Keep Calm and Make a Change!

Nowadays there is a reality: students do not like English classes. But, why?

Some years ago I was on the other side, I was a student but, unlike my classmates, I loved studying English. However, something that I shared with them was that I used to hate English’s classes too.

How can a student love learning English but at the same time hate English classes? I have three hypothesis:

1) Are the topics that students are learning useful?

Sometimes teachers feel comfortable following a book, without changing anything. I do not want to say that this is wrong but, does the book have any relation with our students’ reality or daily life? Is meaningful for them knowing about the routine of Peter or Sarah? Or is more interesting knowing about the routine of a famous person?

2) Do we encourage our students about making mistakes?

We are not English native speakers, so speak another language that is not our make us feel uncomfortable, insecure, and ashamed of reading and speaking. Most of the time students do not want to make mistakes so they say that English is not for them. If we as teachers make a lot of mistakes, why not them? It is a must for our students know that we are learning all the time. Our mistakes from today are lessons for tomorrow.

3) Do students know that learning English is important for their lives?

Nowadays we are surrounded by information. We can know about everything in only one “click” so we have to choose the information that is necessary and useful for our daily life. As a result, is not weird that students make us this question: Is learning English important for my daily life?

Personally, I think that saying them that someday they can travel to another country is not a good reason. Students need to know that they can use English at any moment. For example, when they buy a t-shirt, listen to a song on the radio or when they are watching a movie. English is there!

Teachers are intermediaries between students and learning English, we can make a change, let’s do this!