Give all children a chance

Children want to be involved and to be noticed. The children who most readily put up their hands are not the best – they are simply the quickest and usually the ones who know they will be asked by the teacher either because they are nearer the teacher and therefore most visible or the ones who know the teacher likes them more (alas this is true even if we are not aware of it ourselves).

Even if teachers try hard to ask as many different children as possible, there is limited time to do so. I have watched many classes where children are almost exploding with the desire to answer the question, to be seen, to be valued as participants in the learning experience but are not asked. Little wonder they stop putting up their hands and hold a conversation with their friends about what was on television yesterday instead.

All individuals can be characterised be two learned drives, a motive to approach success and a motive to avoid failure.

Martin V Covington

Children will make mistakes. Students are students! The very nature of that role is in the not knowing. That’s why we are there: to lead them on journeys of discovery. Is it fair then to jump on any mistake they make and punish them for it? Any time a student tries to answer a question, write a sentence in English, do a grammar exercise, they take a risk. Of course they may make mistakes, but the attempt is the vital step.

Many of the things we call mistakes and see as problems are in fact signals that our students are successfully learning the language. They are taking the necessary steps… Our Job as teachers is not to point out differences between our students’ language and standard English. That is too negative a role. Our job is to encourage the growth of language by appreciating the learning steps.

Julian Edge

I always respond to students’ efforts as positively as possible. A ‘that’s a good answer, but not the one I’m looking for’ does not fool the children into thinking they were quite right, but makes them know I admire their ability to have a go and be brave enough to try. Isn’t that worth celebrating? If we tell children they are wrong, if we inculcate the belief that they are failures, they are more prone to failure. Children will stop trying; they will be demotivated if those around them not only fail to encourage them, fail to take into account what they need to support their learning but also criticize or even ridicule their efforts. The signals may come not from us but from other students in the class, perhaps laughing or sighing at an incorrect answer, but the teacher is complicit is she allows such an atmosphere to prevail. Creating an appropriate learning environment of mutual respect, collaboration and patience is vital.

A simple solution to the above problem is to avoid a too teacher-centred lesson with a battery of questions directed at the whole class that require individual children to answer with alacrity and speed. Set tasks for groups or individuals to work on so that they can use whatever strategies come most naturally, ask for help and support if they need it from their classmates or from us and they can take the time to think and eventually reach the answer without being constantly pipped to the post by the fastest horse in the race. Allow them all to succeed - all to be winners.

The simplest way to ensure that students expect success is to make sure that they achieve it consistently.