Tips on How to Get to Know your Students
New year – new children – new challenges. What a wonderful and demanding task! I hope the tips that we share here will help you in your daily work, equip you, motivate you and encourage you, but most of all, will let you have more fun at work. Because at the end of the day, if we love doing something, that love will naturally transfer to others. Happy Teaching!!!!
Every child is different, every student has a “key”- and it is our task to find it. Once you know how to balance your class, encourage the non-participants and focus the hyperactive, you and your class will relax and make the whole experience more enjoyable. Here are some tips to help you achieve it:
- Greet everyone personally, ask them how they are, know them by their name, look into their eyes and mean it when you ask how they are feeling today.
- Children with less focus, chatterboxes and fidgets should be within your arm’s reach. Usually just sitting beside you will help them focus, calling them by their name when they loose focus, or even gently touching their shoulder always helps.
- At the beginning of the class try to arrange them in a circle so that potential “talking partners” and “fighters” are on the opposite side of the circle.
- Observe the group – when you notice they fidget and loose focus change the activity – bored children get disruptive. It is not their fault, it all all up to you 🙂
- A sleepy morning? No energy? Start with energetic activity – a game, a funny action song, something to get their attention. Kids hyped up? One or two poems/ chants will help you refocus their attention.