Job Discussion Forums

[Serious_Fun]

How do you try to "get to know" your students in your respective environments? I do not mean "becoming familiar" with their outside activities and local culture strictly in order to make lessons relevant; I do not mean dating your students or trying to develop social relationships with them. I mean getting to know your students so that they see genuine concern on your part.

I believe that a student's awareness that a teacher cares can often result in greater time on task ("attention span") and more diligence in work...and, for those of you in buxiban/hogwan/tutorial centre environments, this could translate into greater student retention.

Is this as simple as having casual conversations about life? Does it involve doing something special for them on occasion? Keeping track of birthdays, etc.?

Do any of you have special ways of doing this?

[wildchild]

[spiral78]

I establish concern on a professional level. I make it clear to business students that I appreciate their professional status and see it as my job to help them project an appropriate professional image in English.

With academic students (university students) it's still real - how are they going to pass their courses, and what kinds of English will they need when they finish in their professions?

It's my job to help then make the best possible impression, on profs or employers or work colleagues.

I feel, and the students respond, to this as REAL concern for their best interests.

Nothing phony.

[johnslat]

You know, another thing it might be good to remember is that, for at least some of our students, we are sometimes seen as "representatives" of whatever country we come from.
How they feel about our respective homelands may depend, to some degree, on how they feel about us.
Regards,
John

[basiltherat]

On the subject of building rapport with students, I'm convinced that the best piece of respect you can show to anyone you teach (or for that matter, anyone you meet for any reasonable length of time) is that you can at least remember his / her name.

Maybe it's just me but I take great pains over it. Wherever I have done this gig, students always get a kick out of me remembering their names. Perhaps it's because they realize that it must be pretty hard. I dunno.
best
basil

[Justin Trullinger]

Yeah, I sure wouldn't date the little *beep* either. (Everybody I'm teaching at the moment is excluded for a variety of reasons, high on the list being that my partner would kick my.....you get the idea.)


But the way to show you care is to care. What it means to look like you care is different in different cultures. SOme are notoriously "low context." (Meaning just the facts in a professional relationship, little or no personal sharing.) Ecuador is considerably higher context. Some things that I think help show human interest here:

1 (as Mr The Rat mentioned) learn their names. Really.

2 Let them know about you. Within Ecuador, a work relationship has to go with a personal relationship. I don't mean that I go out socially with my students, though we do have very occasional class outings. But they know, and feel better about me for knowing, that I'm 34 years old, from the US, like hiking, reading, and playing the guitar in my free time, am unmarried but in a longterm relationship, her name is....and on and on.

3 Get to know about them. What do they do, or plan to do, for a living?
In Ecuador, families are really important. Are they married? Children? Brothers sisters pets?

4 Check in on the aforementioned areas with reasonable frequency. If they have kids, when the school year is ending, ask how it went for their kids. If you're doing an activity about families, ask how theirs are doing.

5 And keep them a little up to date about your life. When my brother and sister came to visit, I took them to class for show and tell. Other courses, I put up family photos in the classroom.



This is Ecuador. Many other places in Latin America are similar. I suspect other places are much less so. But here, caring means sharing. Sharing means allowing more merging of my personal and professional selves than I was previously used to. But I'm getting used to it.


Best,
Justin

[MO39]

Justin's comments about Ecuador also hold true for Mexico. I enjoy learning about the personal details of my students' lives, and they enjoy learning about mine. That's also a good way for them to practice asking questions, not only of their classmates but also of their teacher! I did this when working in the United States with multi-national groups of students - it went over well, no matter where they were from.

One of my most successful classes took place when I invited my mother to come and chat with an advanced conversation class. She even brought old family photos to show them, which they really liked, and asked her lots of questions, of course, about me and the family in general. The fact that all of my grandparents had immigrated to the US from Russia in the early 20th century was intriguing to them, as they were all recent immigrants to the US from all over the world.

[fluffyhamster]

A few threads (that I've contributed to) that touch somewhat upon "getting to know students better":
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=420823#420823 (re: TTT)
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=693636#693636 (re: Initial teacher training, links within links!)
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewtopic.php?t=2297 (re: Dogme; "teaching" conversation)
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewtopic.php?p=13141#13141 (re: The Lexical Approach)
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewtopic.php?t=2782 (re: Discussion topics)
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewtopic.php?t=8662 (re: Integrating culture into spoken English classes)
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewtopic.php?t=2553 (re: Humanizing language teaching)

Genuineness for me arises from a combination of the teacher having sufficient language awareness (from word to discourse level, and particularly of conversation), selecting "killer" exemplars and topics (i.e. that are interesting, apt, humourous, memorable, appropriate/inoffensive, stylistically neutral, maximally functional and useful etc), and trying to replace the "teacher" voice and methods with an approach that "teaches" conversation (or rather, whatever language points through a more natural, flowing classroom "conversation") as the teacher (and student(s) - smaller class sizes help!) speak. I think quite a few teachers never really get beyond the textbook or some task or activity, and just speak in imperatives almost - they say a lot, but are as a person actually saying very little of consequence in conversational and human terms. Basically, some teachers are too uptight and conversationally frigid, and/or let the teaching (which is not really THEIR teaching) get in the way too much (there can seem to be a dearth of imagination and of new ideas and methods in ELT, a lack of individuality). The students that I've "opened up to", "relaxed" as much as possible with, seem to have appreciated it, and have developed more skills and confidence with which to "open up" (and that can mean nothing more than simply being "able to talk"!) themselves. Anyway, I'll just shut up now and simply refer y'all back to the above "Dogme" thread especially!

[Glenski]

[Kootvela]

When a student stays with me for a longer period, we become some kind of friends eventually (I try not to become too friendly because of economic reasons) and we use a lot of personalisation during lessons (one-to-one) and withing a year or so I naturally know my students inside out. Those that quit after a term or so don't count.

[gaijinalways]

I'm like Glenski. I have around 450 students in a typical semster. It's not likely I will remember a lot of names, much as I'd like to (I also have a bad memory for names, which makes it harder to remember who I work with, let alone the thousands of student I have taught). I use seating charts, which helps somewhat, though sometimes I ask students to move around during various tasks, so it's not always a question of student being where I usually place them in my mental map of the classroom.

That being said, of course you try to relate to students on a deeper level. How you do that will vary from teacher to teacher depending on your comfort level, and your classroom situation. I always try to make the best use of our time, admit when I'm wrong or made a mistake (it happens, even in the best of semesters), and try to give students the benefit of the doubt most times.

[arioch36]

I have also had 450 student type semesters.

Still, as much as possible, remembering students' names is something they remember

Basil

[Serious_Fun]

Some good ideas posted here...I had originally created a poll, but it didn't allow me to add all of my options.

[gaijinalways]

[dove]

I think it depends on who you are teaching. When I taught jhs students in Japan, I really tried to remember all their names. When I teach smaller groups of students, mainly adults, I definitely remember their names and I remember what they tell me. If they tell me they are, say, looking for a new apartment, I try to follow up on that in the next class..... I really think having a good memory is one of the keys to being a good teacher.