Getting you learners to engage in the class room

Unfortunately we, as teachers, practice a profession where learners are normally not very excited to be taught. If we want learners to experience a positive learning environment we have to be creative in teaching our content in such a way as to get our learners to actively engage with one another.

I recently read an article written by Abby Wills (2015) where she explained how she turned her noisy, restless and distractive class into an environment where learners cooperate, learn from one another and learn how to be careful in the things they do. She made them aware of the fact that they were very noisy and changed the whole experience of learners by applying a very simple concept. 

We, as student teachers- aspiring to become the teachers of the future, can learn a lot from this simple example. If there is one important thing that we can learn from this story is that we, as teachers, need to use our creativity to change and to enhance our classroom experience for our learners. We can do this by bringing in fun activities which the learners will love as they are actively involved in these activities.

If there in one thing I learned from our PGCE classes, it would be that learners want to feel included in a classroom and you can achieve this by letting them choose the rules of the classroom- let then decide what they want and don’t want you to be- just make sure that you do define the boundaries before you let them set up the classroom.

Learners also needs to feel included by having an open room for discussions. Foley (2014) recognises this as an important aspect for effective learning. He also states that a teacher should be available, approachable and accessible. He also made an important point about the resources that we use in the classroom and that these resources should enhance the learning process. He suggested that we can use resources such as multimedia, charts, people, learning objects, posters, charts and models and stated that we can use fun things such as a birthday calendar to make our classrooms a bit more exciting.

To sum it up- by being creative, we can use simple activities to keep learners’ attention and put them in charge of their own responsibilities. We just need to think outside the box!