5 Tips on Dealing with Difficult Students
February 17, 2010 by admin
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Last week I listened to a wonderful webinar on “Dealing with Difficult Students,” by an experienced educator who talked about fostering relationships based on good content and patterns. I’m sure you all know what I’m talking about and have confronted this before. We create “scripts” in our heads or bad patterns based on the stories students tell us. I’m talking about students who say: “I can’t focus if I sit next to that student” or “He’s disturbing me” or even the very silent student who doesn’t participate much.
What threatens communication with these particular students is not what we say to them, but how we perceive them. Believe or not, our thoughts and perceptions can cause students to misbehave.
How Does this Work?
What Threatens Communication with Students
Some students carry a lot of emotional baggage with them throughout their schooling years. Imagine a student finally gets to study a subject he loves but he is afraid of failure. He stops coming to class or when he does come, he doesn’t participate and disturbs other students.
There are many obstacles that can threaten communication with students such as a feeling they can’t succeed, getting a grade without an explanation, the fear of always being wrong/fear of failure, mixed expectations, can’t meet the requirements, and lack of an opportunity to show their expertise. These are the signs… but what can we do as educators? What are the steps?
Start by Asking Yourself the REAL Questions
When responding to the student, consider the following questions:
·1.How much is s/he hurting the class?
2.Why might s/he be doing this?
3. Why might s/he want to stop this?
When you know the answers to these questions, then it’s possible to recreate the story.
Remake the Meaning – Focus on Content
Think of one situation where you can change the outcome by retelling the story. Remake your stories of how you decide to perceive a particular student. Decide to make a difference.
Work the Dialogue – Focus on Content
By focusing on content or what happened in the “story,” students can retell the story in a way that allows success. The first important step is to dialogue with the student:
· Apologize/Ask for clarity: “Please help me undertand why you have been turning your work in late.”
· Contrast: “We discussed this the first two assignment but now I’m seeing a pattern begin.”
· Commit: “I really want to see you succeed and we need to come up with a plan…”
Stopping the Scripts
We might not be able to reach all the students and even during challenging moments, it’s alright to report to a mentor and ask for intervention
· Listen, research and expand what you know.
· Invite new people to participate or give input, like a teacher mentor.
· Tell the story a different way.
Teach Courage to Change
Remember, you are not perfect. Let go of the past and start each new day with a clean slate. Separate the students’ behavior from the student. Always put your energies on the class and not on the individual. And celebrate your successes for all! After all, you’re also there for your students.
Dorit Sasson is a freelance writer, educator and founder and director of the New Teacher Resource Center.
Make Your Teaching Sparkle. Teach for Success. Make a difference in the classroom.
Subscribe to receive your FREE e-zine and e-book, “Taking Charge in the Classroom” when you visit the New Teacher Resource Center at http://www.newteachersignup.com.
Purchase your ebook of classroom tested tips – “Tips and Tricks for Surviving and Thriving in the Classroom,” at: http://www.MakeYourTeachingSparkle.com and you’ll receive a FREE ebooklet, “Yes! You Can Teach K-12 English language learners Successfully!”
Listen and learn best practices for teaching your diverse learners
February 12, 2010 by admin
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Now Playing On IRA Radio!
Many teachers today are challenged to efficiently respond to the cultural and linguistic differences presented in their classrooms. Tune in to IRA Reading Radio and hear IRA President Kathy Au present
specific strategies and techniques to help you effectively teach second-language and culturally diverse learners.
This free program comes to you through a collaboration between IRA and Body and Mind (BAM!) Radio Network, a radio website for the education community. Kathy Au’s interview is just one of many thought-provoking programs that will be posted monthly on the IRA website and address topics that range from reading assessment to the role of parents in literacy development. Each radio broadcast will feature IRA’s Dr. Harvey interviewing an expert on a key topic in reading education.
Click here to listen to the program!
Help for Teachers!
February 10, 2010 by admin
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Have you taken a look at my latest eproducts?
It’s always nice to receive emails from teachers and other professionals letting me know how helpful these products are.
Here’s what a few people had to say about these eproducts:
“I have really learned a lot from your ebooklet on teaching ELLs.”
“This is the material I look for. It’s really good, interesting and ready to be used in the classroom.”
-Susana Gomez, TESOL Spain Newsletter Editor
“Professionally presented, inspirational and practical, Dorit Sasson’s booklet addresses such issues as differentiated instruction, evaluation of comprehension, and teaching vocabulary. New teachers will find these 97 tips and strategies a life-saver in the English Language Learners (ELL) classroom. Experienced teachers will glean valuable insight as well. Highly recommended.”
-Nancy I. Sanders
Author of America’s Black Founders
Click here to read more about the ebooklet on teaching English language learners
Click here to read more about my ebook
Why Are Some ESL Learners Quiet in the Classroom?
February 6, 2010 by admin
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All ESL teachers have the same phenomenon of quiet learners in their classrooms. Come parents day, many teachers and parents will be talking about how much progress the student has made and most inevitably the comments of “s/he’s too quiet” will be brought up. What is the cause of this quietness that involves second language learning?
A learner may be quiet in the ESL classroom, but he may also be deeply processing the language. It is important to weigh in this factor when discussing the student’s performance in front of the parents. Bilingual children whose first language interferes with second language learning should not be forced to produce but only to listen to the language. It has been found that this act of listening greatly enhances the speed and quality of learning. Therefore the language environment, whether it be formal or natural, plays a crucial role during the silent period in terms of second language acquisition.
The silent period is a conscious and active period where simply listening to the target language is associated with the notion of a one-way communication which can extend for many months at a time without producing the language. Dulay states that when language finally does appear, it is produced quite minimally either in some form of elicitation or the communication of basic needs. (Dulay 19)
Premature pressure upon the second language learners to perform in the target language in terms of taking examinations, writing compositions and participating in oral classroom discourse can be exacerbatingly intense as well as discouraging and futile. in this learning situation, the
second language learner such as a tourist in a foreign country, does not possess an adequate amount of knowledge of the target language and so, he or she will lean on the first language in order to facilitate communication. A “silent period” therefore, may be tremendously beneficial in terms of helping the learners to strengthen some competence in the target language which can be “enough to permit some spontaneous speech production without relying on the first language” (Dulay 25).
Works Cited
Dulay, H., M. Burt and S.D. Krashen. 1982. Language Two. Oxford University Press.
I’ll be giving away a FREE teaching report on how to improve fluency in English language learners to those who leave a comment at the New Teacher Resource Center. Now…I hope you’ll visit the next site on the blog chain sponsored by the National Writing for Children Center. That site is: http://terri-forehand.blogspot.com/. For a list of all the links on the chain, go to www.writingforchildrencenter.com
New Teacher Tips: How to Improve Speaking Skills in the ESL Classroom
February 5, 2010 by admin
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What do you do when students don’t want to put that extra mile to do a speaking presentation, so they get cold feet and read from their notes just to get by. Improving speaking skills takes a lot of classroom practice, motivation to speak, and skill. Sometimes it is necessary to think
beyond the box, adding creative elements wherever possible depending of course, on the skills of your students and how open they are to creative thinking.
Improving the speaking skills of your students may be difficult, but the added benefit is building confidence in students for speaking skills and strategies in a foreign or second language. Even though the professional years are still way in the future, help your students by starting small.
Speaking Activities
1.Use picture prompts. Depending on the variety of visual resources and class level and ability, a teacher can brainstorm with the class a variety of sentences, (key) words, and phrases around a particular category or situational context that is the building block for a presentation.
2.Follow-up with a memory game or exercise. Students then work in pairs writing down or translating the words they remember.
Effective Teaching Continues
1.Another teaching activity involves asking questions or presenting statements that are not true about themselves, and then asking their friends to decide whether they are true or false. Students have a lot of fun with this one.
2.Play Adjectives All Around! Students have one minute to present all the adjectives they can in a sentence.
3.This person is _______________________________________________.
4.The other student then tries and guess who the person is. Make sure they include a minimum of five adjectives and no more than seven or eight. A teacher can use this activity to draw the students’ attention to the different categories that make up an adjective.
Additional Tips for Improving Speaking Skills
*Allot a time limit for each and every speaking activity. Take into consideration those activities that involve either group or pair work.
*Keep the activity fun and simple. Make sure the instructions are also crystal clear.
*Don’t overdo speaking activities in one lesson.
*Make sure you aim for a balance between speaking and listening.
*Have a back-up plan for the entire class and for individual students who are withdrawn.
*Always reflect on what can you do as a teacher to help students improve their speaking skills.
Remember, the more diverse and creative your speaking activities become, the easier it will be to train your students to improve their speaking skills and speaking exercises will become much more automatic.
I’ll be giving away a FREE teaching report on how to improve fluency in English language learners to those who leave a comment at the New Teacher Resource Center. Now…I hope you’ll visit the next site on the blog chain sponsored by the National Writing for Children Center. That site is; http://ireneroth.wordpress.com/. For a list of all the links on the chain, go to www.writingforchildrencenter.com
A Great Online Classroom Management Resource
February 3, 2010 by admin
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Smartclassroommanagement.com has checklists, tips and resources on how to create an effective classroom management plan to teach successfully.
Michael Linsin, author of Dream Class and the creator of the site, has years of experience in successfully managing a classroom and writes in a clear and very practical way that is often hard to find especially in the area of classroom management.
I especially liked his last post, “Your Daily Checklist for Effective Classroom Management.” Since teaching is a process of ups and downs, we constantly need to be reminded of how we can be more mentally prepared to tackle the day.
Check it out!
The Teacher Writer’s Life: Giving Teachers Tools for Success
February 3, 2010 by admin
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After a few straight days of subfreezing temperatures in New York City, (minus 18 below to be exact) I’m glad to be back home in Pittsburgh or “‘da Burgh” as locals say. Surprisingly, it’s so much warmer here!
Even though the trip from New York City to Atlantic City was only two and a half hours, it seemed to take forever. Maybe it was because we stopped several times because of the snowstorm or maybe because I barely got enough sleep the night before.
I was happy to see how teachers at the Atlantic Cape Community College wanted to diversify their teaching. In my keynote I discussed how we can vary our instruction to meet all types of learners. In fact, research has shown that varied instruction can be much more beneficial than simply making sure our instruction fits every learning style in the classroom!
One teacher for example, wanted to know if he should give a midterm since he wasn’t required to do so. I thought for a moment and then said, “You could ask your students to come up with some study questions based on the material you taught which they can then answer in groups . They can also exchange their questions with another group or pair.”
That’s just one out of the many ways we can diversify our teaching with content so we can suit various learning styles!
I came home happy and satisfied from my cold trip knowing that I had given teachers the tools they needed for their students’ success and for their teaching. I also videotaped the in-service so you’ll soon be able to view snippets of this keynote which I’ll soon upload to the New Teacher Resource Center.
Stay tuned for the “Power Learning Series” consisting of two powerpoint presentations on “What Motivates Adults” and “How Adults Learn” which I’ll be doing for a community college in Pittsburgh in two weeks. This time, I’ll be local!
If you have any questions on diversifying teaching styles or on any aspect of teaching or classroom management, you can always email me privately: sassondorit@gmail.com and I’ll answer them.
Teaching Tips on How to Integrate a Powerpoint Presentation into the Instructional Process and Curriculum
February 1, 2010 by admin
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Students of today’s generation are much more technologically savvy and as a result, they can process information at a much higher rate than their counterparts of just a few years ago. For teachers, this means a lot more work in adapting user-friendly materials, but in a structured wayPlan a Powerpoint Just Like A Regular Lesson
Information technology works very much like the components of a lesson plan: pre-while-post (beginning, middle and end) and should supplement goals and skills, which the teacher should identify before the onset of instruction. Like any technological skills, presenting information may be user-friendly for students, but it does require both student practice and preparation on part of the teacher. Goals and skills should be meet the requirements the teacher wants to teach, (i.e. summarizing information, presenting information effectively), and teachers should spend quality time modeling the activities and practicing the skills needed to effectively carry out the task.
If students are expected to research a given subject and present their findings and insights to the class, the teacher should recommend appropriate site for conducting research and practice sessions on summarization.
Match Content Based Skills to Student Needs
A power point presentation works much differently than a simple verbal presentation because it combines all four skills. Students need to be instructed on the best way to communicate the targeted information. For example, they will need to succinctly incorporate the slide’s content to effectively communicate the targeted skills of the research project. If students set out to research endangered animals, they should present the targeted facts in an interesting and lively way that does not resemble a scientific identification card or something one would find on the Internet.
Appealing to the Visual Elements
Also, teachers should consider the importance of subheadings and fonts when preparing their presentation in terms of creating a visually appealing layout. The visual elements such as subheadings and fonts should appeal to their student peers.
Assessment and the Learning Process
Assessment is another important accountability feature of any technological component of a lesson plan. Teachers should also familiarize their students with the grading rubric, which is divided into categories based on the skills the teacher already taught. In research projects for
example, a power point presentation is effective for presenting information students have already read.
Integrating a powerpoint presentation combines a number of different skills mainly knowing how to work its visual element in order to appeal to the instructional needs of your students.
