Teach English in Qingxiang Zhen - Linfen Shi

Students can achieve so much more when they feel confident. As teachers, we can play a monumental role in building confidence in students. Confidence level in students is an important factor in educational success. As more students are facing bullying and harassment, confidentce in students can suffer and when this occurs, grades often suffer. Building confidence in students is one of the most important step teachers can take to ensure an atmosphere of learning. Confidence in students is vital for his or her success. The amount of confidence a student possesses will affect his or her educational goals. If a student loses confidence in school, his or her grades will ultimately be affected. When a student’s confidence suffers, a student may give up on his or her hopes, dreams and plans. They may feel that they are unworthy of obtaining their goals or it is impossible to achieve them. Building confidence in students can help prevent student dropout rates, ensure that students maintain their love for learning and help them achieve their dreams and goals. One of the greatest gifts we can give our studentd is to instill in them a strong sense of confidence. In doing this, we enable them to be higher achievers. Confidence breeds success. If students believe they can succeed, they will succeed. As teachers, we are in a highly strategic position to instill confidence in our students as we teach and interact with them everyday. There are many effective ways to make students more confident. 1.Set goals together One of the most effective ways of building student confidence is making sure everyone is on the same page about learning goals. Too often in teaching our learners are kept in the dark about expectations, guidelines and desired learning goals as ours, not theirs, as if they’re some great mystery students can not comprehend. This does nothing but make learners confused, dependent and ultimately untrusting of their educators. 2.Give useful feedback Learning without getting actionable feedback for improvement isnot meaningful learning, it’s learning by compliance, which is ultimately pointless. At all times throughout any learner’s journey we must provide consistent and appropriate feedback for them to apply their efforts. This serves a dual purpose. First, it provides learners with an opportunity to learn from mistakes and, one again, experience a sense of learning ownership. Second, it succeeds well in building student confidence. Feedback should make someone feel good about where they are and get them excited about where they can go. This is the exact mindset that develops as we continue building our learners’ confidence in the classroom. 3.Empty their heads Just because learning is happening doesn’t always mean students are aware of it. Often they tend to lose confidence in themselves because they feel they’re struggling move than they are. Usually it’s a case of them knowing more than they think they do. 4.Show that effort is normal What does that learner who struggles more than others in the class see when they look at their peers? Effortless understanding and a sense of everyone else just “get it” while they don’t and maybe never will. Nothing is more of a confidence killer for a student than thinking they’re the only one in class that doesnot understand something. Certainly this attitude is humiliating, demoralizing and utterly destructive in their learning journey. However, the key thing that a struggling student has to have an awareness of is that even the so-called “smart” kids have to work hard much of the time. Intially, they don’t always see how much effort others put in as they are consumed by their own failure. Besides, it isnot about one learner neccesarily being smarter. A good way of building student confidence in such a case is by having that struggling student pair up with one of the others who had aced the topic and get them explain it. Connecting two such students fosters an understanding between them. Not only does the learner who understand the topic get a chance to demonstrate that understanding, but the struggling learner realizest just how much work was actually involved. After that, the struggle does not seem so pointless to them, it become just another step in the journey of them “getting” the concept 5.Celebrate everyone’s success Any kind of success in learning, no matter how big or small, deserves to be acknowledged and celebrated. This might mean more to some students than to others, but it is still a great way of building student confidence. After all, everyone is there in the classroom to learn together and to support each other on that path 6.Encourage self and peer assessment There is no doubt the idea of giving the responsibility of performing assessments to students themselves ia a topic that polarizes many teachers. Nevertheless, giving them that responsibility for helping both themselves and others improve learning by encouraging ownership of it is a huge step toward building student confidence. As much as possible learners must be a part of the development, application and reporting of their assessments. This leaves the most important role in the process for teacher, which is as the moderator of the assessment, it is a proven way to increase student understanding, ownership. Enthusiasm for learning and of course, confidence. As a teacher, we should find some great activities in the article which talks about the benefits of seft and peer assessment. SO peer learning: is it useful in ESL classroom? Peer learning is an educational practise in which students interact with others students to attain educational goals. A ‘peer’ within a school environment is a fellow student who does not have a position of authority over the other. Peer learning in a school is a two-way process whereby students learn from each other by sharing ideas, knowledge and experience. Peer learning is still a fairly new concept within a school or tutoring setting, but there are many benefits to this way of learning, as students can accelerate their learning by discussing their ideas with other students and taking part in peer to peer activities.Student engagement can be vastly improved as students become active learners rather than passive.When taking part in peer learning, students will often have the opportunity to: Learn leadership skills, increase their confidence, gain personal insight in self reflection and discovery, Discuss and challenge class topics, develop skills in organising and planning, learn to give and receive feedback positively, learn how to cooperate with others, learn how to be sensitive to their peers’ feelings, etc. Peer learning is also one of the most effective way in building confidence in students. Teachers are some of the most influential people in a child’s life. When it comes to instilling self-confidence, the role of a teacher in a student’s life is vital. The role of a teacher is not simply to teach students their daily lessons; their role is also to earn their students’ trust, and to motivate them to succeed. For the most part, children develop self-confidence in their abilities through their academic environment. Students who have a healthy level of self-confidence are better prepared handle the stresses of school, and are also better suited to develop healthy social skills. Teachers can use a variety of activities and techniques to promote self-confidence in their students. By employing a few or all of the following methods, a teacher will have a good chance of increasing student confidence in their classroom.