One of the key components to successful teaching is engaging the learner. No matter what the subject or what the student body is, learning happens through engagement. Effective teachers understand how to keep students engaged in a variety of ways throughout their lessons.
Engaging students is not to say that teachers take on the responsibility of learning for the students; each party has its own responsibilities.
Caleb Gattegno, an expert on the teaching/learning paradigm, was fond of saying, “it’s the students’ job to learn the language; it’s the teacher’s job to learn the students.”
Thus, while the learners must do their own learning, the facilitator of that process is the teacher. Effective teachers understand how to facilitate learning through engaging the whole of the learner.
Apart from the fact that paying attention is a prerequisite to learning, there are many other benefits to engaging our students:
- Engaging students promotes a positive environment.
- Engaging students lowers the affective filter.
- Engaging students fosters interaction and community.
- Engaging students supports learning (and student) retention.
- Engaging students empowers learners to learn.
- Engaging students produces more effective, efficient teaching.
Designing and delivering an engaging lesson need not be an exhaustive, challenging process, that brings to mind the show-and-tell days of kindergarten (fun as they were). While there are grandiose manners to insure engagement such as creating a game or writing a skit, there are also smaller, easier measures a teacher can take.
Here are six easy tips to keep in mind when you consider how to keep your students engaged:
Energize everyone: If we are physically present, our minds are more apt to be awake as well. There are many ways to energize the class through the use of using manipulatives, music, and movement. When we involve the whole of the learner we energize the body, mind, and spirit.
Necessitate participation: As teachers, we should never do for the students what they can do for themselves. This includes everything from students passing out materials to students asking and answering the questions. The more we allow students to do their own work, the more they stay engaged.
Get them in groups: Learning is a communal act that fits nicely into any classroom context. When we inject pair work and small group activities, students connect with the content and with one another in a deeper manner. Having students work cooperatively supports their learning and creates community.
Assess at every step: The more we get from them, the more attention they pay. Random, verbal and non-verbal assessments recycle key points and encourage participation. Trying to find out what students know helps them build confidence and helps us keep them in the center of the class.
Generate connections: Students need to sense a connection between the content of their world and the world of academia. Personalizing content, building background, and explaining the task’s purpose are all ways we generate those connections. Connecting students to what they are doing and why encourages engagement.
Expect more: When we believe students do know more than they’re letting on, we encourage students to reach beyond their comfort zone. That belief however it is expressed is palpable, and students respond to it. When we expect they can, students tend to surprise us, themselves, and their peers.
Engagement is paramount to learning the content, learning one another, and learning oneself. For students to develop unconscious competence, they must first act consciously. The more conscious we teachers are in who our students are and how to engage them in their own learning, the more we set our students up for success©.
So, if you are looking for ways to make your teaching more efficient and more effective, remember ENGAGE. There’s no magic to engaging students, but the effects of engaged students can be magical.
There are countless ways to keep our students engaged. Find out more about how to engage students at TESOL Trainers.
