Why do teens switch off?

Why do teenagers switch off in the classroom?

I think all of us who teach teens feel the pain when we can’t get their attention and some even say they don’t see the point of learning English.

I believe there may be many reasons but the key ones I want to focus on are – they are BORED and FRUSTRATED. Lessons are teacher-centred, their ideas and interests aren’t taken into account, and their developing brains simply aren’t challenged enough. 

What they need is:

• Purpose

• Guidance

• Opportunities for creativity and self-expression

• Interaction

So, let’s get them into groups working on problem-solving tasks. This is where students work together to find solutions for an open-ended problem. This builds collaborative as well as independent-learning skills and develops both critical and creative thinking. 

It also helps students learn to present a convincing argument by making sure the argument really matters to them. When they are truly engaged with their subject, they will want to make others care too. 

Working together is small interdependent and supportive groups fits in to the:

Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive Development…. 

where students collaboratively work together to conduct research, share their results, and perform or produce a final project, help to create a collaborative community of learners

Lev Vygotsky, 1962

We all need to be engaged – in cooking a meal, watching a movie, learning a craft, knitting a sweater, whatever. Our brains and emotions need to be focussed. Then we are in a state of

Flow

When people enjoy what they are doing — feeling fully engaged and immersed in their activity — they experience states of existence beyond the ordinary. Happiness then is closely linked to “taking control over the contents of our consciousness” and a complete absorption in the task at hand.      

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 2009

But we cannot just set the problem and expect our students to just get on with it and all finish the task successfully at the same time.

In this kind of project work students can

• lose focus

• get confused about who is doing what

• have terrible time management

So, we must provide a systematic step-by-step framework to work within

PLUS, we have to input the English they need to work together. They won’t magically just know how to agree and disagree, make suggestions, negotiate and celebrate each other’s ideas in English unless we teach them the chunks / phrases needed.

e.g. That’s a cool idea. What do you think, Jao? We should try researching on online. ETC

This is ORACY

Oracy refers to the skills and behaviours involved in using spoken language to communicate and collaborate effectively. These are not only linguistic skills, but the physical, cognitive, social and emotional skills we use when listening, speaking and working together. 

It’s not just the words they need, they also need to

• listen actively 

• recognise key messages 

• respond appropriately 

• interpret what someone is saying 

• communicate through body language

And then communication is authentic

How does assessment fit into our classrooms? Remember we are assessing students for a variety of reasons (and just to prove we know more than they do is not a valid one!)

Assessment is 

• To show students what they are doing right

• To show students where they need to make improvements

• To encourage students

• To enable students to reflect on their own progess

• To celebrate the effort the students have made

• AND To enable teachers to notice skills / language areas 

that need to be (re)addressed in class

 We are there to guide them to appreciate what they have learnt and are doing right, what aspects of English they still need to develop AND very importantly, specifically how they can take steps to make improvements.

When I was a teenager, my French teacher used to write “Try harder” on the bottom of my essays. It was not helpful. I had tried hard and had no idea where I could make progress.

Learners need to understand how they can perform better. Giving learners a grade tells them nothing about what they should do to improve, and so grades do not lead to improvement.

Butler 1988

Teens, like me at French, can’t easily learn from mistakes without help. Neuroscience has shown how our brains are still developing into our early twenties..

Adults have a developed anterior cingulate cortex, which … can help detect mistakes.. This part of the brain is still being wired in teenagers, making it more difficult for them, even when they recognise a mistake, to learn from it.

Frances E Jensen, 2015

If we just tell students they are not good at something it risks total alienation – the “I hate English” or “I am rubbish at English” mindset.

When I was six years old, I was singing in school assembly in the morning with great joy and enthusiasm, when a teacher looked over at me and said “Olha, you can’t sing”. No celebration of my wholehearted engagement. I never sang again at school. My joy was quashed, and I felt a failure.  Noone likes feeling they are a failure, and no teacher should ever make a child feel like that. All these years later I remember those words and it still hurts. 

All individuals can be characterised be two learned drives, a motive to approach success and a motive to avoid failure.

John Atkinson’s theory of achievement motivation

Let’s keep in mind: Carl Jung’s Teacher Model

It’s our job to:

Think – give information

Direct – give direction

Feel – care about well-being and success

Do – give confidence to carry out work

And celebrate regular doses of success!!

Read and Draw

Success in the classroom

What does success look like in our English language classrooms? Once a year students may take a formal exam and measure success with the results, but what about the steps they take each lesson? How can every lesson be sprinkled with the star dust of success?

I have some bad memories of my school days. I recall being set essays in French – just given the title and spending all weekend with a dictionary translating my English ideas into French. Whenever I got these essays back, they would be covered with red ink and at the bottom there’d often be a comment like ‘Try harder’! But no indication of how I was supposed to do this. It was really disheartening, and I dreaded the whole process. I never saw a model of a good essay, never knew what criteria my work was being assessed by and felt judged as inadequate by my teacher who would glower at me as she handed back my exercise book. 

I often remember that early personal experience when teaching students or training teachers, as it’s too easy to fall into the patterns that we witnessed in our own teachers. I did not want to be like Miss B, my French teacher. I want students to know what they are aiming for, see their progress and celebrate every success however small. Learning is, after all, a journey, and every step important.

Firstly, it’s vital to be aware of our role as an ‘assessor’ – we need to constantly be monitoring not just our students’ responses to tasks, but also the tasks themselves and very importantly, how we plan those tasks and where they sit in our lessons and align to the aims of our teaching programme. We need to see our job as ..

…. a process of noticing and responding to learner needs, moment by moment. 

Teaching and learning have to be interactive.

Black & Wiliam, 1998

We all need clear goals and objectives, be they end goals like Cambridge exams, or micro-goals like lesson aims:

• the exam provides criteria, examples, so he can see what success looks like (check out Cambridge exam handbooks)

• the material / course book provides the map of the exam journey

• lesson aims are the road map of an individual teaching event and should be specific

e.g. by the end of the lesson students will have practised writing an email to a friend inviting them to a party

Next, we have to notice and collect evidence of the progress our students are making, so we can show them what they are doing well. If they don’t understand what they are doing well how will they know to keep doing it and try to do it even better?

So, when I mark my students’ writing, I always highlight all the good bits and tell them why they are good e.g. original idea, vivid vocabulary, excellent linking of ideas. Of course, I also point out areas which need improving – but not without giving support so they know how they can do better. I direct them to extra practice e.g. in their workbooks, online with apps, on CambridgeOne

Marking must:

• show students what they are doing right

• show students where they need to make improvements

• encourage students

• enable students to reflect on their own writing

• celebrate the effort the students have made

Our job as teachers is not to point out differences between our students’ language and standard English. That is too negative a role. Our job is to encourage the growth of language by appreciating the learning steps.

Julian Edge, 1989

AND, as we mark, we, teachers, should notice skills and language areas that are problematic for students so that we can either (re)address them in class if a number of students would benefit or suggest individual remedial work to students.

Here’s a good check list to consider after each lesson, or at least at the end of the week.

• What progress did learners make towards the learning objectives?

• What evidence do I have of that progress? 

• What other successes or achievements do I have evidence of?

• What aspects of my teaching supported learners to make progress?

• What aspects of my teaching could be changed to enable further progress in future? 

It’s really not enough, I am proof, to say ‘try harder’. If I knew something was wrong, I would not have written it. HELP ME!!

Luckily there is help for teachers and students alike – our course books today as SO much better than my French course book all those decades ago. They are success oriented in that the level gradually gets higher, tasks are scaffolded ie there are models, tips and the activities are staged. It’s not just ‘write 200 words on X’.

Let’s keep in mind Karl Jung’s model of a good teacher, who takes on these roles:

Think – give information

Direct – give direction

Feel – care about well-being and success

Do – give confidence to carry out work

Here’s the four-step strategy that leads to success:

1. Set clear goals

2. Collect evidence of progress

3. Provide feedback

4. Give tailored follow up