Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Caochuan Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Yuncheng Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language.
There are an infinite amount of factors which can influence a student's ability to learn the English language. From the environment they grew up in, to the number of study hours they put into their studies every week, all of these factors combine into a students level of control in regards to a certain language. When looking at the influencing factor of making friends in the classroom, there are several pros and cons that need to be looked at before being able to judge whether making friends in the classroom is a positive or a negative factor when learning English. The first pro would be that the student gets more opportunities to practice their skills and exchange knowledge in regards to the English language. The fact that they have someone who they trust and appreciate in the classroom makes it easier for them to practice their speaking skills without the interference of feelings such as embarrassment because of their insecurity of speaking English. Having a friend also makes practicing and exchanging knowledge outside of the classroom easier, as they have someone to speak to when they encounter difficulties during their studies, when they wish to practice certain dialogues or if they just want some company when studying. The second pro is that having friends in the classroom increases the student's motivation during that class. They will want to come to the class to meet with their friends and study the language together. This motivation also translates to more engagement during classes as when the student is surrounded by people they trust, they will feel more inclined to speak up during exercises which require interaction from both the teacher and other students. This increase in engagement and motivation should also be prevalent when looking at group assignments and/or presentations. Having friends to work on assignments and being able to speak freely during said assignments increases the overall level of quality of the work and results that come forth from working together. A possible con from a teacher's standpoint would be that when students make friends in the classroom, the classroom also becomes rowdier. Students get confident in conveying in which direction the would like the lesson to go, they start disrupting the overall flow of the lesson and could even go as far as disrupting other students in their learning process. Even though unit 20 goes into detail on how to deal with these types of situations, the teacher's self-confidence and the students learning environment could still suffer under these conditions. Another possible con would be that, while students could positively influence each other as stated in one of the pro's above, they could also negatively influence each other. Especially during speaking lessons they could try poking fun at their friends while ignoring the assignment altogether, or they could try and distract their friends and try to drag them into the same kind of behavioral pattern. On the educational side of this argument, the students could learn bad habits from each other. This includes things like pronunciation, use of vocabulary in an incorrect context, or just an inaccurate or impolite use of the language in general. This indirectly also affects the lessons themselves because the teacher has to adapt their lesson planning and lesson subject according to positive or negative developments happening over the course of the English course. All in all, there are both positive and negative aspects of making friends in the classroom. In my personal opinion, the cons are negligible as long as the teacher has the knowledge and self-confidence to deal with any of the negative influences arising from students befriending each other. From my own experience making friends in language-oriented classes boosts the students' learning capability significantly, while also improving on class atmosphere and teacher-student interaction. The answer to the question 'Should students make friends in the classroom to learn English better?' would be a definitive yes.
