Revista simpozionului Eficienta si calitate in educatie 2018 Revista simpozionului | Page 42

11.
Be lively, funny and passionate.
It has been scientifically proven that people tend to best remember the happy
moments shared while actually performing an activity. This is true for our students,
as well. An occasional joke, a short story or memory shared at the right time may
work miracles. If the teacher enjoys herself/himself while having bits of
conversation, if the input language content is wrapped into a funny explanation or
story, if, by no means, the teacher acts (like in stage performances) from time to
time, thus surprising and making the students laugh (but remember, always laugh
with them, never at them), chances are that the drowsy student will come to life,
the current topic will seem less boring and the lesson better understood and
remembered. One of my tricks in case of too often repeated mistakes, such as the
wrong plural form of the irregular nouns or the third singular person “-s” in Simple
Present tense is to fake a heart attack/ heartache, while loudly asking for help. The
student and/ or the class will definitely remember the correct form next time and,
usually, avoid repeating the mistake. Taking the English language outside the
classroom and enjoying a short chat on the school corridors or in the school yard is
also a valuable means of arousing their interest and proving the real-life
applicability of studying foreign languages; likewise, adapting the means of
providing the language content to the class reality in a funny and playful way can
save an otherwise difficult to tackle lesson. For example, an intentionally childish
drawing of a family with funny explanations of “uncle Tim’s” looks/habits or “aunty
Aggie’s” hairstyle may become a wonderful language practice opportunity for many
topics: revising family related vocabulary, practicing adjectives to describe a
person, adding parts of the human body terms to the previously known vocabulary
or dealing with the more complex topic of roles in the modern family.
Conclusion
I have recently been asked if I find teaching the new generation more difficult than
it used to be with the previous ones and my honest and heartfelt answer was: yes,
it is challenging to compete with all the distractor factors that are present in a
teenager’s reality, to try to lure them out of their gadget-dominated world and
persuade them to embrace the endless possibilities that education can open.
Sometimes, a radically new approach is needed. Some other times, all it takes is to
adapt the rhythm of your lesson (and heart) to the pace of their expectations, to
play some old tricks…and you’ll have them eagerly waiting for the next English
class. This moment of the students-teacher relationship may seem far-fetched and
dim, the effort to get there is going to exhaust you, but for your teenage students,
who struggle to comply with a teaching style no longer addressed to them and
sometimes agonize in dealing with their daily routine, it may be a turning point, and
the English class may become “a breath of fresh air” and a milestone in their self-
development which is exactly why the effort is worth making.
Bibliography:
Harmer, Jeremy. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Longman
Publishing House, 2002 2.
Scrivener, Jim. Learning Teaching. Macmillan, 2005
Willis, Judy. Research-Based Strategies to Ignite Student Learning: Insights from
Neurologist and Classroom Teacher. ASCD, 2006
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