will enable each student that comes to the whiteboard to
choose the next student to come, thus increasing the dynamics of the lesson, the
students’ willingness to actively participate and the chances to have, by the end of
the class, more students actually participating in the ongoing activities. By
changing the means of delivering the targeted information and adding variety to the
lesson the students’ wandering attention can be recaptured and the level of their
satisfaction and enjoyment significantly increased.
Last, but not the least
41