Your students will receive the most of out learning if you put effort into creating an interesting session for them. Here are 7 tips to make teaching easy and exciting for your students.
- Create more engaging experiences
- Use media sources
- Use warm-ups and cool-downs
- Give rewards
- Be creative
- Seek advice
- Having great energy
1. Creating more engaging experiences than worksheets
When I approach teaching a class, I try and stay away from route learning and worksheets as much as I possible. I personally think that many countries instill a very old fashioned way of learning.
Bring learning into the 21st century by considering student’s needs, being creative, integrating technology, providing task based learning experience and thinking of new ways to put across ideas. Children love images or you can create an interactive PowerPoint.
Students, when learning English, benefit when they hear the language being spoken and used by others in videos, songs and movies. If teaching about something interesting like geography, there are so many fun options other than worksheets.
Look online to find a wealth of resources for you to use. Some ideas i can think of the top of my head is to have children paint different environments, create a nature PowerPoint, look up beautiful landscapes on YouTube or to Google information about other countries. There are so many ways to make learning engaging these days, your students will really love you for it.
2. Use media sources (i.e. YouTube and Songs)
Relating again to technology, YouTube has so many videos on basically every topic. I especially like finding fun videos on language techniques such as similes vs metaphors songs, to help children see the difference in these two literary devices. I feel certain concepts, or even pronunciation can be taught through media.
Songs also have a great deal of English techniques, emotion and symbols in them. Analyzing lyrics and listening to songs in English can also help your students.
Of course, using media must have some sort of educational value to your overall lesson plan.
3. Use warm ups and cool downs
To get students in the mood for learning also include a warm up task. This can be any game or short activity. I like to use a lot of artistic activities in my lesson plans, so it can even be a short drawing task.
There are so many examples to choose from such as Simon says, stretching, singing songs, saying daily rhymes, listing categories in English, vocabulary review or a spelling bee.
Wake up your students before the main learning begins and cool them down to end the class.
A cool down will mean that your students can leave the classroom feeling relaxed and fulfilled. Some great ways to end lessons include asking students what they have learnt in the lesson, giving feedback on students work, have a goodbye song or puppet, have a class discussion or have students write a letter of what they have learnt today. This will help consolidate their learning for next time.
Further Reading: 10 Best ESL Games and Activities Your Students Will Love
4. Use reward system
Having some sort of reward system is a handy trick for younger students. Even as they mature, students always deserve some achievement from their hard work right?
Have some sort of reward system that rewards behaviour over a long period of time. You can really be creative with this, but a simple way is first to thirty stickers for their writing receives a prize. Sometimes your school that you are teaching in will already have a set reward system, in which case, do not forget to use it.
5. Be creative
Have fun and be creative!
Since students learning English like things that relate to their own lives, have them draw and paint parts of their culture and then create English labels. Make paintings, drawings, sculptures.
Creativity can also be linked back to learning and is an important skill to master in life. Also, try teaching your students creative writing, which relates perfectly to improving writing skills. There are many prompts you can use to encourage your students to write.
6. Seek teacher advice
Don’t be reluctant to ask your fellow teachers. Ask them how they make learning engaging. You are not alone and there are countless ways to communicate with other teachers in finding tips. You can talk to your colleagues at work or join Facebook groups. Don’t be afraid in asking!
7. Have great energy
Something that my students love about me is that I am a passionate teacher and that I care about my students. Students will see right through you if you are not an enthusiastic teacher. I love teaching, and without this attitude you will find it hard to interact with your students in a meaningful way.
There you go! 7 tips to engage your students. Happy teaching!
This article was originally published in Nov-2018 and was last updated in Feb-2019.
Author: Kate Gosnell
