 Re: Motivating Adults to Speak
Supperman - Your advice was great actually; I really wish I could get them to loosen up a little and speak freely.
bread baker - Men and women lead very different lives here. I suppose that having a female teacher and three male students isn't the best dynamic one could hope for, especially in this region. The biggest issue is that these are three male students, all of which have enormous egos, and so they tend to avoid sharing too many personal details.
If there had been another female student in the class there would be no problems whatsoever. I had a private student who visited our class several times and my male students 'cleaned up their act' as soon as she arrived. They spoke more often and more politely.
At least there is a happy ending to this story: Next week we will combine two classes to create our new upper-beginner class. I am sure that with a few female students around and higher performing students to look to as role models these students will quickly change their behavior.  |