When is the "quiet period" over?
Moderators: Dimitris, maneki neko2, Lorikeet, Enrico Palazzo, superpeach, cecil2, Mr. Kalgukshi2
When is the "quiet period" over?
I know that when teaching new students of ESL,a quiet time ( time when the student is quiet and observing) is to be expected. Of course I realize that this time of observation and possibly fear and anxiety varies from student to student. In the age of state testing and demanding curriculium is there a way to help motivate the shy student to become more involved in the lessons or at least to try? I try to foster a positive and nuturing classroom but I have found that some students still refuse to try to complete tasks because they are fearful of being wrong. Any suggestions how to encourage students to become more engaged and inspired to participate?
-
Sally Olsen
- Posts: 1322
- Joined: Thu Apr 08, 2004 2:24 pm
- Location: Canada,France, Brazil, Japan, Mongolia, Greenland, Canada, Mongolia, Ethiopia next
-
Sheila Collins
- Posts: 46
- Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2007 6:20 pm
"quiet time"
Maybe if those shy students are paired up with students who are more talkative, coming out of their own quiet periods, or who are risk takers, it will encourage them to speak more. If the students are paired up instead of in a group of 4-6, it will encourage the shy ones to talk and it will give the talkative ones the chance to help them perfect the objective. I think if students need to talk or participate, they will. (I call this the "sink or swim" approach.) Also, if they're given a chance to formulate and perfect the sentence with a peer who will help them, they're more confident to participate and speak openly in class.
As far as a time frame of how long the quiet period lasts, it depends on many factors: student's personality, social filter level, and confidence level just to name a few. Personally speaking, it took me a couple months after initially arriving in Italy to start using the language beyond ordering food because I was listening, building vocabulary, and learning sentence structure before striking up a conversation with someone on a train. Who knows, maybe a student will only be in the quiet period for a couple weeks!
As far as a time frame of how long the quiet period lasts, it depends on many factors: student's personality, social filter level, and confidence level just to name a few. Personally speaking, it took me a couple months after initially arriving in Italy to start using the language beyond ordering food because I was listening, building vocabulary, and learning sentence structure before striking up a conversation with someone on a train. Who knows, maybe a student will only be in the quiet period for a couple weeks!