Dear Matt,

I teach the same class of 12 and 13-year-old students every day. Normally they are enthusiastic and awesome!  But when we have writing class (on Wednesdays) they just sit there and stare at their papers. I can’t seem to get them to write.  What can I do to inspire them?

Thanks for your help!

Sincerely,

Angela

Hi Angela,

Getting students to write can be hard. Students often feel less inhibited when they are speaking because they can make mistakes without fear of repercussion. When they write, their mistakes are there for everyone to see. Fear of making mistakes (and, even worse, being reprimanded) will suck the joy out of even the funnest lesson. So, in order to encourage students to write I often employ two strategies. First, I try to reduce their fear of making mistakes and second, I try to make the topic extra fun for them.

Strategy 1: Reduce the fear of mistakes

In order to do this I give the students some guidelines so that they know very clearly what is expected. If they feel like they know what to do, students will feel more confident I doing it. So, I give a minimum amount that each student must write (six sentences, half a page, whatever works) but never a maximum, so that eager students can enjoy themselves without fear of punishment.

Then, I will review the tense that will most commonly be used with our topic and how the verbs are conjugated using that tense. Next, I will write lists of nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives that are useful for that particular topic. They are not required to use the words. But they may use them if they wish. This way creative students have room to do what they want, and less creative students have enough information to guide them through the assignment.

Finally we will make some example sentences together as a class and I will write them on the whiteboard so that students will have a reference if they forget the tense or sentence structure that they should be using.

Strategy 2: Make it extra fun

In my experience, making writing fun lies in the subject. It’s important that the students are enthusiastic about the subject. I usually ask the class to vote on topics they like: aliens, monsters, tigers, Teacher Matt being eaten by sharks (getting kids to make fun of you is always a sure way to make them excited about the subject).

At the end of the class the earth may have exploded, Johnny’s head may be stuck in the toilet, and you may have been hit by a car, fallen off a cliff, been dismembered by lions, and then pooped on by a passing pterodactyl, but at least you’ll have a stack of papers filled with writing.

The post Ask Matt: How to Encourage Students to Write appeared first on XpatMatt.

Hi Matt,

I just moved to Taiwan to teach English and I’m really nervous. My roommate comes home everyday complaining about the unruly kids that she has to teach.  I’m starting my first teaching job next week and I’m afraid that I’m not going to be able to control them. Can you offer me any advice?

Thanks! Love your blog!

Katie

Hi Katie,

There are a few simple things that you can do to keep your classes under control when you start teaching. Although these ideas are simple, they can be difficult to execute because they go against many impulses that a new teacher feels, and they require a lot of self-discipline. However, if you can follow them, your classes will fall into line in the first few weeks (or months, depending on the class), and you will find that things go very smoothly.

1) Be Strict from the Start

New teachers are inexperienced and feel insecure.  Naturally, they want approval of their teaching, so they seek the approval of their students. The easiest way to gain students’ approval is to make friends with them, joke around, and let them have their way.  This is totally natural, and a total disaster for classroom management.

It is infinitely easier to start as an strict teacher and make friends with students afterwards while maintaining discipline, than to let the students walk all over you to make them like you and then try to enforce new rules later on. The standard for all of your classes will be set in the first few days with a class. This is the time to make sure that students know the rules and know that they have to follow them.

2) Be Clear

You cannot expect students to behave if you have not clearly explained what  is and is not acceptable behavior. When you get angry at a student for a reason that they don’t understand (we’ve all done it) it does nothing except confuse the student and frustrate you.

During my first several years of teaching I made a habit of writing the rules on the whiteboard at the beginning of every class and having the students read them with me. When I encountered new behavior that repeatedly caused problems I would add it to the list. This way, if a student broke a rule, I could simply say, “Jimmy. What is rule 3?” Then it would be clear to the student that he had acted in a way that he knew was not acceptable, and could not argue about whether he deserved to be punished. It was clear.

3) Be Consistent

Nobody is on their game all of the time. We all have days when we just don’t want to go through the effort of scolding students and maintaining order. But, it’s important to enforce classroom rules consistently. It is in your best interest to make good behavior a habit for students. This can be a long and difficult process, but in the end, students who are accustomed to being good (because they were not given the opportunity to be bad) are always the easiest to teach.

4) Be Their Friend

In Rule 1 I told you to put discipline before friendship. That is very important when you first meet a class. However, discipline and friendship are not mutually exclusive. Many of the teachers that I liked most were teachers who maintained good classroom discipline, and many of the students that liked me the most were ones that I scolded regularly.

Respect is the basis of any good friendship. If you treat the students with respect, they will treat you with respect in return. This means that when you scold them, it will have that much more of an impact.

Also, it enables you to reason with children and help them to understand why they can’t misbehave. I find it useful with very unruly to explain that I have no choice but to punish them, and that I will always have to do so. The conversation goes something like this:

Me: “Who is my boss you guys?”

Students: “Mr. Wang.” (Mr. Wang is, say, the principal of the school)

Me: “Do you like it when you go to Mr. Wang’s office?

Students: “Noooo!”

Me: “I don’t like it either. Do you know what will happen if Mr. Wang walks past and sees you guys running around and playing games?  He won’t come in and yell at you.  He’ll yell at me. Do you like it when he yells at you?”

Students: “Noooo!”

Me: “Do you think I like it when he yells at me?”

Student: “No.”

Me: “Do you want Mr. Wang to yell at me?”

Around this point in the conversation the students get the picture, and settle down, at least for a while. And you’ve managed to maintain discipline, and let the students know that you will always maintain discipline, without making yourself into the bad guy.

These are the things that I found helped me most to maintain classroom order during my seven years of teaching.

I hope it helps!

Best,
Matt

This post is part of a series called ESL Blog Carnival
– hosted this month at Go Teach Abroad on the topic of Classroom Management

The post Ask Matt: How Should I Discipline Bad Students? appeared first on XpatMatt.