Body Language for Competent Teachers by Chris Caswell & Sean Neill

Author:Chris Caswell & Sean Neill
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Social Sciences
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2003-09-01T14:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 7

Conveying enthusiasm

Learning is an invisible process which occurs inside children's heads; you can only get access to it indirectly, by asking questions or looking at written work. It is also impossible, with a class of average size, for you to monitor continuously what each child is doing, whether you are trying to teach the whole class or individuals. You cannot force children to learn; you can only persuade them that the work they have to do is a more attractive alternative to the other ways they could spend their time, such as checking their pens or fingernails, discussing last night's video with their friends or seeing how far they can tip their chair without overbalancing. With some classes, some children, or some of the subject-matter you have to teach the best you may be able to do is to make the consequences of these alternatives sufficiently unpleasant that the work is done merely because it is the least of a choice of evils. However, this is at best a wearing strategy, demanding constant vigilance and offering little satisfaction. Arousing the class's interest is far preferable, both practically and intellectually, if it can be achieved.

In order to do this you must do four things. Your manner must convey that the material is interesting and worth making the effort to try to understand; you must relate the material to the children's existing experience so that they can assimilate it to their previous knowledge; and most importantly, you must reward them, rather than criticising them when they try to contribute to the learning process. Finally, you must not disrupt their learning by unnecessarily breaking off teaching and starting disciplinary confrontations when there is no serious threat to the classroom order. While these tasks are common to whole-class work and work with individuals, they are achieved differently in the two situations. We will cover tactics for dealing with individuals in Chapter 9. Determining when a confrontation is not necessary will be dealt with in the next chapter. Much of the art of presenting material interestingly and intelligibly

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