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Best Classroom Management Strategies To Ensure Success

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Best Classroom Management Strategies To Ensure Success

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Teachers handle many issues in a day, from disciplinary and behavior issues to a lack of adherence to the daily schedule cases. Consistently experiencing such challenges can sometimes make the teaching profession feel unrewarding. Luckily, teachers can use various classroom management strategies to inspire compliance among students.

It starts with having a solid classroom management plan that outlines the methods and techniques for running a classroom and each lesson. From there, teachers can also upgrade their classroom management skills through a degree in education and apply these additional 20 strategies to manage their classrooms better.

The Best Classroom Management Strategies Today

The five components of effective classroom management include developing behavioral standards, establishing working relationships with students, valuing your time as a teacher, familiarizing students with teaching methods, and anticipating student behavior.

Teachers should implement the following universal classroom management strategies for the best chance of succeeding at managing their classrooms:

The most effective way for teachers to instill good student behavior is by leading through actions, not words. That's because students' minds are still developing, so they learn more from experiences. Therefore, doing simple things like avoiding electronic use, talking politely, and respecting everyone in the class can have a significant impact on molding better student behavior.

Teachers can manage classrooms better by involving students in rule-making, documenting the rules, and setting consequences for breaking them. Teachers should also reward good behavior and talk more positively about students.

Most humans, from employees to students, comply better to set rules when involved in decision-making. Teachers can use this classroom management technique to ensure willful rather than forced compliance with classroom rules throughout the calendar year.

For the rules to work, students should be able to see them every time they enter the classroom. Teachers should create professional charts with all rules typed and stick them in a visible place to ensure they remain on top of each student's mind.

Teachers should avoid punishing the entire class for a mistake made by several students. Instead, they should identify and call out the bad-behaving students after the class and try to discover the cause of their bad behavior to see if they can come up with a solution.

Teachers should generally be social and approachable human beings. Even on bad days, teachers should try to be the most optimistic in the classroom environment and not let their bad moods radiate to the rest of the class.

In every classroom, some students are gifted in academics while others have strengths in other areas, such as art. Teachers should support learners of all students in areas they show interest and passion.

Students love to feel appreciated when they have put some effort toward doing the right things, and it keeps them motivated toward a good path. Therefore, teachers should regularly acknowledge class or student efforts to encourage positive participation and behavior in the classroom.

Teachers should reward good behavior from the entire class or students from time to time to encourage more of it. Rewards can include special parties, outdoor activities during free time, or treats.

Parents often hear from teachers only when their child has done wrong in school. Teachers should also contact parents with positive information or a good word about the children for better student-teacher and parent-teacher relationships.

Learning can become mundane and boring when it's the same old regurgitated content. As such, teachers should spice up each day's learning experience by setting the tone for an exciting day from the minute lessons start. This way, students will remain excited and expectant throughout the day.

Teachers should get to know their students more personally to be in a better position to help them thrive. Privately, they should learn their students' strengths and weaknesses in academics and life to help them grow.

Students are creatures of habit. As such, teachers should set short- and long-term classroom routines and schedules that allow students to know what is expected of them at each point during the day for more productivity.

Bad behavior should never go unchecked in a classroom or students will become hardheaded. Instead, teachers should have creative ways to deal with bad behavior, such as unwarranted class disruptions, to show others that such behavior isn't acceptable.

Classroom Management Techniques for Colleges and Institutions of Higher Learning

Students in colleges and universities admire teachers who have positive personal relationships with them. They're also more compliant in the classroom for teachers with whom they have a good rapport.

Students capture information better when it's conveyed in various formats instead of one. These can include visual presentations such as graphs and PowerPoint presentations, group work, and takeaway assignments.

The passion and enthusiasm shown by teachers rubs off on students too. Therefore, teachers should always try to be their most excited selves in classrooms to encourage active student participation and response.

Teachers should prepare thoroughly for every class they plan to attend during the day. They should review and improve their notes regularly to make them as easy to understand and enjoyable as possible for students.

Teachers should implement a technology-off policy to prevent students from being distracted while in class. The only exception would be laptops for note-taking, but smartphones and other gadgets should be turned off until the end of the lesson.

Bring These Strategies to Life with UoPeople

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Best Classroom Management Strategies To Ensure Success

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How can a teacher manage a classroom effectively? Here are some tested classroom management strategies to try in your class today.

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How to Promote Social Justice in Schools: Equity and Inclusion Tactics

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How to Promote Social Justice in Schools: Equity and Inclusion Tactics

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This article will explore the concept of social justice, the current state of social justice in schools, and strategies to promote social justice among students and teachers. By understanding the importance of social justice, we can work towards creating a better future for all.

Understanding the Concept of Social Justice

Before diving into methods for advocating social justice in schools, it's vital to grasp the overarching concept of social justice itself. Social justice serves as a framework for equalizing the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges across communities. This goes beyond education to influence other societal sectors like healthcare, employment, and legal systems. In a world often marred by inequalities based on race, gender, and socioeconomic status, social justice aims to level the playing field by eradicating systemic barriers that perpetuate these disparities.

Social justice goes beyond the simple notion of fairness. It encompasses a deep commitment to addressing the root causes of social and economic disparities. It recognizes that historical and systemic factors contribute to the unequal distribution of resources and opportunities.

Social justice encompasses various dimensions, including economic, political, and educational equality. It emphasizes the importance of fairness and addressing systemic barriers that limit access to resources and opportunities for certain groups of people.

Economic equality is a fundamental aspect of social justice. It calls for a redistribution of wealth and resources to ensure everyone has access to necessities and a decent standard of living. This includes advocating for fair wages, affordable housing, and accessible healthcare.

Political equality is another crucial dimension of social justice. It demands equal representation and participation in decision-making, regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status. It seeks to dismantle systems of power that perpetuate inequality and marginalization.

Educational equality is particularly significant in the context of social justice. It recognizes that access to quality education is not equal for all students. Social justice in education addresses the disparities in resources, opportunities, and outcomes among student groups.

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The Importance of Social Justice in Education

Social justice in education is crucial for the holistic development of students. By fostering a social justice mindset, we equip students with the skills and knowledge to challenge injustice and advocate for change.

When students are exposed to social justice principles in their educational journey, they develop a sense of empathy and compassion for others. They learn to recognize and challenge stereotypes, biases, and prejudices. This enables them to build inclusive and respectful relationships with people from diverse backgrounds.

Social justice education also promotes critical thinking skills. Students learn to analyze and question the structures and systems that perpetuate inequality. They develop the ability to identify and challenge oppressive practices within the school environment and the broader society.

Social justice education encourages students to become active agents of change. They are inspired to use their knowledge and skills to address social issues and positively impact the world. By empowering students to become advocates for social justice, we contribute to creating a more equitable and just society.

In conclusion, social justice is a multifaceted concept that encompasses economic, political, and educational equality. Promoting social justice in schools is crucial to equip students with the tools to challenge injustice, foster empathy, develop critical thinking skills, and become agents of positive societal change.

The Current State of Social Justice in Schools

Although progress has been made in promoting social justice in schools, many challenges persist. Let's explore some hurdles faced in implementing social justice initiatives and examine inspiring success stories that can guide our efforts.

Social justice in schools is critical to creating an inclusive and equitable education system. It aims to address the disparities and inequalities among students, ensuring everyone has equal opportunities to succeed academically, socially, and emotionally. However, achieving social justice in schools is not without its challenges.

Challenges Faced in Promoting Social Justice

One of the main challenges in promoting social justice in schools is the resistance to change. Implementing social justice initiatives may face opposition from individuals comfortable with the status quo or fear their privileges may be challenged. Breaking down these barriers requires a collective effort from educators, administrators, parents, and the wider community to foster a culture of acceptance and understanding.

Another challenge is the limited resources and competing priorities that can hinder the progress of social justice in education. Schools often face budget constraints, making it difficult to allocate funds for programs and initiatives that promote social justice. Additionally, with various educational reforms and mandates, schools may struggle to balance implementing social justice initiatives with other pressing needs.

The lack of awareness and understanding of social justice issues can impede progress. Many individuals may not fully grasp the extent of inequality and discrimination within the education system. Educating stakeholders about the importance of social justice and its impact on student's lives is crucial for creating lasting change.

Success Stories in Implementing Social Justice

Despite these challenges, there have been success stories in promoting social justice in schools. Educators, students, and communities have created inclusive environments that celebrate diversity and empower marginalized groups.

For instance, some schools have implemented comprehensive anti-bullying programs that address the root causes of discrimination and promote empathy and respect among students. By fostering a safe and inclusive school climate, these programs have significantly reduced bullying and created a supportive environment for all students.

Another success story lies in the implementation of culturally responsive teaching practices. Educators who embrace these practices incorporate students' cultural backgrounds and experiences into their lessons, making learning more meaningful and relevant. This approach promotes social justice and enhances academic achievement and student engagement.

Additionally, student-led initiatives have played a significant role in promoting social justice in schools. Students have organized clubs, events, and awareness campaigns to raise awareness about social justice issues and advocate for change. These initiatives empower students to participate actively in creating a more equitable and inclusive school community.

By sharing these success stories, we can inspire others to take action and promote social justice in their schools. We can create a more just and equitable education system for all students through collective efforts and a commitment to change.

Strategies to Promote Social Justice in Schools

Adopting strategies that foster inclusivity, diversity, and student empowerment is essential to promote social justice in schools. We can create meaningful change in the educational landscape by incorporating social justice principles into the curriculum, promoting diversity and inclusion, and encouraging student activism.

Incorporating Social Justice in the Curriculum

Integrating social justice themes into the curriculum is a powerful way to promote student awareness and understanding. We encourage critical thinking and empathy by incorporating diverse perspectives and discussing social issues. Teachers can use literature, history, and current events to explore topics related to social justice.

For example, in an English class, students can analyze literature that addresses inequality, discrimination, and social change themes. By studying novels such as "To Kill a Mockingbird" or "The Hate U Give," students can delve into discussions about racial injustice and the importance of empathy. In a history class, students can explore the civil rights movement and analyze primary sources to understand the struggles and triumphs of marginalized communities.

Incorporating social justice into science and math classes can also be done by examining the impact of environmental racism or analyzing data that highlights disparities in healthcare access. Students can develop a holistic understanding of the issues and their interconnectedness by infusing social justice topics into various subjects.

Promoting Diversity and Inclusion

To create inclusive environments, schools must actively promote diversity and inclusion. This can be achieved by celebrating different cultures, religions, and identities. It also involves addressing bias and discrimination and establishing policies and procedures that ensure equal opportunities for all students.

One way to promote diversity and inclusion is through cultural celebrations and events. Schools can organize multicultural fairs where students and their families share their traditions, food, and customs. This fosters a sense of belonging for students from diverse backgrounds, educates others about different cultures, and promotes respect and understanding.

Additionally, schools can implement anti-bullying programs that specifically address issues related to discrimination and prejudice. These programs can include workshops, guest speakers, and discussions that promote empathy, respect, and tolerance. By creating a safe and inclusive environment, schools empower students to embrace their identities and appreciate the diversity around them.

Encouraging Student Activism

Student activism plays a powerful role in promoting social justice. We foster a sense of agency and responsibility by empowering students to express their opinions, engage in peaceful protests, and advocate for change. Schools can provide platforms for students to organize clubs, events, and initiatives that address social justice issues.

For instance, schools can establish a student-led social justice club where students can discuss and take action on various issues. This club can organize awareness campaigns, fundraisers, and community service projects that address social inequalities. By allowing students to actively participate in creating change, they develop leadership skills and a lifelong commitment to social justice.

Schools can invite guest speakers who are activists or community leaders to share their experiences and inspire students to get involved. These speakers can provide insights into grassroots movements, advocacy strategies, and the importance of collective action. By exposing students to real-life examples of social justice activism, schools cultivate a culture of engagement and empower students to make a difference.

Role of Teachers in Promoting Social Justice

Teachers play a crucial role in promoting social justice in schools. They can serve as educators, role models, and advocates for change. We can make a lasting impact by providing teachers with the necessary training and supporting their efforts to create inclusive classrooms.

Social justice education goes beyond the traditional curriculum. It involves teaching students about equity, fairness, and the importance of challenging oppressive systems. By incorporating social justice principles into their teaching, teachers can empower students to critically analyze society and work towards creating a more just and equitable world.

Teachers can promote social justice by incorporating diverse perspectives and voices into their lessons. This includes using inclusive literature, inviting guest speakers from marginalized communities, and discussing current events that highlight social injustices. Teachers can foster empathy, understanding, and a sense of social responsibility by exposing students to various perspectives.

Training Teachers for Social Justice Education

It is essential to provide teachers with training and professional development opportunities that equip them to promote social justice in the classroom. This includes understanding the principles of social justice, recognizing and addressing bias, and incorporating inclusive teaching practices. Investing in teacher training empowers educators to create transformative educational experiences.

Teacher training programs can include workshops, seminars, and ongoing support to help teachers develop the knowledge and skills necessary for promoting social justice. These programs can provide teachers with resources, strategies, and practical examples that they can implement in their classrooms. Collaboration and networking opportunities allow teachers to learn from one another and share best practices.

Teacher education programs at the university level can also play a crucial role in preparing future educators to promote social justice. These programs can incorporate courses and field experiences focusing on social justice education, providing aspiring teachers with a strong foundation in this important area.

Teachers as Role Models for Social Justice

In addition to their teaching responsibilities, teachers can model social justice values and behaviors in their interactions with students and the wider community. By embracing diversity, treating all students with respect, and challenging unfair practices, teachers can inspire students to advocate for social justice.

Teachers can create a classroom environment that values and celebrates diversity. This can include displaying multicultural artwork, incorporating diverse literature into the curriculum, and encouraging students to share their unique perspectives and experiences. By doing so, teachers send a powerful message that diversity is accepted and celebrated.

Teachers can actively address instances of discrimination or bias that may occur within the school community. By intervening in situations where students are being treated unfairly, teachers demonstrate their commitment to social justice and show students that they have a voice and can make a difference.

Teachers can also advocate outside the classroom to promote social justice. This can involve participating in community events, organizing awareness campaigns, or collaborating with other educators to address systemic issues. By actively engaging in advocacy, teachers demonstrate to their students the importance of taking action and standing up for what is right.

Role of Students in Promoting Social Justice

Students have the power to drive change and play an active role in promoting social justice in schools. By empowering them to advocate for social justice and fostering a supportive environment, we can encourage students to become lifelong change-makers.

When students engage in conversations about social justice, they can better understand the issues at hand. By providing platforms for dialogue, such as open forums or classroom discussions, students can express their opinions and values and learn from one another's perspectives. These conversations promote critical thinking and empathy and help students develop the skills necessary to advocate for social justice effectively.

Empowering Students to Advocate for Social Justice

Students should be encouraged to express their opinions and values and act when they witness injustice. By providing opportunities for dialogue, organizing workshops, and supporting student-led initiatives, we can empower students to become effective advocates for social justice.

Workshops focused on human rights, equality, and inclusivity can equip students with the knowledge and tools to address social injustices. These workshops can be led by experts in the field or even by fellow students with a strong passion for social justice. By actively involving students in the planning and execution of these workshops, they can develop leadership skills and a sense of ownership in promoting social justice within their school community.

Student-led Social Justice Initiatives

Student-led initiatives are effective ways to promote social justice in schools. Whether through clubs, projects, or events, students can initiate discussions, raise awareness, and create grassroots movements. These initiatives empower students to shape their own educational experiences and inspire others to join the pursuit of social justice.

For example, a student-led social justice club can organize events such as panel discussions, film screenings, or workshops to educate their peers about various social justice issues. Through these events, students can raise awareness and foster a sense of unity and solidarity among their classmates. Additionally, student-led projects that address specific social injustices, such as poverty or discrimination, can have a tangible impact on the local community.

Student-led initiatives can extend beyond the school walls. Students can collaborate with local organizations or participate in community service activities to address social justice issues on a broader scale. By taking their advocacy beyond the school environment, students can make a lasting impact and inspire others to join the fight for social justice.

Evaluating the Impact of Social Justice Initiatives

It is important to measure the impact of social justice initiatives to evaluate their effectiveness and identify areas for improvement. Using qualitative and quantitative measures, we can assess the success of social justice education in promoting long-term positive change.

Measuring Success in Social Justice Education

Measuring success in social justice education involves assessing changes in students' attitudes and behaviors and the impact on the school climate. Surveys, interviews, and observations can provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of social justice initiatives. Ongoing evaluation allows us to adapt and refine our approaches to ensure continuous improvement.

One way to measure success is through surveys that ask students about their understanding of social justice concepts before and after participating in social justice education programs. These surveys can include questions that gauge their awareness of social inequalities, their ability to recognize and challenge biases, and their willingness to take action to promote equality and justice.

In addition to surveys, interviews with students can provide deeper insights into their personal growth and development as advocates for social justice. These interviews can explore how their perspectives have evolved, their challenges, and the strategies they have employed to address social injustices in their communities.

Observations of classroom interactions and discussions can also offer valuable information about the impact of social justice education. By observing how students engage with one another, navigate difficult conversations, and support one another in understanding complex social issues, we can better understand the effectiveness of social justice initiatives in fostering empathy, critical thinking, and respectful dialogue.

Long-term Benefits of Social Justice in Schools

Promoting social justice in schools yields long-term benefits for students, educators, and society. By cultivating a sense of social responsibility, critical thinking, and empathy, we equip students with the skills needed to participate in a democratic and inclusive society actively. This enhances their academic development and fosters a more equitable and just future.

When exposed to social justice education early on, students develop a greater understanding of diversity and inclusion. This understanding allows them to appreciate and value the experiences, perspectives, and contributions of individuals from different backgrounds. As a result, they are more likely to challenge stereotypes, prejudices, and discriminatory practices, both within and outside of the classroom.

Social justice education empowers students to become agents of change in their communities. They are better equipped to advocate for equality, challenge systemic inequalities, and promote social change by providing them with the knowledge, skills, and resources to address social injustices. This active engagement in social justice issues not only benefits the students themselves but also contributes to the creation of a more just and inclusive society.

In conclusion, promoting social justice in schools is a multifaceted endeavor that requires the collective effort of educators, students, and communities. By understanding the concept of social justice, acknowledging the challenges, and implementing strategies to promote social justice, we can work towards creating inclusive and equitable educational environments. The benefits extend beyond the classroom, shaping a future where social justice is not just a goal but a reality for all.

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How to Promote Social Justice in Schools: Equity and Inclusion Tactics

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Learn how to promote social justice in schools. Discover ways to create inclusive environments that celebrate diversity and empower marginalized groups.

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10 Ways to Make Learning Fun and Engaging

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10 Ways to Make Learning Fun and Engaging

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Hi there! My name is Heather, and I blog over at HoJo's Teaching Adventures! We all know that in today's high stakes testing world, it can be hard to make learning fun and engaging. That's why I want to share 10 ways to make learning fun with all of you here at Minds in Bloom today. So, let's get started!

1. Get Them Moving - No one likes to sit still all day long. (Think about that last boring in-service!) You want to get moving, and so do your students! Whether you let them use task cards to get some movement while doing academics or utilize brain breaks to give them two minutes of down time, make sure to offer plenty of opportunities for movement as one of the ways to make learning fun and engaging.

2. Break up the Lesson - You can't have students listen to you lecture and expect them to stay engaged for an entire hour! Break up your lesson. Give an introduction, do an activity, talk a little, go back to the activity, and then finish up with a discussion at the end. Your break up wouldn't have to look exactly like that, but breaking up the lesson will definitely help!

3. Go on a Field Trip - Many schools have cut field trips from their budgets. However, there are a plethora of options available online. See if they tie into what you're already learning and give a virtual field trip a try! Or visit local places. Many schools are within walking distance of some great opportunities.

4. Throw a Party - This is something you're obviously not going to do every day, but why not aim for once a month? If you just finished that rock unit, have a rock party! You could make rock candy or create metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. With Pinterest at our fingertips, it's easier than ever to find a way to "party" through the school year!

5. Show a Video - In today's world, our students are bombarded with video stimuli from the moment they wake up until the moment they go to sleep. As teachers, we have to compete! So show that short video clip on YouTube or TeacherTube. Or create something to share yourself.

6. Incorporate Art - In a world filled with craftivities, there's a way to turn many lessons into art lessons. Science and social studies often take a backseat, so why not incorporate an art or craft project into these content areas to make the learning more fun and meaningful for your students? Yes, even upper elementary students. 🙂

7. Give Choice - Sometimes all students want is a little choice. Think about it...as an adult, do you like always being told what to to? Or would you rather have some say in the matter? I know I like being given choices. When I've allowed my students choice, their buy-in and engagement have been much higher in my classroom.

8. Play Games - A quick search on Teachers Pay Teachers shows over 300,000 downloads for "games" and over 30,000 of them are free. While it may not be possible to turn every lesson into a game, you're likely to get more engagement when you use games in the classroom more frequently. Magic Square Puzzles are a great game option to cover academics while also keeping students engaged.

9. Take Learning Outside - If a lesson can be done outdoors, then move it outside! Sometimes even simply being outside can make the lesson more fun and engaging. Bonus points if there is a way to get creative and be outside!

10. Let Them Be Creative - Let your class know that you're open to assignments being changed or modified if they approve it with you first. Oftentimes our students have better ideas than we do, so let them run those ideas past you. They may just put a creative twist on a lesson that you hadn't thought of. For the student, this "twist" will make the lesson more meaningful and fun - therefore making them more engaged!

Interested in 10 More Ways?

If you'd like to see to make learning engaging, I'd love for you to head over to my blog post where I've given you another 10 ideas. Simply click here to get those 10 ideas, as well.

Heather, better known as HoJo in the blogging world, writes over at the blog HoJo's Teaching Adventures. When she's not updating her teaching blog, listing another product in her Teachers Pay Teachers store, or chasing after her 1-year-old son, Heather also enjoys writing for her lifestyle blog HoJo's Life Adventures.

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10 Ways to Make Learning Fun and Engaging

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Hi there! My name is Heather, and I blog over at HoJo's Teaching Adventures! We all know that in today's high stakes testing world, it can be hard to make learning fun and engaging. That's why I want to share 10 ways to make learning fun with all of you here at Minds in Bloom today.

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3 Strategies for Motivating ESL Students

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3 Strategies for Motivating ESL Students

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It's easy to lose sight of the importance of motivation.

"Motivation has been called the 'neglected heart' of language teaching," according to Michael Rost, editor for the student book series "WorldView." "As teachers, we often forget that all of our learning activities are filtered through our students' motivation."

Yet, research confirms its value. Motivation affects effort, which, in turn, affects results and ultimately, students' abilities. By building their motivation, you can help students become more skillful in English and nourish their ability to learn.

Recognizing the importance of motivating ESL students isn't the tough part for teachers. The real issue is accomplishing that goal.

How to Motivate ESL Students: 3 Strategies

Inspiring your classroom doesn't have to be intimidating. With a few small steps, you can make increase engagement and curiosity. Here are three strategies for motivating ESL students.

1. Trigger Their Interests

Make English learning personal. By connecting language to something personal in your students' lives, they'll tap into something emotional that will help with engagement.

Rost offers a couple of ways to trigger students' interests. One way is to integrate current topics, music, movies, and fads to create a relevant class culture. Another option is to investigate the theme of self-expression. By using personalized tasks, idea journals, and speaking circles, learners will be motivated by the fact that the class focuses on their personal lives.

You can also consider project-based learning. One teacher, Amanda Nehring, engaged ELL students by choosing a topic that appealed to her general education classroom: birds of prey.

Students started on the project by brainstorming what they knew and what they wanted to learn.

Then they performed research at libraries on pre-selected websites and by meeting experts in their classroom.

The next step, which the teacher deemed most valuable and rewarding, was integrating examples and experiences into the learning process. In this case, students met live raptors from local conservation and rehabilitation organizations.

The project concluded with a final presentation, which took place at a local children's museum. Students created posters as well clay models of talons and nests. This step incorporated listening, speaking, reading, and writing in English.

"I cannot emphasize enough how rewarding this project was for my class and my ELL students," Nehring said at Scholastic. "This is a favorite memory of all of my kids, and the growth I saw in their interests and abilities was staggering."

2. Integrate Fun Activities and Technology

Games and fun activities offer several benefits to students. Marina Dodigovic wrote in The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching that "games promote learner centeredness, create the space for genuine communication within a meaningful context, and are often team‐oriented." She went on to say, "They have been found to stimulate motivation, reduce anxiety, and allow for the integration of all language skills."

You can consider a cognition-oriented game like the website SpellingCity's pedagogical version of a crossword puzzle, and effective socially oriented games include Simon Says, Hangman, and Scrabble. A monologue activity used for short stories can match students' levels and interests. Select a story and have students read it, choose vocabulary they want to learn, journal the vocabulary, and then create a monologue that could have been delivered by a character in the story. Students read the monologue without describing which character they're impersonating, and the rest of the class guesses who it is.

Technology can help locate effective games and activities, but don't overlook how it can become a central motivation. In a separate chapter of The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching, Sara Smith described how ESL learners can view English as necessary for accessing the digital world. In other words, they're motivated to learn English because they want to use technology generally or engage in specific digital environments. Some ESL learners, such as those limited in geography, are focused on joining a digital English community instead of a physical English linguistic community.

Using technology can help students find pleasure and even develop a certain identity in learning English. Smith believes that "increased digital environment contact and engagement will heighten general global affiliation and potentially even give rise to a distinct 'digital affiliation,'" which explains specific environments like online gaming communities.

Examples of motivating ESL students through technology go hand-in-hand with the next strategy.

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3 Strategies for Motivating ESL Students

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It's easy to lose sight of the importance of motivation. "Motivation has been called the 'neglected heart' of language teaching," according to Michael Rost, editor for the student book series "WorldView." "As teachers, we often forget that all of our learning activities are filtered through our students' motivation."

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How to Engage Uninterested Students: 6 Ways that Really Work | Theory & Tips

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How to Engage Uninterested Students: 6 Ways that Really Work | Theory & Tips

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How to Engage Uninterested Students: 6 Ways that Really Work | Theory & Tips

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Want to engage the kids sitting in the back (of the classroom or Zoom room) who never raise their hands? Here are six ways, each with helpful, actionable examples for you to perk up even the most glassy-eyed students.

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Supporting International Student Learning in the Classroom

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Supporting International Student Learning in the Classroom

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Apart from framing core learning goals and using them to design assignment sequences and classroom activities, there is a lot instructors can do to support their international students' (indeed all of their students') learning throughout a semester.

One-on-one Meetings with Students

In a smaller enrollment class, instructors can often afford to spend individual time with students, and this face-to-face conferencing can be one of the most effective ways of guiding international students in their learning. One-on-one meetings can:

allow instructors to make sure students understand the expectations for assignments. Because students can sometimes be unfamiliar with academic genres, especially when they weren't exposed to them in previous schooling, or when they're moving from one academic discipline to another, it's important to work closely with students to gauge how they perceive key assignments, so as to correct misconceptions and give them strategies and models for work.

give students an opportunity to explore and practice more difficult language issues. Some issues of language, like the subtleties of usage and style, are nearly impossible to address effectively in written feedback. Face to face meetings provide a space to explain these kinds of conventions, as well as other kinds of subtleties such as appropriate uses of language in unfamiliar rhetorical contexts, such as proper attitudes for hedging claims, addressing competing ideas, or the strength of different kinds of evidence.

help instructors and students set manageable learning goals together. By querying student background knowledge, their comfort level with course material, and learning preferences, instructors can help generate a handful of effective strategies to succeed in the course.

give students a chance to articulate their ideas in person. Sometimes students have difficulty expressing their ideas clearly in writing, but can articulate them cogently in speech. Conferencing can help students recognize what they are capable of and give instructors the opportunity to present those capabilities more effectively.

become a space where instructors can guide students in the writing process. During one-on-one meetings, students can work through key stages in a project: brainstorming, resource gathering, articulating ideas, or polishing a final draft. This allows the instructor an opportunity to clarify genre expectations, guide students throughout the writing process, and clear up any misconceptions they might have about course material.

Before considering meeting in one-on-one conferences, calculate how many office hours are necessary to match up with the deadlines of assignments for students to complete. Plan carefully and set an agenda that's manageable and timely for students' work in a class.

Incorporating International Students into Discussion

Some international students tend to be quiet in class for a number of reasons: culturally, they might be used to perceiving teachers as authority-figures whose ideas are to be valued more than others in the classroom; they might not be comfortable with their accented speech; they might have a hard time following along with a fast-paced conversation, worried they are missing something; or they might simply want to sit back and learn what the perspectives of other students are. In order to teach students how to engage in class discussion, which plays a such a central role in American higher education, instructors have to carefully negotiate cultural difference and individual student preferences. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Try not to position international students as cultural experts of their home countries. International students can have their own interpretations or opinions about certain cultural practices, and should not be given the responsibility of speaking for an entire national or ethnic group. Invite students to share their cultural perspectives, but be clear that they are offering their individual perspectives, not universal ones.

Understand that personalities of international students vary. Some international students can be shy and might not want to talk openly in front of people, not to be put on the spot. Provide different opportunities or formats for them to express their ideas (like an online forum, short in-class writing activities, or small group discussion), as it is less intimidating to them.

Allow time for students to process their thoughts. international students may need more time to gather their thoughts, to process information and to construct language expressions. Potentially, low-stakes writing activities (i.e., free write) can facilitate class discussion.

Explain what "participation" looks like in your course. Explicitly state the course expectations, especially if participation is taken into account for the course grade. Furthermore, explicitly teach students how to join class discussion. Especially early in the term, model appropriate listening and responding for students, and facilitate conversation in a transparent way that helps students understand how disciplinary habits of thinking inform discussion. Consider providing a rubric or a criteria that defines what is expected of students' participation throughout the course.

Reiterate students' ideas in your own words. By restating a student's points to the class in your own words, you can make sure that you have understand a student's ideas and show that you value his or her contribution. At the same time, students can clarify misunderstandings and witness active listening skills, a valuable lesson for domestic and international students alike.

Using Small Group Activities

Instructors should consider three crucial questions while designing a small group activity:

How are students going to be assigned groups?

How structured does the group need to be?

What is the role of the instructor in managing the groups, and the roles students will be asked to play in their work together?

The answers to each question have benefits and drawbacks, potentially impacting international student learners.

Assigning Students to a Group

Typically, students are assigned to a group in one of three ways: the instructor forms specific groups, groups are randomly assigned, or groups are self-assigned by the students. Depending on the group assignment, one approach may be more effective than another. When it comes to forming small groups, there are a couple points to keep in mind with regard to the international students in your classroom:

Potential Benefits: Potential benefits of having the groups be self-assigned is that students may feel more comfortable working with people they choose. Random group assignment might also be beneficial if it mixes up the class dynamic, allowing students to meet more of their peers. Instructor-formed groups can be a good balance of the two, as well as allowing the instructor to be more intentional regarding who is in each group based on what he or she knows about the group dynamics in the course. Ultimately, forming small groups can help students feel more comfortable contributing. Since international students may not be familiar with American classroom cultures and etiquette, and because they could be more conscious about their oral proficiency, they can be less likely to contribute to a larger group discussion.

Potential Drawbacks: If students are allowed to choose their own groups, this could disenfranchise other students, as each group may be composed of unwelcoming cliques. The students may not have the same cultural learning experience because he or she would be working with students they already know. On the other hand, one of the drawbacks of randomly assigning groups could be that some students may feel uncomfortable; they may not feel as though they have much to contribute. Additionally, domestic students may not be as socially inclusive. Instructor formed groups may also be more time-intensive on the part of the instructor, as they might need to monitor group work more attentively.

Structure of Group

Likewise, there are benefits and drawbacks to a more or less structured group activity. Structured group activities give each student a specific role, as well as a more pre-determined agenda to follow. Loosely structured activities allow students to choose their own roles. On one hand, loosely guided groups allow for more autonomy; the assignment may not require strict roles. On the other hand, research shows that the most successful groups for international students are carefully planned and tasks allocated appropriately (Leki, 2001). For example, one student might be responsible for keeping brainstorming notes, another for keeping group members on task, and another for proofreading the final product. Roles will depend on the assignment and the instructor's expectations; but regardless, some structure or role guidance can aid with task allocation.

Role of the Instructor

The role of the instructor lies on a spectrum between little involvement and more involvement. Leki (2001) recommends that instructors be highly aware of group dynamics when the groups involve international students; this awareness allows instructors to intervene in "reconfiguring the positioning of the various group members (p.60)". For example, one student may become the "Boss" (e.g., the leader who allocates tasks) and another the "Writer" (e.g., the one who collects and writes everyone's answers). With the creation of these roles, international students might be left out, or feel voiceless. Having clear, meaningful roles for them to take gives them an opportunity to contribute where they might otherwise be sidelined. When instructors are tuned into these group dynamics, they can intervene appropriately. Some ideas for tuning into group dynamics include:

Think about the grading as a reflection of each student's' participation. What kinds of deliverables (like progress reports or student reflection) might provide evidence for participation?

Look at the students' participation in groups. What was the role of each student?

With regard to writing, how did each team member help the writing process along (something that might be aided with online composing platforms like wikis or cloud-oriented software like GoogleDocs)? What was the contribution of each person during the writing process?

Peer Response

Peer response activities provide a useful way for students to interact with each other and their writing; it may be included with or without the formation of small groups. Peer response activities have a number of benefits. It helps students make friends in the class, enhancing cross-cultural communication. Additionally, it allows international students the opportunity to read more native writing samples to help them better grasp American ways of writing and academic structure.

There are also a couple points to consider before using a peer response activity. International students may struggle to give feedback to their peers, especially the first time they attempt an activity like this. Students may focus their comments on grammar concerns, especially when they are reading international students' papers, instead of broader concepts and idea development. Therefore, instructors should first educate students on giving feedback based on a balance between idea development and grammar.

Preparing Students to Work with the Writing Center

The Writing Center at OSU ascribes to the model of peer-review by engaging students in interactive one-on-one or, in some cases, group tutorials. It provides students with an opportunity to gain another perspective on their ideas, allowing them to refine their writing while maintaining authorship. These sessions can be most effective when instructors are able to prepare their students for Writing Center sessions. Below, we highlight ways in which instructors can help students maximize their sessions at the Writing Center.

Stress that the Writing Center is not simply a remedial service for struggling writers: it's a service for all writers wishing to receive constructive feedback. The Writing Center's motto is that all writers need good readers. Working with good readers and getting feedback is important for writers who wish to develop their writing skills, regardless of whether they are novices or experts.

Consider giving students an understanding of what a Writing Center tutorial looks like. This will help students know what to expect during a tutorial and how they can best take advantage of the service. Moreover, many students are unaware of this service, so giving them an overview of the nature of a tutorial will enable them to identify how it will benefit them. If you are unfamiliar with how tutorials work, you can invite a Writing Center tutor to visit your class and give a five minute spiel as an introduction to the Center's work. If you are interested, please contact the Director of the Writing Center, Dr. Genie Giaimo (giaimo.13@osu.edu)

Emphasize that the Writing Center can help students at any stage in the writing process. Students often think that they have to bring a completed rough draft to Writing Center sessions; however, this is not the case. While tutors can aid students in putting the finishing touches on the final product, they can also help students who are at the the nascent stages of working through their ideas. To that end, tutors can help students brainstorm as well as organize and find clarity in their ideas.

Identify a specific set of manageable goals (2 or 3) for students to address throughout the session. This will help both the tutor and the student effectively structure their time in the session and ensure that the student is gradually working on developing the areas of concern that you've outlined. With the assistance of a tutor, a student can ensure that they understand your comments and work on developing their skills in relation to them.

Encourage students to bring all types of writing to the Writing Center. Writing tutors do not merely review essays; they also work with students to better their cover letters, lab reports, personal statements, PowerPoint slides and so on. Students should think of the Writing Center as a place to improve diverse types of writing.

Send the student with as much material about an assignment they are working on as possible (prompts, rubrics, etc). Assignment information will help tutors structure the session and help ensure that the student is carrying out your expectations for the assignment.

Ensure that students understand that they are meant to take ownership of the sessions, and make the final decisions. The Writing Center does not provide a proofreading service; rather, tutors work with the clients in the revision process and ensure that the writer ultimately has ownership over his or her writing. In collaborating with tutors, clients can clarify their ideas and make sure they translate on the page.

References

Leki, I. (2001). "A Narrow Thinking System": Nonnative-English-Speaking Students in Group Projects Across the Curriculum. TESOL Quarterly 35: 39-67.

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Supporting International Student Learning in the Classroom

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Apart from framing core learning goals and using them to design assignment sequences and classroom activities, there is a lot instructors can do to support their international students' (indeed all of their students') learning throughout a semester.

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Tips to encourage learning of Languages 

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Tips to encourage learning of Languages 

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For many, learning a new language can be a lifelong journey. But for those who learned the Irish language in school, it's quite often a situation where they are rediscovering the language.

Irish Language learners' journeys are different. Here are just some fascinating experiences that Irish language learners have had with a few great tips for good measure.

'I've always loved languages. At Junior Cert, I studied Irish, English, French, German and Latin, and I did well in all of them. When I left school, there was less of a structured space for me to speak any of these languages, and so they mostly fell out of use. I'll admit that of all of the languages I spoke, I saw the least use for Irish in a day-to-day context.'

'When I started working, I worked with many people for whom English was their second language. In some cases, I was the only Irish person on the team, and so I would be asked to explain why the language was on signs but was never spoken.'

'In some cases, I had colleagues who were excited that their kids were learning Irish in school - they would have a third language! I spent two years working in America, and while it was a wonderful experience, and I learned a lot about myself and about the world, I dearly missed Ireland. I promised myself that when we returned home, I would rekindle my language. There are a couple of things that helped me get to where I am, but the biggest has been finding an opportunity to speak what Irish I had every day.'

'At first, this was Twitter; Gaeilge Twitter is - for the most part - super supportive of anyone making an effort. I would sprinkle a cúpla focal here and there in my tweets, and if I were brave, I'd go for a whole sentence. Later on, I started using Discord - there's a server which was set up by Úna-Minh which is designed to give people the chance to speak Irish in a supportive environment, but which isn't as random as yelling into the void of Twitter.

'This online experience gave me the confidence to attend a couple of Pop-Up-Gaeltachtaí, where I realised that there's a big difference between talking Gaeilge online and talking in person.'

'Online, I'm often checking the dictionary to make sure I have the Tuiseal Ginideach correct. In person, I can have the craic even if my grammar isn't perfect. The last thing that helped me grow my Irish was deciding to speak it to my daughter.

'I started off with a few stock phrases ("An bhfuil bainne nó clúidín nua uait?"), but simply by speaking the language every day, and adding a new word or phrase here and there, now I'm much more comfortable with the language. My daughter is 14 months old, and she understands both Irish and English, and my wife has also been picking up Irish as we've been going along. So I guess my tip would be "beatha teanga í a labhairt" because speaking Irish every day has certainly brought it to life for me.'

'I did Irish in school 1973-1986 Leaving Certificate pass C. Got As in chemistry and physics went to UCD and my Irish rotted. Moved to Italy learned Italian, then Canada, and finally Holland in 2001. I learned Dutch and French and my sister Barbara was like 'shame on you for not learning Irish!'.

'I was 'it is no use to me' (I KNOW, I KNOW). She bought me Gaeilge Gan Stró and I LOVED IT!'

'I visited the Gaeltacht in 2013 (An Cheathrú Rua) and since then start buying Irish language books like Peig and Scothscéalta. I have set up a pop-up Gaeltacht here and we are going from strength to strength. Even Raidió na Life interviewed me!'

'My method for learning languages is to A) have a goal. For me, it was a weekend in the Gaeltacht and not speaking English at least for that weekend and B) 'rinse and repeat' learning. Do lessons 1-5 then revise, then 1-10 revise, 1-15 revise again, 1-20 revise.'

'Watch TG4, buy DVDs, read, speak and don't be afraid to make a complete twat out of yourself. In 2019 I finally found that I could converse in Kerry when ordering whiskey in O'Flaherty's and speaking to Fergus who saw me as a local when I returned later that year. I also hired a bike there all through Irish. I am a convert!'

'I learned Irish through school, but I never really enjoyed it. It wasn't the language itself, but it was the subject. In the same way, I would have given my left arm to never do Maths or French again! That said, I have always had a love for the language. There is a poetic quality to it, that unleashes hidden beauty in its description of the world around us and it's a historical archive of the people who lived and died through it.'

'Once I left school, like many, the language fell onto the wayside as my busy career took over but as my children came along, I knew I wanted them to be bilingual - for the 1000s of beneficial reasons but to be able to connect to the language of our heritage.'

'From that decision, I said I wouldn't ask them to learn something I wasn't willing to do too and wanted to be able to speak to them in Irish - and also had a nightmare realisation of sleepovers one day with 10 plus kids in my sitting room speaking a language I couldn't!. So, with those thoughts, I dusted down the files in my brain and restarted learning Irish.'

'Here are some of the things that helped me. The first and most important is to use the language every day'

'I speak to my kids and wife daily using as much Irish as much as possible. That doesn't mean you need to be fluent at all. It means you start with simple phrases related to a part of the day. For example, say 'hello' in the morning, say 'goodbye', say 'I love you'. Ask questions "Are you hungry?"' "Do you want a drink?".

'They don't have to speak back, just understand at the start and over time you will see them reply back. My kids playing with their cousins out in the garden and randomly speaking Irish or my 3-year-old shouting "Daddy, féach ar seo! Bóín Dé" with no prompt is heartwarming!'

'While this might seem like you are teaching the kids and not learning, you are. It helps you to discover new phrases. You talk in the language and then hit a wall "How do I say that?" Then you go figure it out. We use Irish when we are out from swimming and to the shops. This has built my vocab up to no end and my kids too. It's important for me that my kids see Irish as a normal part of our family and community. Not a subject to be learned.'

Foclóir.ie and Teanglann.ie are invaluable. You can look up words and hear how they sound as well as get examples of the phrases used and then see these across tenses. TG4 is nothing short of amazing. I have found watching cartoons with the kids, Dot and Is Mise jump to mind, which use Irish in a natural, well-enunciated way that is easy to follow. They also have subtitles in Irish so you can read as you hear, putting the sounds to the words. The documentaries have the same impact, but of course the Irish is more advanced, using vocab and grammar missed in the younger audience-focused shows.

'There are lots of books but I found Gaeilge Gan Stró series to be great starting points again with soundtracks of all the sounds. Another thing was reading to the kids in Irish at bedtime. We have a massive stocked booked shelf of Irish language books for kids, all of which have helped me and the kids explain our understanding and range in the language.

'The most important thing though is practice. You need to be speaking to people. To this end, I set up a monthly Lón as Gaeilge in work and discovered I work with a ton of speakers either from Gaelscoilanna or just passionate Irish speakers. This is great as you again hear people speaking about day-to-day topics as you would in English but you can also try out your skills. Don't worry about "getting it right" all the time. '

'I often have to code-switch and the folks know me well enough that I often ask them - 'How'd I say that correctly?'.

I also sought out groups in the area that set up lessons for adults and coffee mornings. I love just getting a chance to be around speakers who I can practice with and who can help me expand my abilities. Often these things can be hard to find outside of the bigger cities like Dublin.

You need to ask around and look in places like parish halls for notices for events and lessons - these often won't be published online.

Lastly, Twitter has been great to meet people who can help me with a small question and just to see the language in use but be careful as 240 characters mean some speakers will be forced to make grammar changes that confident speakers will have no issue understanding but might teach you bad habits.

PSA: Don't use Google Translate for more than a tool to help you figure things out but do the hard work and you'll remember it much better.

'I went to an integrated primary school in NI, so Irish wasn't taught at all, but one of the teachers had Irish and started running an Irish class after school, so that was my first exposure to it. '

'The teacher translated my name to Síle, which I'm grand with now, but this was back when the Sheila's Wheels adverts were running, so one of my mates used to sing the theme tune at me to wind me up!'

'So for years, all the Irish I could remember was 'Dia duit', 'cad é mar atá tú?' and the numbers 1-9. I was disappointed that Irish wasn't a choice in my secondary school, so I didn't actually get to start learning it until about 4 years ago when I stumbled across the Now You're Talking series on YouTube. I made my way through the first dozen episodes or so until it started going over my head.

'I tried reinforcing it with Duolingo, but this is back when Irish Duo's audio was weak, so I just lost interest in it. I was following as many Irish accounts on Twitter as I could, but I never really picked much up. About 2 years ago I came across an ad for Fáilte ar líne 's courses on Futurelearn and started those.

'I think that's about when it all started to actually kick into gear for me because I was being made to practice it, and I was having fun piecing together sentences from example sentences on foclóir.ie. After that I was able to get more involved in the Irish-language social media scene, I read tweets and occasionally talked to people - albeit very slowly piecing my sentences together.'

'Once I had a decent amount of vocab, I picked up a grammar book and worked through the exercises, and that did bring me up another level. That's also the only time I've spent money learning it - unless you count pints at a pop-up Gaeltacht! I do keep meaning to attend a class, as nobody I know IRL can speak it, but thus far I've yet to actually muster the motivation/social skills to actually do that.'

'Starting is the most frustrating part. If it feels like a chore, try something different. Get at least two types of learning resource - one for spoken Irish, one for written Irish. Make time to practice writing, whether on social media or just in a notebook, go on to Foclóir.ie, look up words and use the example sentences to give you a guide on the structure. Any words in the sentence you don't understand you can look up on Teanglann.ie. And while you shouldn't use English-Irish Google translate, I do find it quite handy to use Irish-English to catch spelling errors after writing a big wall of text.'
Want to indulge in more Irish language learners content? Check out 13 Irish audiobooks you can listen to for free here. You can also pick up my Irish language resources eBook "DIY Gaeilge" here.

I'm a freelance content creator, author, and journalist who has a strong desire to share interesting content about Irish people and things about Ireland at home and abroad. I am constantly curious.

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Irish Language learners share their stories and tips to become more fluent

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Irish Language learners' journeys are different. Here are just some fascinating experiences that Irish language learners have had.

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What are the most effective strategies for engaging and motivating international students in your classroom?

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What are the most effective strategies for engaging and motivating international students in your classroom?

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International students bring diverse perspectives, experiences, and cultures to your classroom, but they may also face unique challenges and barriers to learning. How can you create an inclusive, supportive, and engaging environment for them? Here are some strategies that can help you motivate and inspire your international students.

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What are the most effective strategies for engaging and motivating international students in your classroom?

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Learn some effective strategies for creating an inclusive, supportive, and engaging classroom for international students.

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Ways to Motivate and Engage Students with Learning Disabilities

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Ways to Motivate and Engage Students with Learning Disabilities

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5 Benefits of Teacher Collaboration in Education w/ Examples on How to Promote It

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5 Benefits of Teacher Collaboration in Education w/ Examples on How to Promote It

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5 Benefits of Teacher Collaboration in Education w/ Examples on How to Promote It

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See five benefits of teacher collaboration in education and some suggestions on how to promote collaboration in your school district.

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Inclusion and Motivation in the classroom 

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Inclusion and Motivation in the classroom 

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Children with learning disabilities need a great deal of encouragement, motivation, positive reinforcement and opportunities for success!

As a classroom teacher of EFL I have worked with many identified special needs children. At times it has been difficult, challenging and often daunting, but when a child turns to you at the end of a lesson and leaves your classroom with a smile from ear to ear you just know that you must be doing something right.

Having children with learning disabilities in the classroom is no easy task. A lot of planning, a variety of teaching strategies, appropriate support and structure is needed in order for the lesson to be successful. However, if you are a creative, caring, patient and resourceful teacher then the road to success with your class is on the right path.

Children with learning disabilities need a great deal of encouragement, motivation, positive reinforcement and opportunities for success. They often come from mainstream classrooms where they feel like a failure. These children tend to experience more setbacks, they face more challenges and obstacles than their peers. Improvement and success may come more slowly and less frequently, thus taking its toll on motivation and the will to persevere. Moreover, they often experience fear of failure, frustration, anger and lack of understanding.

So we who have been faced with having such children in our class have often asked ourselves; Where do I start from? What can I do to help these children? As a teacher and facilitator of learning I was once told by a very wise and experienced university professor, "Every child is good at something and it's your job as a teacher to find out what that something is."

All children with learning disabilities are capable of success. Each child will succeed according to his/her individual ability. We as teachers need to keep the following in mind;

let each student know that you believe in him/her

provide opportunities for success so as to build self-esteem

focus on the level of effort throughout a task and not solely on the outcome or end product

establish a pleasant and safe learning environment that encourages children to be actively involved in the process of learning.

Every child needs love, compassion, encouragement, and support. For children with learning disabilities such positive reinforcement and motivation can help assure that they emerge with a strong sense of self-worth, confidence and the determination and will to keep going when things get tough.

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Inclusion and Motivation in the classroom | JANTAR - Foreign language school

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Piše: Vesna Bakota, ravnateljica i profesorica Djeci s poteškoćama u učenju treba velika količina ohrabrivanja, motiviranja, pozitivnog podupiranja i prilika za

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Ways to promote Gaeilge throughout the Schoolday

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Ways to promote Gaeilge throughout the Schoolday

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Below you will find a list of simple suggestions for how a school/ teacher can encourage students to use and enjoy the Irish language throughout the school day.

Gaeilge Bheo! Is a fantastic resource and all Irish teachers should have a copy. I have had this since I started teaching and it has been invaluable to me in increasing the amount of Gaeilge neamhfhoirmiúil that I use. It has a list of all of the phrases that you might need in a school context which are organised by theme so it is very easy to find what you are looking for. When I stated teaching, I chose a phrase a week that I wanted to get into the habit of using, I wrote it on the board to remind me to use it, and I made an effort to use it as much as possible. When it had become a habit, I chose another phrase, and so on, until I was using a LOT of Gaeilge throughout the school day. I can't overstate how much this book helped me with this! Costs €12 from the Gael Linn website.

Frása an Lae - The above was useful for my own use of the Irish language, but in a similar way, you can have a "phrase of the day" for the children or make it "frása na seachtaine" if the children need more practice. Write it on the board and perhaps have a reward, such as a ticket for a raffle, for children that you hear making an effort to use it.

CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) - With the Primary Language Curriculum, the emphasis is on learning language skills that are transferrable from English to Irish and Irish to English, hence the learning outcomes are the same in both languages. Through CLIL there is an emphasis on communication and using Irish as an ordinary language for every-day activities. Through CLIL the teacher would build up the language skills necessary over a couple of weeks for the children to be able to complete a block of lessons in another subject, for example art or PE, through the medium of Irish.

Ag am lóin - Cur TG4 ar an gclár bán idirghníomhach msh. Sponge bob/ Garfield as Gaeilge/ Cúla 4 (or you can search YouTube for cartoons in Irish language). For older children, the can watch music videos and content such as TG Lurgan or Seo Linn's YouTube channel. Alternatively, read picture books to the children as Gaeilge. In my experience, children of ALL ages love picture books in Irish and it doesn't really matter if the children have limited Gaeilge as the pictures, your gestures and your tone of voice will help them to understand the story. You can also get popular picture books that the children would already be familiar with in English, as Gaeilge! This is fantastic as it helps the children in their understanding, and it also promotes the aim of the Primary Language Curriculum whereby skills learned in one language transfer to the other. com is a good retailer of Irish language books.

Sosanna Spleodracha - Movement breaks throughout the school day in Irish are available from Gaelbhratach Oifigiúil on YouTube. For younger children, I would use some simple action songs as a movement break/ transition between activites. Plura Lúra agus na Bopóga is my favourite Irish song book for the junior classes and has plenty of simple action songs.

Suaimhneas Short meditaions in Irish are also available from Gaelbhratach Oifigiúil YouTube.

Cluichí teanga sa chlós - Teach the children how to play some games for the yard using the Irish language, for instance "Deir O'Grádaigh" or "Cén t-am é a mhac tíre?". There are also skipping games on the Gaelbhratach Oifigiúil YouTube channel: Rainn Scipeála

Music - Include some songs as Gaeilge when covering the Listening and Responding strand of the music curriculum. Many songs are on on Youtube. Some suitable ones can be found on the Gaelbhratach Oifigiúil YouTube channel here.

Gaeilgeoirí an lae ó gach rang - You could give a raffle ticket or a sticker to children who have made an effort to speak Irish throughout the day. Irish language stickers are widely available online, just do a Google search.

Signage in Irish throughout the school - Irish is a living language to be seen and used through the school day. Bilingual signage should be in place throughout the school e.g. signs on classroom/ office doors, information posters etc.

Seachtain na Gaeilge - It probably goes without saying, but all schools should participate. It is a fantastic opportunity to create excitement about the Irish language and learning about Irish culture, history and heritage.

I hope you have found this helpful. If you have any other ideas on how to promote the Irish language, please leave a comment below!

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Ways to Promote Gaeilge Throughout the School Day - Teaching Plans Ireland

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Below you will find a list of simple suggestions for how a school/ teacher can encourage students to use and enjoy the Irish language throughout the school day.

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20 Classroom Management Strategies and Techniques 

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20 Classroom Management Strategies and Techniques 

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Paper airplanes fly across the room. Students race between desks. You can't get a word in, as they yell over you.

Disruptive behavior doesn't have to be this dramatic, like a movie scene you'd watch in a media literacy lesson, but poor classroom management will almost assuredly elevate your stress and burnout rates.

Unfortunately, a 2019 report indicates that teachers overwhelmingly report a lack of professional development support in improving classroom management. Despite this unideal situation, there are straightforward and effective classroom management approaches you can implement by yourself. These approaches can enhance prosocial student behavior and academic engagement, establishing an orderly learning environment.

Available as a downloadable list to keep at your desk, below are 20 research-backed classroom management strategies and techniques.

Use the ones that best appeal to your situation and teaching style.

Universal classroom management strategies for educators

These 20 classroom management techniques have shown to improve classroom behavior, build relationships for a better classroom community, and foster a positive classroom environment where student learning is the number one collective goal.

Try these effective classroom management strategies with your students to become a happier, more effective teacher.

1. Model ideal behavior

Make a habit of demonstrating behavior you want to see, as many studies show that modelling effectively teaches students how to act in different situations.

A straightforward way to model certain behaviors is holding a mock conversation with an administrator, other teacher or student helper in front of the class. Talking about a test or other relatable topic, be sure to:

Use polite language

Maintain eye contact

Keep phones in your pockets

Let one another speak uninterrupted

Raise concerns about one another's statements in a respectful manner

After, start a class discussion to list and expand upon the ideal behaviors you exemplified.

2. Let students help establish guidelines

Encourage all students to help you build classroom expectations and rules, as you'll generate more buy-in than just telling them what they're not allowed to do.

This is especially essential for new teachers. Near the start of the school year or during the first day of a semester, start a discussion by asking students what they believe should and shouldn't fly in terms of appropriate behavior.

At what points are phones okay and not okay? What are acceptable noise levels during lessons?

This may seem like you're setting yourself up for failure, but -- depending on the makeup of your class -- you may be shocked at the strictness of some proposed rules. Regardless, having a discussion should lead to mutually-understood and -respected expectations for your classroom culture.

3. Document rules
Don't let your mutually-respected guidelines go forgotten.
Similar to handing out a syllabus, print and distribute the list of rules that the class discussion generated. Then, go through the list with your students. Doing this emphasizes the fact that you respect their ideas and intend to adhere to them. And when a student breaks a rule, it'll be easy for you to point to this document.

You'll likely want to post these rules up in your classroom - if you haven't already - for occasional reference. If you're feeling creative, you can include the rule list in a student handbook with important dates, events and curriculum information, too.

4. Avoid punishing the class

Address isolated discipline problems individually instead of punishing an entire class, as the latter can hurt your relationships with students who are on-task and thereby jeopardize other classroom management efforts.

Instead, call out specific students in a friendly manner. For example:

"Do you have a question?", not "Stop talking and disrupting other students"

"Do you need help focusing?", not "Pay attention and stop fooling around while I'm talking"

This basic approach will allow you to keep a friendly disposition, while immediately acknowledging inappropriate behavior.

5. Encourage initiative

Promote growth mindset, and inject variety into your lessons, by allowing students to work ahead and deliver short presentations to share take-away points. Almost inevitably, you'll have some eager learners in your classroom. You can simply ask them if they'd like to get ahead from time-to-time.

For example, if you're reading a specific chapter in a textbook, propose that they read the following one too. When they deliver their subsequent presentations to preview the next chapter on your behalf, you may find that other students want a bit more work as well.

6. Offer praise

Praise students for jobs well done, as doing so improves academic and behavioral performance, according to a recent research review and study.

When it is sincere and references specific examples of effort or accomplishment, praise can:

Inspire the class

Improve a student's self-esteem

Reinforce rules and values you want to see

Perhaps more importantly, it encourages students to repeat positive behavior. Let's say a student exemplifies advanced problem-solving skills when tackling a math word problem. Praising his or her use of specific tactics should go a long way in ensuring he or she continues to use these tactics. Not to mention, you'll motivate other students to do the same.

7. Use non-verbal communication

Complement words with actions and visual aids to improve content delivery, helping students focus and process lessons.

Many differentiated instruction strategies and techniques are rooted in these communication methods. For example, running learning stations -- divided sections of your classroom through which students rotate -- allows you to deliver a range of non-spoken content types. These include videos, infographics and physical objects such as counting coins.

8. Hold parties

Throw an occasional classroom party to acknowledge students' hard work, motivating them to keep it up.

Even if it's just for 20 or 30 minutes, they should be happy with snacks and a selection of group games to play. Clarify that you're holding the party to reward them and they can earn future parties by demonstrating ideal behavior, collectively scoring high on assessments and more.

9. Give tangible rewards

Reward specific students at the end of each lesson, in front of the class, as another motivational and behavior-reinforcement technique.

Let's say a few students are actively listening throughout the entire lesson, answering questions and asking their own. Before the class ends, walk over to their desks to give them raffle tickets. So others can learn, state aloud what each student did to earn the tickets. On Friday, they can submit their tickets for a shot at a prize that changes each week -- from candy to being able to choose a game for the next class party.

10. Make positive letters and phone calls

Keep students happy in and out of class by pleasantly surprising their parents, making positive phone calls and sending complimentary letters home.

When the occasion arises, from academic effort or behavioral progress, letting parents know has a trickle-down effect. They'll generally congratulate their kids; their kids will likely come to class eager to earn more positive feedback. This can also entice parents to grow more invested in a child's learning, opening the door to at-home lessons. Such lessons are a mainstay element of culturally-responsive teaching.

11. Build excitement for content and lesson plans

This one works well no matter the grade level: elementary school, middle school or high school. Start lessons by previewing particularly-exciting parts, hooking student interest from the get-go.

As the bell rings and students settle, go through an agenda of the day's highlights for the whole class. These could include group tasks, engaging bits of content and anything else to pique curiosity. For example, "Throughout the day, you'll learn about:"

How to talk like you're a teacher (sentence structure)

Why you don't know anyone who's won the lottery (probability)

What all the presidents of the United States have had in common (social analysis)

The goal of this classroom management technique is to immediately interest students in your agenda and thereby dissuade misbehavior.

Ready to make learning an exciting adventure?

Use Prodigy to boost classroom engagement and excitement with two captivating learning games for math and English!

12. Offer different types of free study time

Provide a range of activities during free study time to appeal to students who struggle to process content in silence, individually.

You can do this by dividing your class into clearly-sectioned solo and team activities. In separate sections, consider:

Providing audiobooks, which can play material relevant to your lessons

Maintaining a designated quiet space for students to take notes and complete work

Creating a station for challenging group games that teach or reinforce standards-aligned skills

Allowing students to work in groups while taking notes and completing work, away from quiet zones

By running these sorts of activities, free study time will begin to benefit diverse learners. This should contribute to overall classroom engagement.

13. Write group contracts

Help student group work run smoothly and effectively by writing contracts that contain guidelines, having everyone sign.

Group contracts should be based on expectations that students have for each other, and you have for them. You can gather the class's thoughts by holding a discussion about what the ideal group member does, and how he or she acts. Once you've written the contract, encourage students to come up with consequences for violating expectations.

By having them sign a fresh version of the contract before each group task and project, you're empowering them to hold each other accountable.

14. Assign open-ended projects

Encourage students to tackle open-ended projects -- projects that don't demand a specific product -- to allow them to demonstrate knowledge in ways that inherently suit them.

This starts by giving the class a list of broad project ideas, asking each student to choose one. Be sure to provide a rubric for each project that clearly defines expectations. By both enticing and challenging students, you should notice they'll:

Work and learn at their own paces

Engage actively with appropriate content

Demonstrate knowledge as effectively as possible

With these benefits, students may actually look forward to taking on new projects.

15. Give only two scores for informal assessments

Recall a time you saw a big "F" in red ink on your work. You were probably too upset to review mistakes and feedback, and so are your students when they see the same.
So, consider avoiding standard marks on informal and formative assessments.
Instead, just state if a student did or did not meet expectations. Then, provide struggling students with a clear path to improve. For example, pair classmates who didn't meet expectations with those who did, giving them a review and practice activity. When strugglers are confident they understand key concepts, encourage them to tell you. Provide a new assessment, allowing them to prove their competency.

Classroom management strategies for individual students

16. Use EdTech that adjusts to each student

Give students who struggle to process your content opportunities to try educational technology that adapts to their needs.

There are many games and platforms that use adaptive learning principles to detect a given student's skill deficits, serving them content to help overcome them.

For example, Prodigy Math adjusts its content to help students in grades 1 to 8 address their trouble spots. It also offers feedback to help them solve specific mistakes, as they answer questions that use words, charts, pictures and numbers.

The best bit? Teaching tools are all available at no cost to educators and schools.
See the student experience below!
Educators, access at no cost

17. Interview students

Interview students who aren't academically engaged or displaying prosocial behavior to learn how to better manage them.

While running learning stations or a large-group activity, pull each student aside for a few minutes. Ask about:

What helps them focus

Who they work well with

Their favorite types of lessons

Their favorite in-class activities

Which kinds of exercises help them remember key lesson points

Note their answers to come up with activities and approaches that engage them, thereby limiting classroom disruptions.

18. Address inappropriate or off-task behavior quickly

Avoid hesitation when you must address inappropriate or off-task behavior, especially when a student breaks a documented rule.

Acting sooner than later will help ensure that negative feelings -- whether between students or you and a student -- won't fester. Failure to act can result in more poor behavior, leading to needlessly-difficult conversations.

But keep in mind: It's usually best to talk to the student in private. Research shows that punishing students in front of peers has "limited value."

19. Consider peer teaching

Use peer teaching as a classroom management strategy if you feel your top performers can help engage and educate disruptive and struggling students.

Peer teaching activities, such as pairing students together as reading buddies, can be especially beneficial for students who suffer from low confidence and poor interpersonal skills.

Authoritative research states tutors improve self-esteem and interpersonal skills by giving feedback. Tutees realize benefits because they can ask questions and receive immediate clarification. A later study of at-risk students echoes these advantages. Although you should spend time teaching peer tutors how to properly communicate with tutees, you'll likely find the benefits are worth the work.

20. Gamify personal learning plans

Motivate students on personal learning plans by gamifying those plans, as studies - such as recent research from South Korea - indicate this will continuously engage and incentivize them.

Consider gamification strategies such as:

Adjusting your scoring system -- Give experience points (XP) -- along with traditional scores -- on tests and assignments, setting a goal for the student to reach a certain amount of XP per unit. For example, if a student scores 60% on a quiz, give him or her 6,000 XP. You can also award XP for completing extra assignments, participating in class or anything else that shows effort to learn.

Using stages -- Refer to topics and units as stages. The former terms have clear connotations for you, but students may not see how they fit together. If they're gamers, they'll understand that reaching the next stage requires overcoming precursory challenges. Emphasize this by framing certain tasks as prerequisites to reach the next learning stage.

If these strategies work especially well for individual students, you should see similar success by using them as class-wide student management techniques.

Classroom management strategy FAQs

What is the best classroom management style?

According to Diana Baumrind's work, a clinical psychologist known for her research on parenting styles, some educators believe an authoritative classroom management style may the best one. This type of high control, high involvement classroom management style is characterized by strong expectations of appropriate behavior, clear understandings of why certain behaviors are acceptable and others not acceptable, and warm student-teacher relationships.

However, there is no specific approach that has been proven to be the most effective. So you may wish to review The Classroom Management Book by Harry K. Wong and Rosemary T. Wong which includes a variety of solutions that can be easily implemented. Every group of students has varying needs and will likely need a unique approach to help every student bring his or her best self to the classroom and be ready-to-learn every single day.

What are the four components of classroom management?

Implementing the top four components of classroom management from the start will set you and your students up for success all year long. They are:

Classroom design - be intentional about how you set up your desk, your students' desks, bulletin board displays, devices and other aspects of your classroom. Thoughtful classroom design can help create a safe and welcoming learning environment.

Rules/discipline - to create a safe and caring school community, develop classroom rules your students understand and - hopefully - respect. While it may not be fun, be sure to communicate that breaking classroom rules will have concrete yet fair consequences.

Scheduling/organization - being on time, keeping on task and staying organized will help set up your lessons (and your students' learning) up for success.

Instructional technique - while you may not have the flexibility you'd like when it comes to content and curriculum, you should have the freedom to choose how you teach. For example, 8th grade students may prefer a lecture-style lesson with small group discussions while 3rd grade students may prefer learning math with a digital game-based learning platform. Observe how your students learn best and use the classroom management strategies and techniques to teach your lessons.

Why is classroom management so important?

When done effectively, classroom management is important for three main reasons. It:

1. Creates and sustains an orderly learning environment in the classroom

2. Improves meaningful academic learning and fosters social-emotional growth

3. Increases students' academic engagement and lowers negative classroom behavior

Final thoughts about these classroom management strategies

These class-wide and one-on-one approaches to classroom management largely work across subjects and grade levels. Implementable without admin and parent support, they should empower you to establish an orderly - yet friendly and engaging - environment.

Look forward to better teacher-to-student and student-to-student interactions as a result.

Looking for a fun way to engage and reward your students? Try Prodigy Math! Aligned with curricula for grades 1 to 8, students will practice key skills while also exploring an exciting fantasy world.

Plus, you'll get access to free teacher tools that help you differentiate math content, send assessments and collect student insights - in just a few clicks.

Educators, access at no cost

Paper airplanes fly across the room. Students race between desks. You can't get a word in, as they yell over you.

Disruptive behavior doesn't have to be this dramatic, like a movie scene you'd watch in a media literacy lesson, but poor classroom management will almost assuredly elevate your stress and burnout rates.

Unfortunately, a 2019 report indicates that teachers overwhelmingly report a lack of professional development support in improving classroom management. Despite this unideal situation, there are straightforward and effective classroom management approaches you can implement by yourself. These approaches can enhance prosocial student behavior and academic engagement, establishing an orderly learning environment.

Available as a downloadable list to keep at your desk, below are 20 research-backed classroom management strategies and techniques.

Use the ones that best appeal to your situation and teaching style.

Universal classroom management strategies for educators

These 20 classroom management techniques have shown to improve classroom behavior, build relationships for a better classroom community, and foster a positive classroom environment where student learning is the number one collective goal.

Try these effective classroom management strategies with your students to become a happier, more effective teacher.

1. Model ideal behavior

Make a habit of demonstrating behavior you want to see, as many studies show that modelling effectively teaches students how to act in different situations.

A straightforward way to model certain behaviors is holding a mock conversation with an administrator, other teacher or student helper in front of the class. Talking about a test or other relatable topic, be sure to:

Use polite language

Maintain eye contact

Keep phones in your pockets

Let one another speak uninterrupted

Raise concerns about one another's statements in a respectful manner

After, start a class discussion to list and expand upon the ideal behaviors you exemplified.

2. Let students help establish guidelines

Encourage all students to help you build classroom expectations and rules, as you'll generate more buy-in than just telling them what they're not allowed to do.

This is especially essential for new teachers. Near the start of the school year or during the first day of a semester, start a discussion by asking students what they believe should and shouldn't fly in terms of appropriate behavior.

At what points are phones okay and not okay? What are acceptable noise levels during lessons?

This may seem like you're setting yourself up for failure, but -- depending on the makeup of your class -- you may be shocked at the strictness of some proposed rules. Regardless, having a discussion should lead to mutually-understood and -respected expectations for your classroom culture.

3. Document rules
Don't let your mutually-respected guidelines go forgotten.
Similar to handing out a syllabus, print and distribute the list of rules that the class discussion generated. Then, go through the list with your students. Doing this emphasizes the fact that you respect their ideas and intend to adhere to them. And when a student breaks a rule, it'll be easy for you to point to this document.

You'll likely want to post these rules up in your classroom - if you haven't already - for occasional reference. If you're feeling creative, you can include the rule list in a student handbook with important dates, events and curriculum information, too.

4. Avoid punishing the class

Address isolated discipline problems individually instead of punishing an entire class, as the latter can hurt your relationships with students who are on-task and thereby jeopardize other classroom management efforts.

Instead, call out specific students in a friendly manner. For example:

"Do you have a question?", not "Stop talking and disrupting other students"

"Do you need help focusing?", not "Pay attention and stop fooling around while I'm talking"

This basic approach will allow you to keep a friendly disposition, while immediately acknowledging inappropriate behavior.

5. Encourage initiative

Promote growth mindset, and inject variety into your lessons, by allowing students to work ahead and deliver short presentations to share take-away points. Almost inevitably, you'll have some eager learners in your classroom. You can simply ask them if they'd like to get ahead from time-to-time.

For example, if you're reading a specific chapter in a textbook, propose that they read the following one too. When they deliver their subsequent presentations to preview the next chapter on your behalf, you may find that other students want a bit more work as well.

6. Offer praise

Praise students for jobs well done, as doing so improves academic and behavioral performance, according to a recent research review and study.

When it is sincere and references specific examples of effort or accomplishment, praise can:

Inspire the class

Improve a student's self-esteem

Reinforce rules and values you want to see

Perhaps more importantly, it encourages students to repeat positive behavior. Let's say a student exemplifies advanced problem-solving skills when tackling a math word problem. Praising his or her use of specific tactics should go a long way in ensuring he or she continues to use these tactics. Not to mention, you'll motivate other students to do the same.

7. Use non-verbal communication

Complement words with actions and visual aids to improve content delivery, helping students focus and process lessons.

Many differentiated instruction strategies and techniques are rooted in these communication methods. For example, running learning stations -- divided sections of your classroom through which students rotate -- allows you to deliver a range of non-spoken content types. These include videos, infographics and physical objects such as counting coins.

8. Hold parties

Throw an occasional classroom party to acknowledge students' hard work, motivating them to keep it up.

Even if it's just for 20 or 30 minutes, they should be happy with snacks and a selection of group games to play. Clarify that you're holding the party to reward them and they can earn future parties by demonstrating ideal behavior, collectively scoring high on assessments and more.

9. Give tangible rewards

Reward specific students at the end of each lesson, in front of the class, as another motivational and behavior-reinforcement technique.

Let's say a few students are actively listening throughout the entire lesson, answering questions and asking their own. Before the class ends, walk over to their desks to give them raffle tickets. So others can learn, state aloud what each student did to earn the tickets. On Friday, they can submit their tickets for a shot at a prize that changes each week -- from candy to being able to choose a game for the next class party.

10. Make positive letters and phone calls

Keep students happy in and out of class by pleasantly surprising their parents, making positive phone calls and sending complimentary letters home.

When the occasion arises, from academic effort or behavioral progress, letting parents know has a trickle-down effect. They'll generally congratulate their kids; their kids will likely come to class eager to earn more positive feedback. This can also entice parents to grow more invested in a child's learning, opening the door to at-home lessons. Such lessons are a mainstay element of culturally-responsive teaching.

11. Build excitement for content and lesson plans

This one works well no matter the grade level: elementary school, middle school or high school. Start lessons by previewing particularly-exciting parts, hooking student interest from the get-go.

As the bell rings and students settle, go through an agenda of the day's highlights for the whole class. These could include group tasks, engaging bits of content and anything else to pique curiosity. For example, "Throughout the day, you'll learn about:"

How to talk like you're a teacher (sentence structure)

Why you don't know anyone who's won the lottery (probability)

What all the presidents of the United States have had in common (social analysis)

The goal of this classroom management technique is to immediately interest students in your agenda and thereby dissuade misbehavior.

Ready to make learning an exciting adventure?

Use Prodigy to boost classroom engagement and excitement with two captivating learning games for math and English!

12. Offer different types of free study time

Provide a range of activities during free study time to appeal to students who struggle to process content in silence, individually.

You can do this by dividing your class into clearly-sectioned solo and team activities. In separate sections, consider:

Providing audiobooks, which can play material relevant to your lessons

Maintaining a designated quiet space for students to take notes and complete work

Creating a station for challenging group games that teach or reinforce standards-aligned skills

Allowing students to work in groups while taking notes and completing work, away from quiet zones

By running these sorts of activities, free study time will begin to benefit diverse learners. This should contribute to overall classroom engagement.

13. Write group contracts

Help student group work run smoothly and effectively by writing contracts that contain guidelines, having everyone sign.

Group contracts should be based on expectations that students have for each other, and you have for them. You can gather the class's thoughts by holding a discussion about what the ideal group member does, and how he or she acts. Once you've written the contract, encourage students to come up with consequences for violating expectations.

By having them sign a fresh version of the contract before each group task and project, you're empowering them to hold each other accountable.

14. Assign open-ended projects

Encourage students to tackle open-ended projects -- projects that don't demand a specific product -- to allow them to demonstrate knowledge in ways that inherently suit them.

This starts by giving the class a list of broad project ideas, asking each student to choose one. Be sure to provide a rubric for each project that clearly defines expectations. By both enticing and challenging students, you should notice they'll:

Work and learn at their own paces

Engage actively with appropriate content

Demonstrate knowledge as effectively as possible

With these benefits, students may actually look forward to taking on new projects.

15. Give only two scores for informal assessments

Recall a time you saw a big "F" in red ink on your work. You were probably too upset to review mistakes and feedback, and so are your students when they see the same.
So, consider avoiding standard marks on informal and formative assessments.
Instead, just state if a student did or did not meet expectations. Then, provide struggling students with a clear path to improve. For example, pair classmates who didn't meet expectations with those who did, giving them a review and practice activity. When strugglers are confident they understand key concepts, encourage them to tell you. Provide a new assessment, allowing them to prove their competency.

Classroom management strategies for individual students

16. Use EdTech that adjusts to each student

Give students who struggle to process your content opportunities to try educational technology that adapts to their needs.

There are many games and platforms that use adaptive learning principles to detect a given student's skill deficits, serving them content to help overcome them.

For example, Prodigy Math adjusts its content to help students in grades 1 to 8 address their trouble spots. It also offers feedback to help them solve specific mistakes, as they answer questions that use words, charts, pictures and numbers.

The best bit? Teaching tools are all available at no cost to educators and schools.
See the student experience below!
Educators, access at no cost

17. Interview students

Interview students who aren't academically engaged or displaying prosocial behavior to learn how to better manage them.

While running learning stations or a large-group activity, pull each student aside for a few minutes. Ask about:

What helps them focus

Who they work well with

Their favorite types of lessons

Their favorite in-class activities

Which kinds of exercises help them remember key lesson points

Note their answers to come up with activities and approaches that engage them, thereby limiting classroom disruptions.

18. Address inappropriate or off-task behavior quickly

Avoid hesitation when you must address inappropriate or off-task behavior, especially when a student breaks a documented rule.

Acting sooner than later will help ensure that negative feelings -- whether between students or you and a student -- won't fester. Failure to act can result in more poor behavior, leading to needlessly-difficult conversations.

But keep in mind: It's usually best to talk to the student in private. Research shows that punishing students in front of peers has "limited value."

19. Consider peer teaching

Use peer teaching as a classroom management strategy if you feel your top performers can help engage and educate disruptive and struggling students.

Peer teaching activities, such as pairing students together as reading buddies, can be especially beneficial for students who suffer from low confidence and poor interpersonal skills.

Authoritative research states tutors improve self-esteem and interpersonal skills by giving feedback. Tutees realize benefits because they can ask questions and receive immediate clarification. A later study of at-risk students echoes these advantages. Although you should spend time teaching peer tutors how to properly communicate with tutees, you'll likely find the benefits are worth the work.

20. Gamify personal learning plans

Motivate students on personal learning plans by gamifying those plans, as studies - such as recent research from South Korea - indicate this will continuously engage and incentivize them.

Consider gamification strategies such as:

Adjusting your scoring system -- Give experience points (XP) -- along with traditional scores -- on tests and assignments, setting a goal for the student to reach a certain amount of XP per unit. For example, if a student scores 60% on a quiz, give him or her 6,000 XP. You can also award XP for completing extra assignments, participating in class or anything else that shows effort to learn.

Using stages -- Refer to topics and units as stages. The former terms have clear connotations for you, but students may not see how they fit together. If they're gamers, they'll understand that reaching the next stage requires overcoming precursory challenges. Emphasize this by framing certain tasks as prerequisites to reach the next learning stage.

If these strategies work especially well for individual students, you should see similar success by using them as class-wide student management techniques.

Classroom management strategy FAQs

What is the best classroom management style?

According to Diana Baumrind's work, a clinical psychologist known for her research on parenting styles, some educators believe an authoritative classroom management style may the best one. This type of high control, high involvement classroom management style is characterized by strong expectations of appropriate behavior, clear understandings of why certain behaviors are acceptable and others not acceptable, and warm student-teacher relationships.

However, there is no specific approach that has been proven to be the most effective. So you may wish to review The Classroom Management Book by Harry K. Wong and Rosemary T. Wong which includes a variety of solutions that can be easily implemented. Every group of students has varying needs and will likely need a unique approach to help every student bring his or her best self to the classroom and be ready-to-learn every single day.

What are the four components of classroom management?

Implementing the top four components of classroom management from the start will set you and your students up for success all year long. They are:

Classroom design - be intentional about how you set up your desk, your students' desks, bulletin board displays, devices and other aspects of your classroom. Thoughtful classroom design can help create a safe and welcoming learning environment.

Rules/discipline - to create a safe and caring school community, develop classroom rules your students understand and - hopefully - respect. While it may not be fun, be sure to communicate that breaking classroom rules will have concrete yet fair consequences.

Scheduling/organization - being on time, keeping on task and staying organized will help set up your lessons (and your students' learning) up for success.

Instructional technique - while you may not have the flexibility you'd like when it comes to content and curriculum, you should have the freedom to choose how you teach. For example, 8th grade students may prefer a lecture-style lesson with small group discussions while 3rd grade students may prefer learning math with a digital game-based learning platform. Observe how your students learn best and use the classroom management strategies and techniques to teach your lessons.

Why is classroom management so important?

When done effectively, classroom management is important for three main reasons. It:

1. Creates and sustains an orderly learning environment in the classroom

2. Improves meaningful academic learning and fosters social-emotional growth

3. Increases students' academic engagement and lowers negative classroom behavior

Final thoughts about these classroom management strategies

These class-wide and one-on-one approaches to classroom management largely work across subjects and grade levels. Implementable without admin and parent support, they should empower you to establish an orderly - yet friendly and engaging - environment.

Look forward to better teacher-to-student and student-to-student interactions as a result.

Looking for a fun way to engage and reward your students? Try Prodigy Math! Aligned with curricula for grades 1 to 8, students will practice key skills while also exploring an exciting fantasy world.

Plus, you'll get access to free teacher tools that help you differentiate math content, send assessments and collect student insights - in just a few clicks.

Educators, access at no cost

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20 Classroom Management Strategies and Techniques [+ Downloadable List]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Paper airplanes fly across the room. Students race between desks. You can't get a word in, as they yell over you. Disruptive behavior doesn't have to be this dramatic, like a movie scene you'd watch in a media literacy lesson, but poor classroom management will almost assuredly elevate your stress and burnout rates.

# data[].attributes.headline
Keeping Special Education Students Motivated: Tips and Tricks - The Institute for Habits of Mind

# data[].attributes.subject
Keeping Special Education Students Motivated: Tips and Tricks - The Institute for Habits of Mind

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Keeping Special Education Students Motivated: Tips and Tricks - The Institute for Habits of Mind

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Daniel Vollrath is a special education teacher, and a United States Professional Development Trainer for the Institute for Habits of Mind. As a current educational leader within the classroom, Daniel’s best practices, strategies, goals, classroom culture, and interactions with students with a learning disability are centred around the Habits of Mind. Read more from Daniel […]

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Supporting and Engaging Pupils with SEN in the Classroom: Guidance for Teachers

# data[].attributes.subject
Supporting and Engaging Pupils with SEN in the Classroom: Guidance for Teachers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Being able to effectively support children with special educational needs (SEN) in the classroom is an essential part of any teacher's job. Recent figures show that in a mainstream setting, you may (on average) encounter four children in every class who require support for special educational needs.

Research suggests that the behaviour and practice of the classroom teacher has the greatest impact on the academic and social outcomes of children with SEN (Efthymiou & Kington, 2017). However, whilst ultimately responsible and accountable for the progress of these children, some mainstream teachers worry that they are not effectively supporting SEN in the classroom (Warnes et al., 2021).

In this article, we aim to help increase your confidence in implementing effective teaching strategies and approachesfor pupils with special educational needs.

The contents of this article are as follows:

What Are the Different Types of Special Educational Needs?
Note: For the purposes of this article, we will be using the preferred person-first terminology, such as 'supporting children with special educational needs', rather than terms such as 'supporting special needs children' or 'teaching strategies for SEN pupils'.
The SEND Code of Practice (2015) defines a child or young person as having special educational needs due to a learning difficulty or disability if he or she:

Has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of others of the same age, or

Has a disability which prevents or hinders him or her from making use of facilities of a kind generally provided for others of the same age in mainstream schools or mainstream post-16 institutions.

Many children and young people who have SEN may also have a disability under the Equality Act 2010. Children and young people with disabilities do not necessarily have SEN, but there is a significant overlap between children and young people with disabilities and those with SEN. This article focuses primarily on SEN.

Types of SEN

There are many types of special educational need and the SEND Code of Practice (2015) defines four broad areas of need, as follows:

Communication and interaction.

Cognition and learning.

Social, emotional, and mental health difficulties.

Sensory and/or physical needs.

If children have an Education Heath Care (EHC) plan, or personalised outcomes linked to High Needs Funding, the targets on these documents will be organised into the four broad areas of need.

The children you teach with SEN may have just one area of need or a combination. Many commonly encountered conditions will impact on more than one area.

Autism Spectrum Disorder is the most prevalent primary need stated on EHC plans for learners aged 4-17, and it would not be unusual for many autistic learners to display needs in all four main areas.

The Communication Trust suggests that co-morbidity (children having more than one developmental difficulty) is the rule rather than the exception, and this can sometimes make categorising primary needs difficult.

Below, we list some of the most common conditions that are often associated with these four broad areas of special education needs.

Communication and Interaction

Cognition and Learning

Social, Emotional, and Mental Health Difficulties (SEMH)

Sensory and/or Physical Needs

A child may be diagnosed with developmental delay in any of these areas. General Developmental Delay would usually involve difficulties in all the areas.

Whilst these areas help to categorise some of the needs, and can point you in the right direction with regards to possible strategies and interventions, each learner's areas of strength and need are different.

How Can SEN Affect a Child's Learning in School?

Just as each child's needs are different, the impact of those needs whilst learning can vary. Children can experience both academic and social barriers due to their SEN, meaning that they are unable to reach their personal potential.

Without proper support or accommodations in place, those barriers could manifest in anxiety, disengagement, and frustration, sometimes resulting in challenging behaviours within school.

These could include:

Withdrawn behaviours, including expressing anxiety, school phobia, truancy, and social isolation.

Disruptive behaviours, such as calling out in class, angry outbursts, swearing, screaming, or refusing to follow instructions.

Violent and/or unsafe behaviours such as physically harming themselves or others, running away, and damaging property.

If you're finding it difficult to handle challenging behaviour in your setting, our Challenging Behaviour course provides you with the knowledge and strategies you need to respond appropriately. Take a look at our course library for more information about our range of training available.

By effectively supporting SEN in the classroom through tailoring your learning environment and teaching practice to best meet their needs, you can help to ensure that these barriers are reduced.

A child's area of need may change throughout their school journey. Some children's levels of need (especially those with a diagnosed condition) will mean that they have special educational needs for their entire school career. Others may have fluctuating or isolated needs. For example, an intervention to improve gross motor skills in the early years could lead to issues being successfully addressed, bringing skills back in line with age expectations.

Teaching Strategies for Supporting Children with SEN

Some of the ways of supporting SEN in the classroom will simply be an extension of your general good practice in the classroom, whilst other, more specific strategies may be particularly useful in supporting particular needs.

Once a child is identified as having a special educational need then it is likely you will receive, via your Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCo), details of some recommended strategies or interventions that you will then need to factor into your everyday planning and classroom management.

There will also be occasions, often earlier in a child's school career, where you may suspect that child has some difficulties or additional needs, and become involved in the process of trying to pinpoint what they might be, or whether any underlying conditions are present.

In these cases, it is advisable to use your professional judgement and to begin to put some strategies in place for supporting SEN in the classroom, in consultation with your SENCo, even before any formal identification of the need.

In March 2020, The Education Endowment Fund (EEF) published a guidance report on Special Educational Needs in Mainstream Schools, highlighting best practice.

The following sections illustrate some teaching strategies that may be beneficial in meeting the needs of pupils with SEN. These are followed by some further practical tips to consider implementing in your setting.

1. Creating a Positive and Supportive Environment for All Pupils, Without Exception

A positive and supportive environment for all pupils should be underpinned by whole-school policies, practices, and culture - such as maintaining a consistent and positive approach to behaviour.

Additionally, you could use the following strategies in your classroom to reinforce this:

This includes explicit teaching around wellbeing and mental health (as per the statutory health curriculum requirements). You should also communicate with and respond to pupils in a manner which promotes their wellbeing at all times.

Additional practical strategies, such as introducing a class feelings board as part of the class' daily routine, can have many benefits. Here, pupils can indicate their emotions by attaching their name or photograph to a class chart that is divided into different feelings.

This helps all children consider and express their emotions in a visual way, but especially benefits children with SEMH needs or SLCN. It gives an indication to adults working with them of how they are feeling today, which in turn allows you and your team to adapt your practice (e.g. you might decide to start with a movement break if you have a full 'tired' board one morning) or take time to follow up with the individual child. This strategy can also be useful in terms of safeguarding, as over time it can build a picture and allow you to see patterns. For detailed training on children's and young people's mental health, click here.

Positive Relationships

Prioritising, modelling, and encouraging positive relationships has also been shown to be a valuable strategy in supporting children with SEN. Many children with SEN, especially autistic children, report higher incidences of bullying (Rowley et al., 2012), so facilitating positive attitudes to difference - and supporting those children with social difficulties to maintain positive friendships - is extremely valuable.

An inclusive school environment has been shown to have a positive effect not only on those with special educational needs, but also those without.

2. Building an Ongoing, Holistic Understanding of Pupils and Their Needs

Each child's needs are different and you will know that what works for one child will not necessarily help a child with a similar diagnosed need.

There are some conditions that may appear to present differently in the classroom between the sexes, such as autism and ADHD, and may necessitate different approaches in terms of support. For more information on how these conditions may present differently in females, visit our dedicated articles, Autism in Females: Is it Different? and How Does ADHD Differ in Females?.

By getting to know the particular needs of the individual child, you will be able to put in place personalised strategies and interventions to support them.

Communicating with Colleagues and Parents

When working with a child with SEN, knowledge-sharing and keeping lines of communication open helps you to support the child in the most effective way, building on previous successes, and responding to changes.

Your SENCo should provide you with detailed information regarding the child's area of need and agreed outcomes, and copies of any reports and recommendations from other specialists and professionals who may be involved with the child.

Information and observations shared between colleagues are vital in producing a rounded view of the child's needs and progress. Prior to working with the individual, you should seek information from previous teachers and teaching assistants, both to learn what has been effective and to ensure continuity of approach (for some autistic children or those with anxiety disorders, this continuity - especially at times of transition - is extremely important.)

Creating and maintaining open and honest lines of communication with parents of children with SEN will also help you to develop a more holistic understanding of the child, their strengths, and their difficulties. There is also a statutory duty to communicate with parents of children with SEN at intervals to report on progress, and to discuss future outcomes and targets.

However, some of the most valuable communication comes in more regular, less formal contact. A home-school contact book or diary can be a simple method of establishing a two-way routine of information sharing with parents.

Talking to the Child

The most important source of information that should be consulted continuously is the child or young person themselves. It is a statutory requirement that the views and wishes of the young person are taken into account when decisions are made regarding SEN provision, and that they are involved in the decision-making process as much as possible.

They can often tell you where their perceived difficulties are, and evaluate how effective the measures put in place to support them are. For example, it is counter-productive to give a fiddle toy to a child with ADHD if they personally feel singled out by it and perceive this as negative - this will not help to promote focus or reduce anxiety, so it's important to know how they feel about it.

Using a child's personal interests can also be a powerful tool to foster engagement and is particularly recommended in the case of autistic children. These special interests can be incorporated into learning activities or help you to create personalised reward systems.

3. Continual Evaluation

As you will know, something that proves successful one term might not have the same impact the next. Indeed, what works for a child in the morning might not have the same impact in the afternoon.

As part of the SEND Code of Practice, the government proposes an Assess, Plan, Do, Review cycle of evaluation and adaptation, which can work on a smaller, more regular scale in your classroom.

Your school will most likely have guidelines on how often you need to review SEN outcomes, interventions, or provision plans. By continually reflecting on the effectiveness of what has been put in place, and making adjustments in light of that, you can ensure you are providing the most effective support at that time.

For example, if a child has been allocated the same phonics intervention to support literacy difficulties for some time and is not making the expected progress, then it is probably time to change the approach.

The principles of continued evaluation also apply to your own confidence in supporting pupils with SEN. You may encounter a need or condition which you wish to explore in more depth, or might wish to learn more about a specific intervention. In this case, you should request the opportunity for any specific training you feel would help.

4. Ensuring All Pupils Have Access to High-Quality Teaching

Certain teaching strategies, which will already be part of your general practice, will benefit all pupils (including those with SEN) if they are used flexibly and you take into account their needs, making accommodations or introducing scaffolds as required.

When planning lessons:

Ensure tasks are effectively differentiated and ambitious in their outcomes for all students. Organise work for learners with SEN in smaller chunks with plenty of opportunities for revisiting and over learning, where appropriate. This might involve smaller follow-up tasks.

Use technology where appropriate to scaffold the learner. This may include equipment, apps, or specialist software such as Clicker, which can effectively support SEN.

Deploy other adults in the classroom to effectively facilitate learning.

Incorporate flexible grouping - do not always group children with similar SEN together; allow them to learn from their peers.

Plan in the use of talk partners - this gives children with SEN access to peer support and the ability to rehearse their responses.

One of the most powerful tools at your disposal to help support learners with SEN is your own communication. SLCN make up the greatest proportion of special educational needs in mainstream schools, so adapting your communication (both spoken and written) can go a long way to supporting those with difficulties.

Some key principles include:

Keep instructions clear and concise.

Deliver instructions facing the children.

Do not issue multiple instructions at once.

Give children an opportunity to repeat instructions back to you.

Accompany verbal instructions with visual aids (these can be symbols, images, or text - some schools, especially in the early years and primary sectors, have also introduced Makaton signs to accompany spoken language).

Where appropriate, allocate other adults to re-word and re-frame instructions and information for those with SLCN.

Verbalise your thought process whilst modelling activities, including strategies to remember what you need to do.

Avoid idiomatic language - phrases such as 'pull your socks up' or 'reach for the stars'.

Other ideas for improving your own communication can be found in our dedicated article here.

5. Complementing High-Quality Teaching with Carefully-Selected Small Group and One-to-One Interventions

You will most likely have learners in your class who need to access particular interventions in order to fulfil their potential, in addition to the high-quality whole-class teaching that you are providing.

Which Interventions Should Be Chosen?

Your SENCo will be able to advise as to which interventions would be best to meet the child's particular needs (learners with ECH plans or High Needs Funding outcomes will often have these documented), as well as advising who best to run the intervention.

Inventions should be allocated for a pre-agreed period of time, accompanied by measurable goals, and regularly evaluated. Some schools will require teachers to produce a provision plan detailing the interventions that are taking place within the class.

When Should Interventions Take Place?

All learners have a statutory right to a broad and balanced curriculum, so care must be taken to ensure that those children with SEN are not consistently removed from lessons for interventions.

The school day is time-pressured but careful planning on your part can help to ensure that learner's needs are met, whilst still enabling children to access the same activities as other learners. For example, always utilising assembly time for interventions would deny the child inclusion in a valuable part of school life.

Consistently removing children from wider curriculum subjects - such as art or PE - to have extra intervention on a skill they struggle with not only denies them a valuable part of the statutory curriculum, but also success at subjects they can potentially access just as well as their peers. Instead, they are made to do more of what they struggle with. This could affect self-esteem and engagement, reducing the likelihood of a successful intervention.

Many outcomes can be factored into allocated lesson times with personalised planning (for example, SALT objectives could be covered during adult-led discussions in literacy). Where an intervention needs to take place outside the classroom - for example, a Sensory Circuits session to support focus in a child with ADHD - these can often be factored into transition times.

There may also be particular inventions recommended for an individual with SEN that would benefit the entire class. By making it part of the whole-class routine, the child gets the benefit of the activity but is not singled out or taken out of whole-class teaching to receive it.

Good examples include strategies often recommended for pupils with ADD or ADHD, such as taking regular brain or movement breaks, or incorporating mindfulness practice into the daily routine. These generally improve the wellbeing and productivity of the entire group.

6. Working Effectively with Teaching Assistants

Teaching assistants are as essential to supporting learners with special educational needs as teachers. Many are incredibly skilled in delivering specific interventions, as well as providing excellent support within the classroom.

However, the key is to work effectively with teaching assistants, and to plan their support of learners with SEN in order to provide the highest quality support. Teaching assistants should be involved in the continual planning and evaluation process, and should be provided with the time, training, and resources necessary in order to be well-prepared for their role.

In the past, there was sometimes a tendency to support learners with SEN by simply providing them with a TA, whom they worked with almost exclusively, sometimes in place of the teacher.

Past research has shown that this is not beneficial, as it does not help to foster independence, promote inclusion, or offer agency to the learner. However, if the teachers and teaching assistants work effectively together, providing high-quality, targeted support, this can be a powerful strategy in helping to meet the needs of learners with SEN.

7. Other Strategies

The following tips are some relatively simple accommodations that could be made to help support SEN in your classroom.

Classroom Environment

Careful consideration to how your learning space is organised can significantly support learners with SEN in the classroom and remove potential barriers to success.

Think about:

Limiting classroom decoration or displays (this can help prevent autistic children or those with sensory issues from being visually overloaded).

Avoiding black on white presentation and varying the background colours (this can aid students with VI, dyslexia, and conditions such as Irlen Syndrome).

Using a visual timetable throughout the day (autistic children and those with anxiety disorders can benefit from this).

Using visuals for classroom organisation (this will help scaffold spoken instructions, benefiting children with SLCN and autistic children, whilst also providing support to younger learners and EAL learners).

Making a work station available for learners to use when they need it (this can help support autistic learners and learners with ADHD and ODD by providing a place to access which is quiet).

Classroom Equipment

You may be able to support an individual's special educational needs through the provision of certain equipment. Your SENCO will be able to advise with regards to these, but some examples are:

Writing slopes (dyslexic learners and those with motor skills difficulties can be helped by these).

Specialised pencil grips.

Ear defenders (children with sensory issues including autistic learners can benefit from these, as can children with ADHD or ADD, helping to block out some of the background noise).

Wobble cushions (these can help 'ground' learners with ADHD).

Task management boards (these can be written, image-based, or a combination of both, and help with structure, self-organisation, and focus - particularly useful for autistic children and those with SLCN, ADD, or ADHD.

Have You Listened to our SEND Podcast?

In this episode of the High Speed Training Podcast, we are joined by Anita Devi, CEO and Founder at Team ADL, a not-for-profit committed to enabling everyone to thrive in education, employment and life. Alongside Anita is Mike Fleetham, Director and Lead Trainer at Thinking Classroom, an education mentoring organisation that has worked with over 500 schools, local authorities and organisations, and Dr Richard Anderson, Head of Learning and Development at High Speed Training. Click on the link below to access:
In summary, although there is no 'one size fits all' to support pupils with SEN, you can provide support to pupils with SEN in many varied ways, including: creating a positive and inclusive learning environment; consistently applying good general practice, providing high quality teaching for all; getting to know the personal needs of the individual learner; communicating honestly, openly, and regularly; carefully planning effective SEN interventions, accommodations and scaffolds; and continually evaluating your provision. We hope this article has given you some helpful suggestions for your practice.
Further Resources:

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Supporting Pupils with SEN in the Classroom: Guidance for Teachers

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Supporting pupils with special educational needs is an essential part of a teacher's job. Find teaching strategies for supporting SEN in the classroom here.

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Motivating Special Needs Children - Special Learning

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Motivating Special Needs Children - Special Learning

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Children with Autism should be given small rewards every time they give appropriate responses. These 'reinforcers' or rewards have to be interesting enough to a child to serve as motivation and should be based on a child's personal interests and preferences. These rewards may help in the development of their social, language, and behavioral skills. Here are some ways to effectively motivate your child:

Use of Positive Reinforcement

Praising a child for every right action made or giving him another try when he gave a wrong answer are positive reinforcements that will encourage more participation from the child and open a communication line between you.

Encourage Activities Such as 'Social Stories' and 'Scripting'

These will help in the behavioral development of verbal and non-verbal children, which is very important as early detection can decrease future social isolation and improve communication skills.

Allow Them to Choose Their Own Activity

Make them choose the activity they want to do and join them at it until they initialize eye contact with you.

Use Play Therapy

Children with autism can be motivated by using teaching skills that promote play and self-expression.

It provides them with a sense of accomplishment.

Reward Children with Favorite Toys or Food

Give them something to strive for by giving them something they truly like every time they accomplish something.

Use Music Therapy

Simple and repetitive phrases can help in developing the language skills of children with autism. It also helps them change monotone speech patterns by matching their voice to music rhythms. It can also promote social interaction by motivating them to join group activities.

Integrate Activities that Affect the Level of Sensory Stimulation

This will help them adjust to different sensory stimulation, which can normally overwhelm them.

Constantly Introduce New Fun Activities

Studies showed that autistic children learn faster, stay focused, and are generally more behaved when fun tasks are regularly changed.
Copyright © by Special Learning Inc. All right reserved.
No part of this article may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, contact Special Learning Inc., at: contact@special-learning.com

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Motivating Special Needs Children - Special Learning

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Children with Autism should be given small rewards every time they give appropriate responses. These 'reinforcers' or rewards have to be interesting enough to a child to serve as motivation

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How to Motivate Students in PE Through Proven Instructional Models - SHAPE America Blog

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How to Motivate Students in PE Through Proven Instructional Models - SHAPE America Blog

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"How do I get my students motivated?" This question is one that many physical education teachers frequently ask themselves. Gaining and maintaining student motivation in PE can seem like a major barrier, particularly for teachers in middle school and high school.

Although getting students to participate and be engaged can seem elusive, teachers can take steps to enhance the learning environment and to be more motivating. This process should start with questions like, "What am I teaching?" and "How am I teaching it?"

While we know PE content should be selected based on state standards and SHAPE America's National Standards for K-12 Physical Education (answering the "what" question), sometimes the "how" can be a little trickier.

Using Proven Instructional Models

Two instructional models widely accepted in our field to increase student motivation, learning, and attitudes toward physical activity, fitness, and sport are the Sport Education (SE) model and the Cooperative Learning (CL) model.

One important note about these techniques is that they are driven by empirical evidence in research and practice over the last 20-30 years. Yet, we still often see traditional direct methods of PE delivery dominate our field. This point cannot be underscored enough.

It can be easy for teachers to rely on anecdotal experience for what works best. However, it's important to acknowledge these systems are not working for the most part and we are not reaching our intended goals, as a field, using traditional direct styles of instruction and content development.

We do have evidence that Sport Education and Cooperative Learning strategies provide optimally supportive learning environments for students that prioritize physical, cognitive and affective learning.

This point on addressing all three learning domains deserves one important note. Students are most motivated when they feel competent, autonomous and supported. Group learning strategies and roles associated with the Sport Education and Cooperative Learning models provide ideal situations for teachers to not only target physical learning, but to prioritize providing the students progressively more autonomy in the PE environment, more decision-making, and collaboration to solve problems together as a group as opposed to solving teacher-centered problems in isolation.

Thus, the cognitive and affective sides of learning in PE directly impact student motivation and must be targeted, as they often are with evidence-based best practices.

In our article (" Enhance Student Motivation and Social Skills: Adopting the Sport Education and Cooperative Learning Models") in the October 2020 issue of JOPERD, we review the essential components of the Sport Education and Cooperative Learning models and include recommendations for resources and professional development, as well as steps to getting started.

Sport Education Model

Sport Education is founded on offering the "team sporting" experience for all students regardless of physical and athletic ability.

Students experience in-depth "seasons" (i.e., units) that target both skills and tactical decision-making in different games and lifetime activities.

Every student is placed on a mixed-grouping team and each student holds both playing and non-playing roles (i.e., player and coach; player and equipment manager).

The teacher isolates both game development and role development; students are rewarded for completing roles to a high degree and contributing to teammate improvement.

The teacher takes an indirect style progressively, over the unit, and allows students to run practices, games, team collaboration and conflict resolution opportunities.

Overall end goal: students who are competent, literate and enthusiastic with game/activity.

Contrary to popular misconceptions, the Sport Education model is not a traditional model for teaching sports skills and having game play. Also, this model is not limited to only traditional team sports. Lastly, students do not have to be experts in the skills of the game/activity before offering a unit with this model.

Cooperative Learning Model

Cooperative Learning is founded in three goals which include fostering academic cooperation, encouraging positive relationships, and enhancing academic learning and development.

The model targets learning goals that require group interaction, discussion, interdependence among students, and individual/group responsibility.

Cooperative Learning is often embedded in many models, including Sport Education, targeting group processing of information and focusing on students developing small group collaboration.

Cooperative Learning includes prioritized process and performance goals; groups are rewarded for going through the steps as well as for completing the tasks cooperatively.

The teacher makes intentional and systematic plans to teach cooperative, collaborative, and problem-solving skills to students and then allow opportunities for students to practice.

The teacher provides greater student choice and voice by offering options and allowing students to make decisions, which leads to more ownership of learning and student accountability.

Contrary to popular misconceptions, the Cooperative Learning model is more than simply placing students in a group or assuming that if students are in a group they will "learn responsibility". In addition, the model can be used to teach both cooperative or competitive tasks.

Professional Development Resources

All teachers should strive to offer great learning opportunities for their students; however, students' needs, interests and learning abilities change and vary. Teachers who adopt the mindset of being a lifelong continuous learner will be able to continue to adapt and meet student needs.

Ongoing professional development for PE can be challenging with limited in-school targeted sessions or knowledge. Sometimes, it can feel easier to say, "The way I'm doing it now is fine." However, quality professional development doesn't only help with a teacher's professional disposition, it is an investment in your students' experience. Change can be scary and difficult, but when you have evidence, guidance and motivation, you're likely to build a better program for students.

Here is a list of resources and suggestions for teachers:

Professional Texts: Although reading these books may seem like "going back to school," these texts provide a step-by-step road map for implementation and they often have lessons, units and web resources!

Practitioner Examples: The advantages of journals like JOPERD and Strategies is that in-service teachers and teacher educators often publish work on "how to" implement stages and offer many examples right from the classroom!

Online Resources: Any quality professional development work online should target models, evidence and best practices. Avoid online work targeting one-off activities and games with limited sequential learning goals. PE is more than simply getting kids active, and models like Sport Education and Cooperative Learning offer activity, learning and motivation that transfers to real life!

University Teacher Education Programs and Learning Communities: If you're reading this, you're showing an initiative to learn and improve and there are many of you out there! Consider the university and K-12 personnel in your community and those who publish articles (like you're reading now) and reach out!

Suggestions for Getting Started

Picture a physical education class where most of the students show engagement and motivation, contribute to the tasks, support one another, and are well-behaved. If that is your goal and you are ready to try new instructional techniques using the Sport Education model or Cooperative Learning model, we suggest the following:

1. Use articles and research like this to weigh the benefits of using a student-centered approach and pick an evidence-based model you think works best for your students.

2. Do not be concerned with not knowing what to do! Models come with instructions and a framework so you can build a knowledge framework and planning materials to help you get started. This is your map and learning the model will take a little time and practice.

3. Build a professional network. Reach out to university PETE programs for partnership. Doing this will benefit both parties in terms of offering quality PE, using best practices, and researching what is working! All jobs take continual upkeep; find other teachers in your district or field who have the same passions and learn together (relatedness motivation, just like our students!).

4. Don't expect instant success and don't try to implement everything all at once! Students have likely been conditioned to direct styles of PE and non-learning outcomes for many years now. Start with a new batch of students and start with 1-2 classes at a time. You're learning as it happens too, so give yourself time to reflect and ask questions.

Additional Resources

Angelo Montoya
Kelly Simonton
Karen Gaudreault

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How to Motivate Students in PE Through Proven Instructional Models - SHAPE America Blog

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Two instructional models widely accepted in the physical education profession to increase student motivation in PE are the Sport Education model and the Cooperative Learning model.

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How to Engage High School Students Who Really Don’t Want to Engage

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High school students are full of various characters and this leaves teachers wondering how to engage high school students. Here are some tips to keep in mind.

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What are the most effective strategies for promoting student engagement in physical education?

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What are the most effective strategies for promoting student engagement in physical education?

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Physical education (PE) is an essential part of the K-12 curriculum, as it helps students develop their physical, mental, and social skills. However, many students may not be motivated or interested in participating in PE activities, especially if they face challenges such as low self-esteem, lack of confidence, or peer pressure. How can teachers promote student engagement in PE and make it a fun and rewarding experience for everyone? Here are some effective strategies that you can use in your PE classes.

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What are the most effective strategies for promoting student engagement in physical education?

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Learn how to use different activities, choices, feedback, contexts, environment, and involvement to promote student engagement in physical education.

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Motivating Students in Physical Education

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Motivating Students in Physical Education

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Motivating Students In Physical Education

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Motivating students in physical education has never been more important! Check out 8 tips and strategies for student motivation in PE.

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How to Get Your Students Motivated in PE (and Beyond)

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How to Get Your Students Motivated in PE (and Beyond)

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How to Get Your Students Motivated in PE (and Beyond)

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The key to keeping your students motivated in PE is developing their intrinsic motivation. We put together four strategies to build PE motivation.

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20 Interactive Teaching Activities for in the Interactive Classroom

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20 Interactive Teaching Activities for in the Interactive Classroom

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Interactive teaching is all about instructing the students in a way they are actively involved with their learning process. There are different ways to create an involvement like this. Most of the time it's through

teacher-student interaction

student-student interaction

the use of audio, visuals, video

hands-on demonstrations and exercises

You encourage your students to be active members of your class, thinking on their own, using their brains, resulting in long-term memory retention. Not only the students' knowledge will improve, but their interest, strength, knowledge, team spirit and freedom of expression will increase as well.

In this blog post, I will talk about the use of interactive methods for teaching, encouraging more dedication towards the lesson material. We will see some interactive teaching tools, interactive teaching ideas, and interactive teaching games.
Not only will I talk about the use of interactive methods of teaching, but I'll also give you some examples of methods used in the present classroom as well.

Ready? Let's find out some interactive classroom activities to engage your pupils!

3 Effective interactive teaching strategies to encourage speech in your classroom

First, I want to put some activities in the spotlight. The following interactive student activities are three of the most effective ways to encourage more speech in your classroom.

1. Think, pair and share

Set a problem or a question around a certain topic, and pair up your students. Give each pair of students enough time so they can reach a proper conclusion, and permit the kids to share their conclusion in their voice. This way your students will be engaged, communicating, and remember more of the class than ever before.

2. Brainstorming

Interactive brainstorming is mostly performed in group sessions. The process is useful for generating creative thoughts and ideas. Brainstorming helps students learn to work together, and above all, learn from each other. You'll be surprised by all the great ideas they come up with! Check out these 8 fun brainstorming apps you can use in your classroom, or use BookWidgets' Mindmap widget to structure thinking.

3. Buzz session

Participants come together in session groups that focus on a single topic. Within each group, every student contributes thoughts and ideas. Encourage discussion and collaboration among the students within each group. Everyone should learn from each other's input and experiences. As a teacher, you could give your students some keywords to spark the conversation.

Of course, there are many other interactive teaching ideas as well. I split up the activities in different categories:

Individual student activities

Student pair activities

Student group activities

Interactive game activities

Individual student activities

4. Exit slips

These are best used at the end of the class session. You'll ask the students to write for one minute on a specific question. It might be generalized to "what was the most important thing you learned today". Then, you can decide if you are going to open up a conversation about it in your next class. You can ask them if they still remember what they wrote down. Need a digital exit slip template? Try this one from BookWidgets and learn more about the possibilities of an exit slip. Looking for inspiration? Check this out! You will find 60 examples of digital exit tickets.

5. Misconception check

Discover students' misconceptions. See if students can identify what is the correct answer when given a false fact. It's useful when going over a previous lesson. It encourages students to think deeply and wager all the possibilities.

6. Circle the questions

Make a worksheet or a survey that has a list of questions (make them specific) about your topic, and ask students to circle (or check) the ones they don't know the answers to. Then, let them turn in the paper.

Create corners concerning different questions that were circled. Let your students work on the extra exercises and explanation in the corners, individually. As your students will all have circled different questions, you have to give each student a different and personalized order to visit the corners.

7. Ask the winner

Ask students to silently solve a problem on the board. After revealing the answer, instruct those who got it right to raise their hands (and keep them raised). Then, all other students have to talk to someone with a raised hand to better understand the question and how to solve it next time.

Student pair activities

8. Pair-share-repeat

After a Think-pair-share experience, which I've written about in the first interactive learning lesson idea, you can also ask students to find a new partner and share the wisdom of the old partnership to this new partner.

9. Teacher and student

Let students brainstorm the main points of the last lesson. Then, pair up your students and assign them 2 roles. One of them is the teacher, and the other the student. The teacher's job is to sketch the main points, while the student's job is to cross off points on his list as they are mentioned and come up with 2 to 3 points that the teacher missed.

10. Wisdom from another

After an individual brainstorm or creative activity, pair students to share their results. Then, call for volunteers who found their partner's work to be interesting or exemplary. Students are often more willing to share the work of fellow students publicly than their work. Of course, you can always encourage sharing their objectives as well.

11. Forced debate

Let students debate in pairs. Students must defend the opposite side of their personal opinion. It encourages them to step away from their own beliefs and teaches them to look through a different colored glass once in a while.

Variation: one half of the class takes one position, the other half takes the other position. Students line up and face each other. Each student may only speak once so that all students on both sides can engage the issue.

12. Optimist/Pessimist

In pairs, students take opposite emotional sides of a case study, statement, or topic. Encourage them to be empathic and truly "live" the case study. You'll discover some good solution proposals and your students will learn some exceptional social skills.

13. Peer review writing task

To assist students with a writing assignment, encourage them to exchange drafts with a partner. The partner reads the essay and writes a three-paragraph response: the first paragraph outlines the strengths of the essay, the second paragraph discusses the essay's problems, and the third paragraph is a description of what the partner would focus on in revision if it were her essay. Students can learn a lot from each other and themselves as well! Here are 10 more creative self-assessment ideas.

Student group activities

14. Board rotation

This interactive learning strategy is even more interactive than others! Divide your class into different groups of students and assign them to each of the boards you've set up in the room. Assign one topic/question per board. After each group writes an answer, they rotate to the next board. Here, they write their answer below the first answer of the previous group. Let them go around the room until all the groups have covered all the boards. Not that many boards in your classroom? Try using tablets and BookWidgets' interactive whiteboard.

15. Pick the Winner

Divide the class into groups and let them work on the same topic/problem. Let them record an answer/strategy on paper or digitally. Then, ask the groups to switch with a nearby group and let them evaluate their answer. After a few minutes, allow each set of groups to merge and ask them to select the best answer from the two choices, which will be presented to the complete class.

16. Movie Application

In groups, students discuss examples of movies that made use of a concept or event discussed in class, trying to identify at least one way the movie makers got it right, and one way they got it wrong. Think about movies showing historical facts, geographical facts, biographies of famous people, ...

Interactive game activities

Create an interactive classroom full of interactive learning games. Games are so much fun for students since it doesn't feel like learning. With BookWidgets, you can make interactive learning games like crossword puzzles, pair matching games, bingo games, jigsaw puzzles, memory games, and many more in minutes (and there's a Google Classroom integration as well).

17. Crossword puzzle

The crossword game is perfect to use as repetition activity. Choose a list of words and their description, and BookWidgets creates an interactive crossword for you. The crossword game transforms these boring lessons into a fun experience. Here you can read more about how to create them and for which topics you can use them (not only for teaching languages)!

18. Scrabble

Use the chapter (or course) title as the pool of letters from which to make words (e.g., mitochondrial DNA), and allow teams to brainstorm as many words relevant to the topic as possible. You can also actually play scrabble and ask students to form words from the newly learned vocabulary.

19. Who/what am I?

Tape a term or name on the back of each student. You can also tape it on their forehead. Each student walks around the room, asking "yes or no" questions to the other students in an effort to guess the term. Of course, the term has something to do with your lesson topic.

20. Bingo

Bingo is a fun game that can be used for all sorts of exercises: language exercises, introductory games, math exercises, etc. Take a look at this blog post with all the different bingo possibilities here. You'll be surprised about how many interactive lesson activities you can do with just one game.

Want to create a bingo game yourself? You can start for free right here:

Wrap up

That's it! Like in any list, you could add many other interactive lesson ideas. I could go on for quite a while myself. But what about you? Share your creative, interactive classroom ideas in our Facebook Group. This way, we can build out this article with many more great ideas!

One more thing... Don't forget to follow us on Twitter! 😉

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20 interactive teaching activities for in the interactive classroom

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Interactive teaching is all about instructing the students in a way they are actively involved with their learning process. There are different ways to create an involvement like this.

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Stimulating Student Interest in Language Learning: Theory, Research and Practice

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Stimulating Student Interest in Language Learning: Theory, Research and Practice

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Stimulating Student Interest in Language Learning: Theory, Research and Practice

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How to get students interested in language learning activity is a question which has occupied classroom teachers and teacher educators, including myself, f

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Motivation in Language Learning and Teaching

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Motivation in Language Learning and Teaching

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Stimulating Student Interest in Language Learning -Theory, Research and Practice

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Stimulating Student Interest in Language Learning -Theory, Research and Practice

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Theory, Research and Practice

Access this book

Other ways to access

Table of contents (10 chapters)

1. Interest: Definitions and Theories

2. Exploring the Interest Construct with Reference to Second Language Learning/Teaching

3. Stimulating Student Interest in Language Learning: Applying Theory and Research to Inform Teaching and Practice

About this book

This book explores the issues and concerns many language teachers have in not just helping able students to learn a foreign or second language but more importantly how to get reluctant learners to become interested in language learning. Tin proposes 'interest' as an important construct that requires investigation if we are to understand second language learning experiences in a modern globalised world. The book offers both theoretical explorations and empirical findings arising from the author's own research in the field. Chapters demonstrate how various theoretical and empirical findings can be applied to practice so as to raise the awareness of the importance of interest in language learning and teaching. For teacher trainers and educators, researchers, and practising language teachers, this comprehensive study provides tools to stimulate student interest in language learning for successful language learning.

Reviews

"The book is a monograph based on a longitudinal qualitative study investigating student interest in institutional language learning. I believe the book will be most relevant to graduate students and researchers. ... The major strength of this book I believe is that it applies theorizing from areas other than language learning to investigate interest in language learning. ... I believe this book is a welcome addition to the literature and provides some deep insights into the concept of student interest." (Lindy Woodrow, tesol Quarterly, Vol. 52 (4), December, 2018)

"This book is a worthwhile contribution to the literature on English language teaching, for researchers, teacher educators ... . It brings together as never before the research and theory of the central topic from a wide range of sources, and shows how it applies to ELT. The content is presented in a well-organized sequence, with regular reader-friendly summaries and conclusions. There are some thought-provoking practical suggestions." (Penny Ur, ELT Journal, Vol. 71 (4), October, 2017)

Authors and Affiliations

The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Tan Bee Tin

About the author

Tan Bee Tin started her career as an English language teacher in Myanmar/Burma. She has widely published in international journals (e.g. Applied Linguistics, Language Teaching Research, ELT Journal), focusing on language learning and teaching in peripheral contexts and the role of interest and creativity in language learning and teaching.

Bibliographic Information

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Stimulating Student Interest in Language Learning

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Theory, Research and Practice Interest: Definitions and Theories Exploring the Interest Construct with Reference to Second Language Learning/Teaching Stimulating Student Interest in Language Learning: Applying Theory and Research to Inform Teaching and Practice This book explores the issues and concerns many language teachers have in not just helping able students to learn a foreign or second language but more importantly how to get reluctant learners to become interested in language learning.

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Strategies to Increase Motivation in your Language Learners

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Strategies to Increase Motivation in your Language Learners

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Motivation plays a key role in all facets and types of learning. But it's perhaps most important in language learning, where progress can be difficult to see on a day-to-day basis. Learners with a positive attitude to their course and their studies are more likely to continue working hard and to keep going when times are tough. Although not everyone who is motivated to learn does eventually achieve their goal, many learners who do are frequently highly motivated individuals.

Maintaining high levels of student motivation is vital for language educators. Reeve (1996) confirms that: "Student motivation is influenced by both internal and external factors that can start, sustain, intensify, or discourage behaviour." Sparking these elements into life is therefore a key part of the teacher's role, but how can you do this regularly and effectively?

This blog post describes 7 effective strategies for inspiring students and maintaining their motivation for learning new languages.

In order for an educator to motivate a student, it's important that they understand the learner's motivation for learning languages in the first place. The extensive research investigating the link between language learning and motivation identifies two main types of motivation. Some learners have an intrinsic motivation for learning - they want to learn a language because of an internal force to do so. Usually they have an interest in the language or they just love learning or are perhaps more open to self-improvement.

On the other hand, extrinsic motivation is powered by an external source. Learners are studying a language for a particular purpose - to get a job, a qualification, to travel or perhaps because a parent has sent them to language school to study!

Of course, people's motivation for learning frequently changes and their levels of motivation will also fluctuate - often seemingly on a class by class basis!

One of the most motivating ways to learn a language is through close collaboration and communication with other students, giving learners the opportunity to practice their communication skills. In turn, one of the quickest ways to demotivate a student is to minimise their participation and involvement.

Students learn best by speaking, listening, making, writing, creating and solving - ie. in the active learning mode instead of passive learning. Small-group activities and pair work facilitate these active learning opportunities and boosting self-confidence can also increase their motivation to learn. They also allow all students (even the quietest ones) to express their ideas and working cooperatively can also reduce behaviour incidents and build a mutually supportive classroom environment.

Creating a classroom environment that is conducive to learning and where students feel able to grow and succeed is clearly a key element in building students' motivation. Allowing students to personalise their learning space can also have a positive, motivational effect.

One key element to consider is where students sit and how the classroom is oriented. Wherever possible, try to create a layout which maximises eye contact, both between teacher and student and also between students. Linked to this, it's important that students are all physically included and that no-one is sitting alone or outside pairs / groups. The classroom also needs space for students to move from group to group, but not so much space that the atmosphere is quiet and there's little engagement in the lesson.

Professor Zoltán Dörnyei from Nottingham University is an expert in motivation studies. His work in the field has clearly identified that learners who are able to construct clear mental images of themselves as successful second language speakers tend to more often achieve their goals. Dörnyei explains that educators " should take the perspective of trainers and cheerleaders, helping learners to imagine themselves in their ideal L2 personae and thus leverage their motivation to better their learning outcomes ".

Perhaps the best way to do this is to provide a step-by-step plan that gives each learner a clear and achievable route to achieving their goals. As such, ensuring that and showing how each lesson and activity clearly contributes to those targets is vital. Constantly reminding students of the objective they are working towards can also pay dividends.

5. Personalise learning and give students agency

When students are offered choice and flexibility in their learning, they are more clearly able to see and feel that it has been tailored and personalised to their individual learning styles. Students then feel that they have licence to say what they want to say and how they want to say it. Educators who offer this flexibility motivate learners to go the extra mile and make more than expected progress.

For a more detailed article on how to promote student agency, please see our blog post here.

Whatever their core motivation for learning a language, all students want to feel that the learning activities they undertake are interesting, meaningful and relevant. It is important that they are learning skills that are designed to be used and that they are not just learning for learning's sake.

Language educators who focus their efforts on teaching students the skills to communicate with native speakers of their target language in real-world situations are therefore powerfully able to motivate learners to progress. Particularly when they also deploy realia and other authentic content (e.g magazines, social media posts and film / TV content) so that students can immediately see the applicability of their learning in the real world.

Most language learners want to succeed, so the careful use of praise and positive feedback can be powerful motivators to encourage their continued progress. As outlined at the beginning of this post, students can find it difficult to see the progress that they're making or where they need extra support / work. So there's an important role for language educators to play in providing that guide - marking assignments and detailing where improvement can be made is clearly a key part of this work.

Students who feel a sense of achievement will inevitably feel more self-confident, better able to lead their own learning and more motivated to succeed. Of course, it's a fine balance to ensure that your feedback doesn't slip into constant criticism of students who make mistakes. Students should feel that these are all part of the learning process and should be encouraged to take risks and stretch themselves beyond their current learning level.

One additional way in which language educators can motivate students is by using engaging educational technology in their teaching.
Below is a screenshot from Sanako Connect's automated pronunciation grading. Students can easily practice pronunciation with fun and simple activities and get automated feedback.
Sanako's market-leading language teaching and learning tools for schools and universities include a wealth of unique features that help language educators to motivate students to keep learning. It's why the world's leading educational institutions choose Sanako as their preferred supplier to support online and in-classroom lesson delivery.

For example, our Sanako Connect platform enables language educators to:

Offer a wide range of opportunities to practice core language skills. In fact, Sanako Connect has been specifically designed to increase the time each student spends speaking and actively practicing conversations during classes whether you teach in the classroom or remotely.

Create lessons that grab their attention, are creative and which make use of a wide variety of different stimulus materials. Connect makes it easy for teachers to upload a wide variety of learning material for students to use. Any number of interactive content, PDFs, presentations, YouTube videos and web pages can, for example, be easily attached to an online lesson plan and shared with students.

Make lessons easy to access and resources easy to find. With Connect, students can flexibly participate in lessons from anywhere with an internet connection and can conveniently access all of the language lesson resources within a single application.

Help demonstrate the progress students are making and simply provide feedback on areas for future development. This can be easily shared with students via Sanako Connect's feedback functionality, which allows educators to add time-coded feedback for student's speech and pronunciation recordings.

Tailor their teaching to every student's needs. Connect helps language educators to identify student engagement with each lesson and each sub part. Connect notifies the teacher when, for example, students recorded their speaking practice or whether they opened the translation exercise. Teachers can clearly identify progress (or the lack of) and address areas for improvement with targeted lessons and resources.

Click the button below to book a FREE remote demo and learn more about how Sanako Connect supports language teachers and students.

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7 strategies to increase motivation in your language learners

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This blog post describes 7 effective strategies for inspiring students and maintaining their motivation for learning new languages.

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How to Encourage Student Interest in Foreign Language Learning - Learning Personalized

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How to Encourage Student Interest in Foreign Language Learning - Learning Personalized

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People who learn new languages get so many benefits from it. They gain practical knowledge, learn valuable things about foreign cultures, and discover a whole new world outside of their own. However, English-speaking countries have by far the lowest interest in foreign language learning. Recent surveys have revealed that not more than 7% of college students in the U.S. participate in a language course.

It is true that academic authorities in almost all countries in the world consider English a preferable second language but it doesn't mean that learning other languages became futile for native English speakers. So how can you encourage students to learn another language?

5 tips to make students more interested in a language course

Language teachers have the privilege but also a great responsibility to make their students more interested in foreign languages. Here are 5 things they can do to make this happen.

1. Explain the benefits

As a teacher, you should be wise enough to subtly explain the benefits of learning languages to your students. Try to elaborate how mastering foreign languages is rewarding and beneficial. You can also add that language learning correlates with better academic results. This applies to career and self-development as well.

And keep reminding students that not everything is about English- other languages such as Chinese, Spanish, or French are widely spoken and used in the scientific and political community. Additionally, students will probably consider it worthwhile if you suggest that knowing one more language could make them look cool among their peers.

2. Let them know the results of learning

Let students see the results of their learning every once in a while; it's up to you to choose how. There are numerous ways to do it but keep in mind that young people are usually impatient and yearn for some encouragement from your side.

It may be done by organizing a language speaking club with discussions on the specific topic that they already perfected. Introduce gamification elements with scores and objectives, so that students can enjoy achieving results through correct use of foreign language. Any method that makes students feel proud about the progress they made is valid.

3. Let art help you

It's often very practical to involve art in the language course. Popular culture is always a good tool to attract students' attention- feel free to include movies, songs, interesting stories, or even cartoons into the learning process. It will help young scholars familiarize with the content and learn by association.

Every kind of art that you consider unconventional or exciting can help you immerse them into the language and culture discussions. The result will most likely be an open conversation about the topic, which will eventually lead to better understanding of the language they learn.

4. Make them use the language

Theoretical knowledge is the basic precondition for language learning but it is even more important for young learners to practice what they learn. Therefore, you should create possibilities for them to use the language. You may invite native speakers from time to time and organize debates, where many students will understand what they do or don't know.

Of course, mistakes come as a natural part of this process so you have to provide support and encourage students not to give up on expressing their opinions in foreign language. The more they speak the more they are going to learn.

5. Give rewards

We already mentioned that language students need occasional encouragement and support, but it should be one of your top priorities since a nice reward is always the best way to keep them interested and engaged. Give your praise to the best learners but also approve the knowledge of the most dedicated students or the ones who do some extracurricular activity.

Conclusion

Today's kids are not that much into language learning. But with enough dedication and passion from their teachers, it's not too difficult to make them more interested. A nice combination of teaching techniques and practical lessons will be able to motivate and inspire students to learn faster and more effectively. Keep our 5 tips in mind when giving a language lecture and you'll find the results much better and the job more satisfying.

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How to Encourage Student Interest in Foreign Language Learning - Learning Personalized

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Only 7% of college students in the U.S. take a language course. How can we better encourage interest in foreign language learning?

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20 Strategies for Motivating Reluctant Learners | KQED

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20 Strategies for Motivating Reluctant Learners | KQED

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1. Don't Be Boring
"In our engaging classrooms, we have to have a set of procedures and routines," Perez said. But they don't have to be boring. She often has students come in and look at a list of adjectives on the board, many of which stretch her students' vocabularies. She asks them to greet two other students and use one of the adjectives to describe how they are feeling today. The activity gets them up, moving and ready to learn, plus they've used a new vocabulary word in relation to themselves, checking in with their community along the way.

2. Vote
Activate students' brains with a quick round of voting. Perez often puts three learning goals for the day up on the board and asks students to vote for the one they think is most important. All three goals are good ones and there's no wrong answer. "The reluctant learners get to look around the room and see who else thinks just like them," Perez said. This quick activity helps create curiosity among students about what each of them is thinking.

3. Set Goals
Perez is also a proponent of both teacher and students setting personal learning goals every day that are achievable, believable and measurable. "Part of reaching that goal is publicizing that goal," Perez said. Making goal-setting a regular and visible part of one's teaching practice models it for students. But it's very important to leave time for students to revisit the goal they set at the end of the day, Perez said. That opportunity to reflect will help them see and value what they did during the day, as well as where they may have fallen short of the goal.

4. Form Groups
Perez constantly asks her students (in this case a group of educators) to break off to share with one another, brainstorm or collaborate, and she always sets a time limit for the conversation, like 72 seconds. "In my classroom I use bizarre time limits and then they think I'm actually watching the clock and they get to it," Perez said. She finds this promotes more time on task than a generic five-minute time limit, which students know is just as likely to stretch into eight minutes.

5. Quick Writes
Often Perez will throw out a question and ask students to quickly brainstorm on paper as many answers as they can. Then she'll do a "popcorn share" where students stand up whenever they want and throw out an idea. This could be an alternative to something like "round-robin reading," which can put reluctant learners in the hot seat. In this case, Perez sets her students up for success by giving them time to brainstorm first -- the answers are right in front of them. This strategy has the added value of forcing students to listen closely to their peers, since they don't know who will pop up next.

6. Focus on the ABCs: Acceptance, Belonging and Community
"Without this set of ABCs, traditional ABCs will not be as successful," Perez said. She's aware of the rush to cover content in many schools and classrooms, but says teaching is not about what is covered today, it's about what is uncovered in students. "Don't be so standards-driven that you forget the needs of your students," she said.

7. Continually change the "state" of the classroom
These are changes in who is providing the information, who is doing the talking. Perez likes to say for every 10 minutes of content, teachers need to give students two minutes of "chew time."

8. Empathize
Keep in mind the students' perspective and listen when they explain what they need to learn. Take Ned's Great Eight to heart.
NED's GREAT EIGHT

I feel OK

It matters

It's active

It stretches me

I have a coach

I have to use it

I think back on it

I plan my next steps

9. Do a BRAIN checklist

Build a safe environment

Recognize diversity in the classroom

Assessment must be formative, authentic and ongoing

Instructional strategies should be a palette of opportunities

New models

"We've got to be growing and open to new ideas," Perez said. "That's why teaching is such an adventure. Each day you walk into the classroom, you never know what you're going to get."

10. Simplify
Perez suggests framing every lesson in a similar format, but executing it differently each time. First activate the learners by making them curious and developing a need-to-know. Then, let them dig into the content in an exploratory phase that takes them deeply into rich content. Last, help scaffold students' broader understanding by helping them integrate it with what they already know. Some metacognitive questions that can get them thinking this way include: What part of the lesson did you like the best? What part was the most difficult for you? Why do you think that was? What do you think you can do today to help yourself stay focused?

"If we don't give our kids time to reflect, to connect, to marinate on the information, they're going to regurgitate what's right there in front of them without even thinking," Perez said. Reflection and rehearsal of what was learned is crucial to move information from working memory into long-term memory.

11. Chunk Information
Make information more easily digestible for students. "We need to be more purposeful in our delivery of information," Perez said. Too often teachers deliver an entire lesson without letting students move or discuss once. Kids will give up if they are overloaded with facts, and chunking provides a way to pause and let students think over what they've learned. Breaks to assimilate information are crucial for mastery.

"Lesson mastery means students have mastered the content when they do something substantive with the content beyond echoing it," Perez said.

12. Props
Perez keeps a box of props for when she's teaching. She often throws something to a child when it's his turn to talk so he has something to focus on. She says this works particularly well for kids with attention problems, as well as for the tactile learners.

13. Breaks
Short video clips can be a great brain break. A great clip can be interpreted in multiple ways. "You're fostering divergent thinking," Perez said.

14. Post-Its
Post-It note discussions are a good way to get all students involved without making anyone uncomfortable by putting them on the spot. Ask an open-ended question. It could be an activator at the beginning, a marinator in the middle, or even a summarizer to test for understanding at the end of a lesson. Students jot down their answers to the prompt on Post-Its. English Language learners or special needs students could write just one word or draw something. Then students share in pairs. "Even the most reticent learner is OK sharing one-on-one." Perez said. Post all the responses on a graffiti board and pull out some trends.

15. Make Snowballs
The Snowball brain break is one of Perez' favorite ways to summarize learning at the end of a lesson (and should be done when students are on their way to recess or at the end of the day). Students write answers to a prompt on a piece of paper. On the count of three, they throw their "snowball" randomly up and away (but not at anyone). Then everyone grabs a snowball that landed near them."It's a way you can purposefully pause, have them reflect and make connections," Perez said. She uses it in all subjects, sometimes asking students to write three new vocabulary words they learned, or three successes they had in that lesson, or three questions. "Students love it and it's inclusionary because it's anonymous," Perez said. Students also get to see one another's thinking in this activity.

16. Guessing Games
When slightly boring content must be covered, create a need-to-know in students by having them predict the answers. Students are more likely to be invested in the answers when they are revealed after students themselves have had a chance to debate and predict.*

This strategy among others is meant to get students to manipulate and think about the information themselves. "If the teacher does all the interacting with the material, the teacher's brain, not the students' brains, will grow," Perez said. That's why Perez advocates that teachers have a large toolkit of approaches to get students thinking, speaking, writing, touching, building, listening and, most importantly, doing something with the content.

17. Balanced Inquiry
Lectures do have a time and a place, but they are far more effective when they are interactive. Perez likes Harvey Silver's guide for an effective lecture: connect new knowledge to existing knowledge, organize the materials into chunks, dual code the information so it's stored in multiple places and exercise the brain.

"It's a matter of balance to keep the engagement alive," Perez said. She doesn't advocate that teachers always have students teach one another just because it has a high retention and transfer rate; doing all of one thing is never effective. Instead, she says, it's about a balanced use of all the inquiry approaches.

18. Mind-streaming
Mind-streaming is another fun brain break activity that also gives students a chance to recall what they've learned and teach one another. Have students randomly pair up and then each person teaches the other the most important things they've learned in that lesson. Each person will remember different things, and when there is overlap that will reinforce the concept. It's simple, effective and doesn't require any teacher preparation because students are teaching one another.

19. Be Interactive
Perez begs educators to always try to make tasks engaging and interactive by giving students enough knowledge, giving them the language to express it, giving them an authentic reason for the interaction they're engaged in, prime them with interesting questions, establish a community of learners that support each other, and give students a clear understanding of the task. If these elements are part of every class, she says, all students can be successful.

20. HOPE
The last tip Perez offered educators is to have HOPE, an acronym she uses for Have Only Positive Expectations.

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20 Strategies for Motivating Reluctant Learners | KQED

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Understanding what a child's brain needs is central to instruction.