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!!
