Friend or Foe? - Getting parents more involved

 This post is a kind of reply to Jason Renshaw's latest post. I began writing a comment in reply to something Leahn (from Early EFL said) but it got longer and longer, so I thought it would be better to make a post out of it.

Parents and children

Jason discussed his ideas on what should be expected of teachers and parents of young students, in terms of greetings, general friendliness and interest; and the importance of teacher-parent relationships. I agree with pretty much everything Jason says, at least in theory. However, there are a few practical implications that can make these suggestions difficult.

 Apart from the very young children whose parents actually come upstairs to pick them up, the only time we ever see parents in my school is if they have a complaint. Only once or twice in the past eight years have I had a parent come in to find out how his/her child is progressing. This is unfortunate but reflects the idea of after-school English classes being an alternative babysitting service. It can, be however, the same from the teacher's point of view. How many teachers ring or write to the parents when the child is doing well? If the only communication between teachers and parents is about "bad stuff", surely there is something wrong? This is why Leahn describes parents as being the enemy. You know, when the secretary  informs you that a parent is coming in to speak to you, that you are in trouble! And this is not good - the teacher becomes defensive, the parent comes in with the wrong attitude (everything is the teacher's fault, even the fact that little Timmy never does any homework because it is apparently the teacher's job to enforce homework, even though this is physically impossible) and the meeting's result means that neither the teacher nor parent goes away completely satisfied and they both hope that the next meeting will be way into the future. This is, unfortunately, the case more often than not.


So after that little rant, it's time to think of some solutions.

Time is generally an issue here - if there are no breaks between lessons and parents are double-parked outside school, little communication is going to take place. Many of the older children walk to school alone, or the car is waiting outside to pick them up. Many parents pay by direct debit and never enter the school.
I think that one solution to this could be a regular email sent out to parents, even if it is only once a term. It could be a kind of newsletter, but I think a personal mail would be more productive. If you make a note of the positive things each child does, it won't be hard to write a quick update on how he/she is doing. I think it best to focus on the positive (Little Timmy has been trying really hard this term), language progress (Timmy can now talk about his free time) but any problems or concerned should also be mentioned, if not in detail. These things are best discussed face to face, so you could mention that you are concerned about Timmy's lack of attention and that you would like to arrange an informal meeting with the parents to discuss this.

I have a class wiki for the little ones where I post things we have been doing, trying to encourage parents to take part in their child's learning. I am wondering to what extent this could be done with older children or teenagers. It is quite alright for parents to sit with their 6 year old at the computer, but would this be feasible with an eleven year old?

If any of you have tried something like this out, I'd love to hear about it. How do you successsully involve parents with their child's learning? Is it possible to do so with older kids? Let me know in the comments section, or reply to Jason's original post, if you prefer.

A Call for Advice

This is a cry for help to my PLN.

                                          Photo by Simon Howden

It is not a nice feeling, after so many years of teaching, the one you get when you have no idea of how to help a student advance. It is a feeling of complete and utter exasperation. A feeling of uselessness and hopelessness. Thoughts of incompetence run through my mind. Why don't I know what to do? Why have I run out of ideas? It is so hard not to lose patience and blame the student as well as myself for not knowing how to overcome the problem. This is why I am asking you, my network of knowledgeable friends, for help.


The Student: a one-to one student in his early forties working for a company recently taken over by a British firm. Started in February as a False Beginner, had three months off over the summer and has started lessons again in October. Two hours per week.

The Course: using an elementary level course book as a source of general vocabulary and grammar as well as skills practice.

The Problem: The student has an elementary level of vocabulary and grammar structures and can understand written texts on a wide range of topics, however his listening skills are at beginner level. He can only comprehend spoken English at sentence level (on a good day) and freezes whenever a recording is played.

The Situation: The student has face to face contact several times a year with British visitors to the factory with whom he is expected to communicate. He needs to be able to understand and respond to native speakers socially whilst showing them around the factory.

How can we improve his listening skills in a short period of time? What kind of tasks can I give the student? One of the main problems is nerves. However much I try to get him to relax and just listen, this seems impossible. We have been working on pronunciation issues such as elision and sentence stress in order to make listening easier but at the end of the day, when another teacher comes into the classroom and asks him a basic question he just freezes.

So, please if you have or know of any ideas, tasks, links, websites or even books that may help, please let me know. How can I rid my student of the sensation of being thrown into a black hole whenever he hears English?

Classroom Management with YLs

On the first day with my new group of 4-5 year-olds I had a bit of a nightmare with two children. This is their second year in the English academy, whereas all the other children are here for the first time, and I think that partly because they had 7 new classmates, and because they did not know me, they started to play up and "test" me to see what they could get away with. One of the two boys would not sit on his chair for more than about two minutes before he would get up and move to another part of the classroom, or start swinging on his chair. Him and his friend were also quite silly and began shouting and making noises, which, when I asked them if that was correct behaviour for a classroom, they replied "yes". I did have a word with one of them and mentioned speaking to their mothers, as that was no way to behave, especially on their first day, but this didn't really trouble them for more than a few minutes.

So, it was obvious that I had to try something different. Yesterday, I had the same class for their second lesson and we spent a good part of it discuccing appropriate behaviour and I also introduced them to a reward scheme.

We played a game which helped us discuss good and bad behaviour, where I would give an instruction to a child e.g stand on your chair, and the others would have to decide whether this was appropriate classroom behaviour. They either put their thumbs up and said "OK" or they wagged their finger and said "Don't do that!". We had great fun and managed to agree on what behaviour was and wasn't acceptable.

Small children love the idea of getting stickers or stars and it usually motivates them to behave better. So, we now have a reward scheme: a chart with everyone's name on it and plenty of space to stick gold stars. After explaining the system and writing their names, the children helped me to decorate the edges with drawings. I have told them that they can get stars for good behaviour, or if they do their work really well, or try very hard, or help their classmates. The "naughty" boy from the first day informed me that he would be behaving very well and that he was going to get lots of stars. We shall see...

Another idea which will hopefully complement the star system is that of having a class helper. Each day, one of the children will be responsible for helping me to hand out and collect books and worksheets, crayons etc. I have cut out a small smiley face which I stick next to the name of that day's helper on the star chart. Yesterday I made one of the two problematic boys helper, and he seemed to enjoy that responsibility and was very good. His friend kept asking me if he would be the helper the following day.

So, even if I can't keep their "bottoms on seats" I do think that this system will make life a bit easier for me and enjoyable for them

Note: I have used similar schemes before, with slighlty older children. Last year I tried to get the children to cooperate more with each other by dividing them into teams, giving it a competitive aspect. The team with the most stars at the end of term got a prize. With this I hoped that peer pressure would encourage the naughtier children to behave better. It didn't go quite as well as I had hoped, since some of the children often complained that they didn't want to be in "so-and-so's team" because he never got any stars. For this year I have decided to make it individual.