[Balthasar]

hello, I'm an ESL teacher who used to do only private tuition before and is now facing the challenge of teaching in classroom. The students find my classes boring. Can you tell me, can it be that some people are simply born with a predisposition to be successful in being teachers or are there some things to be learned with regards to how to make your class interesting?

Thanks a lot in advance, I'm starting to wonder if I'm really cut out for this job.

[Jehane]

Don´t loose your motivation - many students seem bored, particularly if they are younger. There is loads on the internet that you can do to make your lessons interesting. Try mixing the boring grammar with games and pairwork, which always gets them moving. Good luck!

[Balthasar]

Here is a class I thought would go ok, but turned out to be a total failure.
It was supposed to be an oral English lesson on computers. First I prepared a PPT (pictures) introducing basic hardware and software, followed by short mention of some most famous computers in movies (ex. Hal 2000, Matrix, Her- with video clips- something they proved to be totally uninterested in) and then followed by a game where the students were given a piece of paper with one computer term and some words they were supposed to use while describing it (for ex. KEYBOARD; text, computer, keys...actually it should have been a taboo game- for ex, while trying to describe a keyboard, these words shouldn't have been mentioned, but that' d have been too difficult for the students) They did try to do the task, although at first they were trying to use their dictionaries. And these are clever students, the chosen ones.

Can you pls explain the reason for such a lesson failure?

PS. their age is 17

[Denis DNT]

I don't know where you are based and the background of your students but talking from my own students, most of them aged 17 are not interested in computers anymore. They are interested in tablets and smartphones. Look for the problem in that direction too.

[Pix]

Good point about computers becoming jurassic park.

An excellent way to find out what students are interested in is to have them list their top three topics of what they like on pieces of paper and hand them in to you.

Some of course will make up any old rubbish as a joke, but for SURE you'll get some ideas from that and also get an idea of trends.

This is a book with fun activities where students are involved rather than sitting watching something, (which is relaxing for the teacher) and you don't have to spend all night preparing a PowerPoint either:

Check out my ESL Classroom Activities for Teens and Adults in paperback on Amazon, or download.


Also don't worry, you are not supposed to be a stand-up comedian, as long as your lesson has some energy it should be ok.

PS They don't talk about death by PowerPoint in the training industry for nothing either ! And no matter how hard you try, your PowerPoint will still look like something out of the dark ages compared to the video games and movies they are watching daily !

So rather than use backward media try something active where students do the work themselves instead of sitting in front of screens. Just an idea !