How to make every student happy in the class?

[pumpkin]

Hello everybody!
I teach the elementary students as a part-time job. My students are lovely and active. Recently, I encounter a problem.
When I ask a question for students, they all want to reply, and highly put their hands. However, I have not enough time to let everyone answer my question. What’s more, it is unnecessary. The students, who don’t have the chance to answer the question, will be unhappy, and even interrupt other students.
Any suggestions and ideas would be appreciated.

[Carolyn2006]

Hello,
I would like to share my opinion.
For primary EFL classrooms, I think the most important issue is to make the pupils interested and motivated. In this course, teachers are playing a crucial role for sure. It’s good that in your class the pupils are active in question answering, they must have a good understanding of your teaching, or they will be silent and reluctant to answer. And that would be worse.
Anyway, question answering is only part of the class. Since not everyone can get the chance to answer, you can set a rule, for example, only the pupil who put up his hand first will get the chance first. To make more pupils happy, you can always arrange some activities or games for the pupils to join, whether individual ones or group ones( the latter preferable for a larger class, specially considering the limited course hours.). The principle is to make all the pupils involved and participated. Remember that you should always praise and encourage the pupils’ efforts and progress in the participation, for teacher praise is a positive reinforcer to motivate students. Good luck!

Carolyn

[Lorikeet]

I don't teach kids, pumpkin, but I have a couple. I think it's great to have interested, eager, excited kids raising their hands to answer a question. I think it would be sad if you didn't call on any of them because you are afraid that the ones that didn't get a chance will be unhappy. Can you keep a list of students on the board, or the names of students on cards, and put a checkmark after their names when you call on them? Then you could explain about taking turns and letting other kids have a chance, and you could also ensure that everyone--even the couple who are too shy to raise their hands--gets a chance to speak.

[EH]

A second-grade teacher I know had a good idea. She wrote each student's name on a popsicle stick and put all the wooden sticks in a decorated can. When she needed a student to help her with something or to answer a question, she just picked a stick at random from the can. The kids liked it because it was truly random--no playing favorites. And once a name had been called, it stayed out of the can for the rest of the day or until all the sticks were out. That way everyone got a turn.

Hope this helps.
-EH

[lcbrixie]

You just have to remember that not everybody that you pick randomly is going to want to answer or do that job...maybe if they don't want to do it you should put them back in the cup.
I say this because a child will not speak until they are comfortable with the language and trying to force them to speak before they are ready will make them more uncomfortable and it may take longer before they are ready.

[EH]

I agree that sometimes kids are not ready to answer based on random drawing.

Kids who stutter, for instance, usually like to have advance notice of when they'll have to speak.

But don't forget that the teacher is the one holding the sticks and the kids are generally at least a few feet away from him/her. If necessary, the teacher can always cheat and call a name not on the stick that was picked... I believe that the feeling of randomness/equality is slightly more important than the reality of it, in this case.

-EH

[Sally Olsen]

You could also put the students in groups of four and when you ask a question they confer on the answer among the four of them. One person from the group is chosen to give the answer and if the rest of the groups agree then you are on to the next question. If another group has another answer it just makes things interesting and promotes more discussion or they may have something to add to the answers. This type of teaching though is called IRE - Interrogation, Response and Evaluation and can really only be done in the classroom. You don't say to someone at the bus stop, "What time is it? (Interrogation) and they answer, "10" (Response ) and then you say 'Good answer' (Evaluation). So perhaps it is better to have really open ended questions that you don't know the answer to either. Or to have the small groups ask the questions to each other if you have prepared a list of something you want to check that they know. Questions like, "How many people like blue?" will get many hands up and they all feel as if they have answered the question without having to say too much. I always prefer to have a discussion rather than an interrogation and try to get my students to learn how to discuss in a large group which involves turn taking, keeping to the topic, asking questions and so on as that is more likely what they will be doing if they ever have to speak English in 'real life".

[Senorita Daniels]

There's no way to make everyone happy. Some of my kids will grumble once, but are okay once it is time to get to work. I think some of them like the moaning. If any of the kids disrupt the class when they're not chosen to answer act up in an unacceptable manner, punish them. I've had to take recess time away from them, which i don't like doing, but it has to be done.

[xiu]

I don't think every student is happy in the class . Because everyone has different funs even in the same class . We should try our best to make our lessons more interesting . Thus more students may be interested in our class . That good for us , for the students .

[xingshan2007]

Actually, being happy is not the key element to learn English well. I observed some lively classes full of elaborate plays, games, lauging and arguing, but after class, the kids remember only little the teaching content. So in my opinion, class experience is not necessarily only happy, being nervous and keeping alert are also good ways to motivate the kids.

[Janisse]

I also had this worries when I had taught to elementary students. At least it is a good sign that the students are motivated and wanted to participate. As another writer wrote in a previous posting, I also used the “popsicle sticks” strategy. I wrote every student’s names on one stick and when I needed them to participate in class, I simply pick one of the sticks.
I worked well, because all the students had the chance to participate and they found it fair. Moreover, it gave the opportunity to speak for those who are usually too shy to intervene in class.