Ten affective and effective ways to prevent indiscipline with young learners

Some years ago I wrote a post sharing my experience in taking a course at the University of Toronto in which I learned ways through which we can dismantle the issue of indiscipline by understanding and eliminating the causes that promote a series of problems. According to professor Joseph Ducharme, indiscipline can be understood as students communicating us  of that they have unmet needs. The interesting thing is that after the course I was able to see misbehaviour much more as a game of chess, in which we have several strategic moves, than a tug of war in which there is resentment of having a winner pulling the other to a desired side. 

But just before I go on, I will repeat a concept that was repeated over and over during the course: the best moment to work on indiscipline is when things are going well. Make sure you read this extremely important learning again and write it somewhere as this is something you will forget and then you will have to invest much more time and effort once you already have disruptive behaviour. 

It is with great pleasure that I share here 10 strategic moves that will decrease the frequency of indiscipline in your class: 

1.Welcoming: make sure you are totally available to receive your students at the beginning of classes as your reaction to their arrival can set the tone of your class. Arrive five minutes before class, look at them in the eyes, smile, and greet them using their names. Very simple, right? But it does not always happen as many teachers are figuring out photocopies, writing on the board or doing something else.


These five minutes are a great period time to invest in connecting with them on a personal basis. Wanna bring it to an advanced level? Write an affective  quote on the board and welcome them with their favourite songs that you collected on the first days of school.

2. Have a routine: letting students know about what you have planned is not only a sign of respect to our students but it is also a great management procedure. Informing your students about the planned activities reduces stress, eases transitions, and allows you to talk about the expected learning in every different moment. Wanna know more about how you can engage your students using routine cards? Then read this post about routine cards.

3. Circle time: students always have a lot to share with you and with their peers when they arrive. As they will do it anyway in class, the best way is to have moments in which you allow them to release their excitement do all this sharing in a structured way. During circle time you can also review content, tell students what will happen, discover their likes, and notice how students are feeling; these is important information that will help you tailor and carefully adjust the class to your students' lives. Remember to tell students that what happens in circle time, stays in circle time. Well, if it was really nice, it can go to Instagram!

4. Plan movement: young learners simply need to move. Well, I would say that more than that, all students need movement in their classes.  Movement makes learners get their attention span back, oxigenates brains,  and allows students to learn kinesthetically. It also allows students to change learning peers, see things from a different perspective, and express themselves with their bodies. Including movement in your classes will certainly make your students more engaged and will make them learn in a more holistic way. Bonus: you will not be complaining that your students can't sit still!


5. Share personal stories: here I share an attention magnet that can be used whenever you are losing control of the room or when you notice that you need to build rapport with the group. Personal stories are special and valuable because we only tell them to people we care, they are also real and carry authentic learning pieces. Regardless of being funny, amazing, or tragic personal anecdotes allow us to display our humanity and to use English as a means of communication.


Once you tell your story, make sure you have planned time to listen to their questions, comments and specially to know their stories. Remember that the more we listen to them, the more they will listen to us.

6. Get the adequate difficulty: in many cases students misbehave because an activity is simply way too easy or just too hard. Make sure you study activities well beforehand not to fall in this trap. ( I have been there so many times!). If you notice you have a hard activity, you can get students to work in pairs, give models, and have scaffolds. If you notice that your are losing the class because an activity is just too hard, just apologize and stop doing it. If you have a mixed-ability group, you might need to have two levels of activities in the same theme  or you can pair strong-weak students to promote peer teaching.

7. Give them choice: sometimes students misbehave because they do not have the degree of control of the class that they would like. One way of addressing this need is by giving them choices, which can be done individually or as a group. Choices may include what, when, how, and in which order activities will happen. By giving learners more control over their learning, we promote engagement and motivation as they have made their choices regarding their learning. Studies have shown that giving options for homework have brought much more engagement and pleasure than assigning a fixed task. Personal anecdote: in my swimming classes I loved when the teacher would let me choose between two exercises and I would cheat the distance when given an exercise I did not like. The next strategy is also aligned with this idea of giving students more agency, but instead of giving them choices, we can listen and discuss about their learning through the good and old feedback.

8. Give and ask for feedback: it's not always that students are asked for feedback. Specially asked for feedback in the beginning or middle of a course with the intention of valuing learners' opinions and changing aspects of how the teaching and learning happen.

We should ask feedback when we care and because we are concerned with the experience students are having with us. We should also ask for feedback as it is an opportunity for us to learn as groups are different and have diverse needs. Feedback can happen in many different formats and the very essential follow up is to quickly act upon students' suggestions, so then that group  can see that it is for real. You will see the beautiful energy in the room when they notice things have changed!

Another important thing is to give feedback about how you see their learning, how they have cooperated with each other and what it means for you to be with them. The next strategy has to do with feedback as well, but it is so important that I am giving it its own number!

9. Pay attention to the ones that do well: this is a very important one, so make sure you write it somewhere you can always see it. Remember that the best moment to work on discipline is when things are going well? Here I share how you can do it. You can prevent indiscipline from happening by giving students attention and praise when they are involved and working with well. This can be done right after you notice appropriate behaviour by either just looking at the student and doing a thumbs up or by stopping everything and enthusiastically telling how that behaviour has allowed learning to happen. I hug students and give them high fives. Try to avoid giving much attention to students that are misbehaving. Another way to show that you value and notice adequate behaviour is to bring the theme during the circle time and wrap up moments.

10. Circulate and monitor: some students might misbehave as a escape of the pain of needing individual attention, not understanding the instructions, or being stuck in the task. Moving around the classroom bring many benefits: it allows us to  make ourselves available to students,  we can check how students have understood our instructions, we can check how students are doing individually, and also praise the ones that are going well. When seeing interesting participation, we can ask specific students or groups to share something interesting with the whole group.

Hint 1:It is important to avoid making a pair with any student or joining any group during an activity as this would not allow you to circulate and get to know how and what students are doing.
Hint 2: Try to get students to sit in a horse shoe or in small groups and reach the students standing behind them. In this way you will not intimidate them and you will also maintain eye contact with the whole class.


Congratulations, you have just gained three bonus strategies!


Bonus 1: Intercalate easy and difficult tasks: this is one that I like and have been doing intuitively for many years. The idea here is to give students some confidence boosters in the middle of the classes with activities that they can perform well. By including these activities we can attend the need that children have for success, which when not fulfilled can be one root of indiscipline. We can also mix creative and unstructured activities with more demanding tasks, and also some individual and group activities. Variety rocks!


Bonus 2: Use humour: have you ever heard that the shortest distance between two people is a smile? Humour has its secret powers that heal, release stress, and connect people. It works in a similar way as the personal stories in the sense that we tell jokes and riddles to people we care.



Jokes and riddles are not only good to prevent indiscipline, but they are great ways to use and teach language as they have narrative and the double meaning of words.  Make it a tradition to have jokes in a certain moment of your class. I usually say "But before you leave, I have a question for you .... ". Humour works great as a class wrap up. Make sure here also to listen and have a great time with your students' jokes.

Here you have: alphabet riddles, country riddles, and easy jokes for young learners.

Bonus 3: Celebrate: this is the last strategy, but certainly not the least! I believe it is essential for us to acknowledge and celebrate the development that students have achieved. Celebrate both small and big achievements. You can celebrate a nice class by having a surprise, bringing cookies, or dancing with them. If you have a puppet, it can the messenger of the good news.  Show students and their parents the students' journey with pictures or with a video in which you praise them by giving specific feedback on what they are now able to do. Mention how their dedication and their behaviour has contributed to make all this learning possible. Here again it is essential to let students talk and express what they enjoyed doing and how they feel at this moment! These closing ritual are moments that will always be remembered and cherished!!!


Well, this was our journey on proactive strategies to prevent indiscipline. If you have enjoyed it, please share this post with other teachers. Together we can change the overall experience of teaching and learning!

A frog-hug,

Juan

Please leave a comment below sharing the strategy you will start using more. I get very little feedback from my readers and I would love to hear from you! Thank you!!!

Affective Postures and Practices for Classroom Management with Young Learners

It is with great pleasure that I am part of the February issue on Classroom Management of the iTDi blog! Check my contribution and make sure to read the articles written by my fellow teachers. 

Never heard of iTDi? 

iTDi is a global online teacher development institute that is owned and staffed by dedicated teachers. iTDi provides Online courses to improve your classroom teaching or English language skills, written by some of the most respected authors in English language teaching. 

iTDi's mission is to provide quality professional development that is meaningful, accessible and affordable for all teachers. The iTDi community brings together teaching professionals working at every level -- newcomers and veterans, native and non-native teachers from a wide range of contexts, all sharing a common belief that being a teacher means a never-ending commitment to growing and learning.

Check iTDi's site and check out the offered courses and webinars!  

Send you a big hug, 

Juan

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Thank you!

Using pictures to share feelings while learning

                                                                               "One Picture is worth ten thousand words." 

                                                                                                                     Chinese Proverb

I'd like to share today three activities with pictures that promote dialogue about feelings while learning. These three affective activities are favorites of mine and are all variations of one main pedagogical strategy called Emotional Thermometer. 

The Emotional Thermometer is based on the principle that we can provide a better environment for students to learn when we are all able to trust each other and share our feelings. Knowing how learners feel allow us to gain rapport, tune in, and adjust our actions. Some of these changes might include changing activities or the order in which they were planned, not calling students  having a hard day, and welcoming suggestions for future classes, among others. 

The very interesting thing is that pictures, as the proverb says,  can bring to surface emotions that we and students can not express verbally, not only by lack of words in the foreign language, but mainly by a lack of conscience. I dare to say that learners are in a routine whirlpool and are not used to thinking about their emotional states and the consequences these bring to the quality of their learning. So I believe that bringing conscience and verbalizing these states certainly empowers learners in their path. 

A deck of picture cards, among other possibilities,  can be prepared to facilitate this dialogue with students. This card set, usually with 20 cards, can have engaging themes such as animals, landscapes, objects, among others. It is important to make sure that the chosen cards represent a wide range of feelings and emotions. Here I share interesting images of animals that can be used to make different sets of cards. 

Here we go! 

How do you feel today? 

This activity is perfect to know how your students feel on some special days throughout the course. These special days include the beginning/end of the course, classes before/after tests, before/after presentation, among others. I do not do this activity on a regular basis to save it for these special days.

Here is how we do it at school with our small groups. We spread the cards on the floor or on the table, let students look at them, and then ask them to choose one according to how they feel that day. After this, the teacher gets one card and models how he/she feels. At this point students only listen. We also tell them that they can say "pass" and only show their card, not having to say how they feel. It's important to make sure that each person is brief and that other students respect the one who is talking. They also shouldn't comment or make questions to others, as this might take the focus away from acknowledging how each one feels that day.

How did you like the class today? 

Getting feedback after class is always an opportunity to reflect on our practice and to learn how your pedagogical intentions have been perceived by students. Moreover, we can understand how they learn better in order to provide customized learning experiences in the future.

The procedure is basically the same as in the previous activity. You can choose to have learners evaluate the class you have just finished or the classes so far. One possibility here is for students to show their card, talk about how they feel, and suggest something for the future. It is ok for students to be silent or not to have suggestions in the first times you ask them, as trust is built over time when they notice that their suggestions have been valued and that this dialogue is for real. Last, it's essential to always truly share how you feel, to thank the students or sharing,  and to make sure that you incorporate some of their suggestions in the next classes.

How do you feel about your ___________ ? 

 Reading - Writing - Intonation - Pronunciation - Vocabulary - Speaking - Listening - Grammar  

We surely invest a lot of time and effort in having a balanced curriculum with integrated skills through interesting themes. But how do students feel about their effort and competence? Is it important for us to know these impressions? Yes, very important! Even though we might have a general guess of how students feel about their skills, it is important to check our impressions, as not everything is what it seems!

I suggest you start by asking your students to evaluate one skill in which you feel most of the class is good at to make them used to talking about their skills. I would also model by talking about my experience as a language learner of English or as a learner of other languages. As in the previous activity, it might take some time for students to start talking about their fears and  accomplishments, but I consider that only to have them thinking about their skills is a good start. Another way to promote dialogue is to ask them to write about the cards they chose or to have individual moments with each student. 

Some extra hints: 

• If you have enough time, you can build the card set with your students. 

• Use always the same set with your group throughout a course. 

• Make the same question in the beginning and in the end of a course to compare if studnets have picked up the same card. Ask them what has changed.  

• Start with the first activity to get students used to the cards and to talking about feelings. Some weeks later you can move to the second or third activities. 

You might be thinking now that these activities might go well with teens and adults, but you are not sure how they would go with young learners. You have a point there. My experience is that if you often talk about feelings while learning students get used to it and open up. One thing that helps with young learners is to have only a few smiley faces.  

Glad I have share these secrets with you! 

Do you use pictures to talk about feelings in your classes? How do you do it? 

I'd love to hear from you!

Send you a big frug,  

Juan

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We need breaks to teach affectively

"Once in a while you have to take a break and visit yourself."

Audrey Giorgi

The beautiful poster below by Psychologist and Author Karen Horneffer-Ginter (www.karenhg.com) has inspired me to write about taking breaks. Taking a break can last from quick twenty minutes, an hour, a day, a week, a month, or even up to a whole sabbatic year.

I listed below some of the reasons why we need to take a break:

to rest
to relieve stress
to gain energy
to increase our attention span
to be alone with ourselves and recenter
to make meaning of what we have lived
to forgive ourselves of the mistakes we have made
to celebrate our achievements
to be open to the unknown in the future
to be available and patient
to be with people we like
to rediscover ourselves
to be aware of our not knowing
to dream
to enjoy ourselves and have nice things to share with students

I like all the different possibilities and tastes that are present on this poster and how it embraces the multiple intelligences. Besides that, it is also a great conversation piece for students and teachers to share their preferences and to talk about the importance of taking breaks.

Graphic recording by Paula Hansen (http://www.chart-magic.com)

What a lovely poster!  Just perfect for a teacher's room. 

Invite a colleague to have a break with you in an unusual way. 

You might be creating a longlasting memory!

How do you like taking your break?

I personally like lighting a candle, sitting in nature, and viewing some art. 

I even thought of making a list and go ticking all the fifty!

I'd love to hear from you. Leave me a comment!

Frugs to you!

Juan

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Relaxing activities for young learners

Many children have very busy lives. They might come to your language class from their school, swimming, piano classes, ballet, martial arts, kumon, you name it. They arrive some minutes before, still thinking about the last activity. Sometimes they are still excited about something they have achieved or angry with something or somebody. Not to mention that they are connected to what their peers are doing online. 

Teacher also have very busy lives. They might have just finished talking to a parent, correcting homework, or writing a report.  Teachers get stressed in traffic and finding a space to park. There's also all the other important things teachers manage as their education, family, and home. 

 

That's why we have the relaxing! The relaxing is the moment in which students and teacher get together to focus, to calm down, to breathe, to be present in the classroom. The relaxing allows us to center ourselves, to notice the class, and  to perceive students' emotions. We are then able to be more responsive, less impulsive, and more tolerant as we filter and disconnect from the emotions from our previous activities. 

In my opinion, a relaxing activity should happen in the beginning of a class and last between 2 and 3 minutes to achieve its goal. At first not all students might enjoy it and in this case I have explained to them why we do it and asked them how they feel after doing it. After focusing through the relaxing activity, students are ready to start the class with success through the warm up. Click here for a previous post on warm ups, that includes a list with 150+ warm ups for young learners. Relaxing activities can also be used to transition to other activities or to finish a class.

I share a cute story that once happened to an educator at school while she was conducting a relaxing activity. Flávia was massaging with lotion the little hands of  4-year old student when this young child asked Flávia if she had also had a teacher that massaged her hands in the beginning of her classes when she was child. That puts us to think that people might forget what we say, but always remember how we have made them feel. 

Here I present the pinterest list I curate on relaxing exercises for children.

Do you know any activity that is not on the list? Please send it to me and I will include it!

Send you a zen frog-hug,

Juan

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Achieving authentic student engagement through democratic classrooms

   "Schools for critical empowerment, not for subjugation." 

Henry Giroux

Are our students engaged? Or putting it better, are we engaging teachers? 

In order to answer this question, I went to the dictionary to look for a definition of  what it really means to be engaged. Busy, occupied, involved, tied up, preoccupied, employed, committed, unavailable, promised, and absorbed are some of the synonyms found in my search. Looking at them with more attention I could clearly see that there were two very distinct groups of synonyms and I decided to separate these in two groups. 

The first group had words such as busy, occupied, tied up, preoccupied, and employed, which seem to  be descriptors of low-energy superficial engagement. The second group, on the other hand, had synonyms like involved, committed, and absorbed, which seem to be descriptors of high-energy authentic engagement. These two distinct understanding of engagement are the tip of the iceberg as they reveal conflicting educational beliefs and imply in different ways students, parents, teachers, staff, and administrators experience schools.  

Superficial engagement can be seen when students are well-behaved, quiet, full of work, on task, giving the right answer quickly, and ready to follow commands.  Teachers, with their experience, focus on their teaching, managing timing and efficiency as the curriculum has to be fully covered. Punishment and prizes are strategies for motivating students, and private tutoring might be needed for weaker students. As a result this banking system produces people that are conformed to the system, who will be  "good citizens", good employees when told what to do. They are ready to listen and act.


If you have noticed some similarities with a production line you are right. Concepts like following commands, managing time and efficiency, and carrot and stick  aren't here by chance. These are the words used the neoliberal paradigm uses in education. 

Authentic engagement can be seen when students are euphoric, in movement, and full of ideas about their own learning, making choices, sharing discoveries, and reflecting about their progress. There are smiles and laughter, powerful motivators not only to learning, but to life. Teachers focus on students' learning, making sure that all students are reached, being also learners in this process of understanding how to make meaningful connections to students' lives. Individual and group learning discussions are powerful ways of engaging students. As a result this system allows skills such as empathetic listening, advocating speaking, individual and group awareness. These students are ready to promote change in how things are done in schools and in the world. They want to be heard and make it better.

Similarities again. Choice, sharing, reflection, reach, empathy, and change are words that are associated with democracy. Can you imagine these in a production line? I can't. This person would be kicked out as a trouble maker!

By now,  you have probably guessed that this real and authentic engagement I'm talking about can only be achieved in one way: power sharing. Here below I share some ways in which we can create more democratic classrooms: 

• Develop your own sense of awareness, consciousness, and availability to be fully present with students, parents, peers, staff and administrators. You will see yourself more tolerant and respectful in your interactions. Meditation and mindfulness are a way of doing it. 

• Develop new internal and external spaces of transparency, vulnerability, uncertainty, and hope to substitute old spaces of fear, repression, anger and conformity. It's ok to say: sorry, I messed up, I do not know,  I forgot, etc. Be honest. 

• Remember you are a powerful manifestation of your values and beliefs  and that students learn these, even more than the actual content.  The ways we teachers act and behave shape our students' thoughts and actions.

• Model language that students can use to give their opinion and have these sentences visible on boards. Create moments in which children can participate both orally and in written with what and how they would like to learn. Have a crazy ideas box. 

• Help children deconstruct what it is to be at school. Discuss and raise awareness with them about the school culture, routines, procedures, desk positioning, and class decoration. Inspire students by creating together new social rules, social identities, and interactions. Show them that they can be agents of change in society.

• Bring out the the hidden values and assumptions around measurement, discipline, trust, surveillance, moral, social understanding, assessment, and most importantly the definition of success. 

• Start always by asking to value what students already know about a topic. Foster learning from then on with them as guides pointing directions. 

• Prefer cummulative evaluation in the form of portfolios that allow students to self-reflect and self-evaluate their performance. Older students can be asked to research, discuss, study and write about their experience of schooling. A journal is a great way to empower them to share their views, involve other students and parents. 

• Make sure to have plenty activities and discussions that foster curiosity, appreciation, and respect for the different traditions and origins of humanity, giving a broader repertoire to children.  

• Use stories, movies, music, toys, games and puppets that deconstruct sexism, classism, and racism. Build collective identity to create solidarity. 

• Analyze the good and bad characters in stories according to their physical appearance and race. Help them to build different mental models from the master narrative present in the media. 

• Meet peers, share experiences, and mainly discuss the conditions of your professional practice. The coherence of the working environment and the teaching practice is essential to the flourish of democratic facilitators, who can truly influence how students experience democracy in their school lives.  

I will always consider myself a learner in the theme of democracy. I felt the need to write this post because I often see  discussions about engagement that do not address the issue of power sharing in schools. I know that this is not an easy issue, specially in regular schools that have tight curricula. It's much easier in my setting of an independent language school for children. 

I truly believe  that we should all invest in forms for a more robust democracy in our schools. These democratic acts can be the spark for the authentic engagement that I mentioned in the beginning. 

These are my 2 cents on the topic! Let me know your views! 


A big hug, 

Juan

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Neat attention grabbers for young learners

Living language through guided imagery

Visualization, also known as guided imagery, is one technique that is among my favorite and that I believe many students and teachers have not yet experienced. The use of guided imagery can be seen as "whole brain" multi sensory learning as it includes movement, music, poetry, creativity, and real experiences from the child’s inner world. When used properly, visualization has the power to relax students, focus their attention, increase their concentration, stimulate creativity, and cultivate inner peace. 

What I love about it is that after the experience teachers respond to students' demands of language giving them the words they truly need to express themselves. And their expression comes with a lot of emotion, oh yes!

Here I share some of my favourite visualization activities:

One word:  here the teacher asks students to close their eyes and the teacher says a word, let's say "dessert", and asks students to imagine. Each student then shares what they saw in their minds. One might have seen cake, other ice cream, and a third one fruit salad. I suggest starting with nouns ( animal, food, mountain), then moving to adjectives (cold, heavy, happy), and then moving to abstract nouns (fun, friendship, mistery). 

I personally would refrain from choosing words that might bring uncomfortable images such as sadness, violence, and loss. They can also share if they only saw it or also smelled, tasted, listened, or felt it in their minds. Students can also choose words as long as they are approved by the teacher. Great for circle time!

Story listened with eyes closed: here the teacher either tells a story or students listen to a recorded passage with eyes closed. Let's say that they listen to a passage that narrates a prince entering the castle library and seeing the princess close to a window.

After listening (make sure it's easy that every student can understand) the teacher can ask students to find similarities and differences in how they saw the prince, the library, the princess, and the window in their minds. Some guiding questions can help such as the following: 

What was the prince wearing? 

How much light was there in the library? 

What was the princess doing? 

Were there curtains over the window? 

If all students describe the prince as being blond with blue eyes, one can have a discussion about stereotypes. With more advanced groups the students can ask questions to others on how they saw specific aspects. 

Questions guiding the imagery: here the teacher takes the students on a trip guiding them through statements and questions such as: 

You are in your favorite place. 

Somebody you really like is coming. Who is this person? 

This person has the best idea. What is it? 

You and this special person suddenly find a box with a key. Would you open it? What is inside?

Hmm, getting hungry after some time. What are you eating? and drinking? 

Guess, you got the idea. It's important to bring students in the visualization with a warm introduction and also bring them back with a tender closure. Sentences can be said every 20 seconds, so then students can really have time to feel the experience. Soft background music can help creating the climate, even though it might be annoying for some students. Better ask. 

After the visualization, you can ask them to write, draw, compare, etc. Bear in mind that this experience is very personal and students have the right not to share what they have lived. 

Storytelling with gaps for students to imagine (learned/adapted from Mario Rinvolucri): here a story is told and students imagine/create what happens in parts of the story. I share an example below: 

Wife and husband are sleeping and suddenly the phone rings in the middle of the night. The husband picks up the phone and there is a strange voice that says (students imagine). Then the husband tells his wife and she says (students imagine). He goes to the kitchen to (students imagine) and suddenly finds one strange thing on top of the table (students imagine)...

The difference here from the previous one is that there is a storyline which is common to all students different from the previous one in which each student has more freedom to go wherever they want. 

Students can mime and others guess afterwards. 

Guided adventures (learned from Maureen Murdock): The teacher guides students through an incredible story like the following: 

You are walking in your house, and then you see a trap door ahead of you, you think, wow this is strange, but even so, you decide to open it. You see a staircase below and you start going down the steps. When you notice you are down and can't see the light from the street. It is very quiet and quite cold. You see that you are inside a room made of glass and that you are in the bottom of the sea. Wow, unbelievable! You can notice the fish breathing and gradually you can see their colours shining.Oh, oh! From a distance a shark looks and you are afraid that it might see you...

Later the teacher can ask students:
Which was the part you liked the most? the least? 
What would you change in the story? 
What title would you give to the story? 

Some hints: 
Make sure you tell the story in the second person (You) to make it very real. 
Use a lot of interjections and adjectives. 
You can intensify structures you are working on. 
Students can retell the story (with help) to a peer that is with eyes closed.  
Advanced students can create new adventures for classmates or younger students. 

Here is a story in this same style by Canadian storyteller Dan Yaschinsky: 

Hope you have enjoyed these visualization activities as much as I have with my students and also sharing them here with you!

Send you a big frog-hug, 

Juan

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Oh, before I forget! This is a book that I recommend with lots of visualization activities for young learners. 

Spinning Inward by Maureen Murdock 

Building rapport through child-led interactions

During my Master I learned about Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, which is a therapeutic method that aims to improve the disruptive parent-child relationships through the change of confrontational parent-child interaction patterns. The therapeutic sessions move from child-directed interactions to parent-directed interactions.

Here is how sessions work: a parent stays with his/her child in a room with toys. The therapist sees them through a one-way mirror and guides the parent through a bug that is worn. As interactions happen, the therapist either says what the parent should say or gives the command to the parent. In fact, the sessions are quite fun to watch when you see that at first parents miss the opportunities and that later they rejoice when they see that their children are getting closer to them.

I thought that the child-directed interactions were very interesting and that they could also be applied to the teaching of English to young children in small groups, as they nurture a space in which children are validated and can express themselves.

These interactions can be remembered by the acronym PRIDE.

P – Praising

R – Reflecting

I – Imitating

D – Describing

E - Enthusiasm

Below I outline these:

·      Praising is done when a teacher gives specific feedback to show children that he/she is observing, validating, and accepting their actions.

Example: Teacher: I notice how you are using such nice manners. 

                                      I can see you are separating the pieces carefully.

·      Reflecting is when a teacher shows that he/she has listened a student by paraphrasing what the student has said. A comment should be added for the interaction not to be plain echo.

Example: Student: My favorite is Play-Doh.

                    Teacher: Your favorite is Play-Doh. I like it too

·      Imitation happens when the teacher does similar things to what the student is doing, such as in their posture, language, and actions. It’s amazing how this works and how they feel valued when we copy something they are doing. This builds a path for them to copy us later.

·      Description happens when the teacher narrates what the child is doing without making any value judgement.

Example: Teacher: You are feeding the chickens.

                                     The cat is walking around the house.

        ·  Enthusiasm should be present in all interactions to show children that they are being accepted. It

          should be conveyed through intonation, volume, eye contact, and gestures. The tone of voice 

           should be normal, without any type of patronizing.

I believe that these interactions can be of use to language teachers in the first moments of classes and in situations in which rapport has been broken. These child-led interactions can be balanced with silence and laughter.

PCIT suggests that during the child-led interactions the following should be avoided:

Making any questions as these guide the play or can have embedded value judgements or hidden commands.

Example: What do you think we should do now?

                    Why did you do this?

Giving direct or indirect commands as these might be rejected by the children or imply that the child is doing something “wrong”.  

Example: Let’s color now.

                   You do the house and I will do the garden.

                   I think we should finish now.

Criticism does not nurture rapport, as it does not value how children do things.

Example: You know that isn’t right.

                   Look how you can do it right.

Here I have selected a video that shows a PCIT session taking place. Check how the imitation builds amazing rapport!

Let me know how you liked it and how it can be applied to your classes.
I'd love to hear from you, as it motivates me to write more often and to interact with other educators.

I send you a big hug from Toronto,

Juan


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