Quote:
Originally Posted by Cutetwirler  I teach teenagers and have a class of 12 REALLY rowdy kids.  |
Motivate them. Peak their interests. Get them curious.
When I was teaching in Japan, my school asked me to take over an after school class of a group of 16 year old boys ("naughty" is the word the school used). I didn't speak Japanese, I had no formal training or experience teaching teenagers, and my first class was a disaster: the boys sat in groups and gambled!
I tried every trick I knew to capture their interest, but nothing worked. So, I walked around and watched carefully how they were playing this gambling game of theirs, and I asked questions on how to play, and I even played with them. The next class, I used the exact same gambling game as a warm up to introduce the contents of my lesson. It went OK, but not great. I had their attention for all of 10 minutes, 15 minutes at the most, but as the days progressed, it became a little easier to hold their attention longer. (The Japanese have a saying, and it holds true universally,
why use force, when persuasion is so much more easier.)
Find out what motivates your students and use it to your advantage. (My students, the ones I spoke of, were using English as a means to an end (to win a game). English wasn't their goal and so it shouldn't be treated that way; that's how you motivate "naughty"
ESL students
. You find out what's important to them. Get them curious.)