By Ken, Teacher in Warsaw
Hello everyone!
In an ideal world we would have wonderfully wise and tremendously talkative students who are enthusiastic about English and all of its grammar, irregularities and nonsensical structures (the spelling of “queue” gets me EVERY time, why have the extra 4 letters, am I right?). But of course this is not an ideal world and you’ll get some very awkward students, some of which probably don’t even want to be there. So how can we deal with such situations? In this blog I will be sharing my experiences and how I handle these students. So get out your notebook and let’s begin!
The students who don’t want to talk
It’s extremely difficult to teach someone effectively if they don’t want to talk, I mean how else are they going to improve their fluency if all they say are one word answers? Generally speaking the student should do most of the talking during a lesson, but what happens if this is not possible? This could be down to a number of things, including:
- Lack of confidence/speech paralysis, leading to being flustered and panicky
- Fear of making mistakes and looking/sounding stupid
- They are intimidated by the language
Let’s break each of them down.
Lack of confidence/speech paralysis, leading to being flustered and panicky
This happens a lot, especially with students who are lower levelled and have less fluency. They start talking and then pause, stutter and eventually give up on what they had to say, leaving them feeling a bit hopeless. I had a student like this recently who was lovely, but she got very flustered. Apparently it was down to an overbearing mother, however we’re not psychologists, we’re teachers! So what can we do?
Confidence. It’s a wonderful thing when we have it, but awful when we don’t have it! We need to build their confidence. Step by step, little by little, lesson by lesson. This is a nice segue to our 2nd point, fear of making mistakes and looking/sounding stupid. Reinforce and emphasise that it is absolutely fine to make mistakes and that any attempt to speak should be encouraged. Be enthusiastic about your student’s progress. Give praise. Explain everything clearly and ease the student into more complex activities. AND TAKE YOUR TIME WHEN TEACHING! One of the biggest reasons why students feel intimidated by the language is because the teacher is rattling off information and grammar like a machine gun leading to confusion and anxiety whenever the teacher asks them a question because inevitably the student hasn’t understood anything that has been said.
We can summarise what you should do using the easy-to-remember acronym PET. It’s very apt as you look after pets and you also have to look after your students!
- Praise
- Encourage
- Take your time!
The students who don’t want to be there
There could be times when you can tell that the student has been forced into taking lessons. It could be anything from a change in their work situation and now they have to speak to international clients to kids being forced by their parents. So you have a problem. English is difficult, and now you have students who don’t want to be there. A catastrophic casserole of unwilling students and grammar. Or is it? Of course, there will be some students especially teens and kids where even if you gave them the latest games console and a cool million they still wouldn’t want to learn English, but this isn’t true for 99.999999% of the time!
This is where your people skills come into play. Talk about something they like. Ask questions, be curious about them and why they like/don’t like things, ask for their opinions and listen actively to what’s being said so that they feel like you care about what they’re saying. As I’ve said before, you’re not a psychologist but these little things can really help psychologically with the student. In turn this will create an atmosphere where learning can be fun and enjoyable and not a chore like hoovering (or vacuuming depending on where you’re from!)
And remember: PET!
The students who think they are better than they actually are
This is quite rare, however it does happen.
For example, some students may say that the materials they’ve been given are too easy when they aren’t or they think they’re at the lofty heights of being at C1 proficiency when in fact they’re much lower. In these situations I wouldn’t directly tell them that their actual level is lower as it may cause some confrontation. I would say that the best way is to challenge these students and really make them think. By doing this, they may realise themselves that actually, they aren’t as good as they think they are. Of course, this could be down to an inflated ego but the majority of the time it’s down to something else like perhaps they’ve taken a test online and they’ve been assigned a certain level which in turn gives the student a false impression of their actual ability. Doing an exercise online and actually speaking fluently are two completely different entities!
To summarise……
Difficult students are part and parcel of being a teacher and should be welcomed as a challenge. They’ve helped me become a much more versatile teacher and also helped me increase my teaching abilities. Of course, we’d all prefer students who are talkative and chomping at the bit to learn, including myself, but if you follow these tips they will help minimise awkward and difficult situations with more difficult students.
What isn’t difficult nor awkward however is checking out what teaching opportunities are available. You can find out more about our programs here!
