![\"teenagers](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelondonschool.it\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/Bored-Teenagers-500px.jpg?resize=384%2C216\")
<\/h2>\nAs any experienced language teacher knows, getting students speaking in their second language can at times be difficult. This is never more true than when teaching teens. \u00a0The variety and intensity of\u00a0the reasons for this reluctance can vary but the inevitable result is the same – lessons which feel difficult and forced. \u00a0Despite all our preparation and planning, it isn’t the teenagers speaking but us and our students seem bored and distracted. \u00a0All our work and enthusiasm hits a wall of dismissive indifference.<\/p>\n
As a consequence we chastise our students for their apparent lack of motivation. \u00a0At first we do this lightly and then, as our frustration grows, with more insistence until finally we can add resentment to to our students\u2019 existing indifference. \u00a0At this point the invisible barrier between teacher and student becomes palpable and seemingly insurmountable.<\/p>\n
What we often don\u2019t realise is that from our students’ perspective that barrier has been there all along. \u00a0It is only now that we the teachers finally sense it. \u00a0So where does this barrier come from? \u00a0To understand what it is that keeps us from connecting with our students we have to put ourselves in their shoes; only then can we hope to break these barriers down.<\/p>\n
How we learn our place in the larger world of school and who we are as people we learn largely through trial and error and our observation of the sucesses and failures of others. \u00a0It is a sad fact, though, that at that age errors can be harshly judged and mercilessly ridiculed by our peers and this can have devastating effects on an adolescent psyche.<\/p>\n And now we, as teachers, enter into this psychological pressure cooker and ask our students to participate in an event where they know for a fact that they will make errors; perhaps in front of the very elements who might ridicule them. \u00a0In addition they have to walk a fine line \u2013 to be bad is to be open to ridcule but to be too good is to risk another criticism; we have all heard words like \u201cSwot\u201d or \u201cTeacher\u2019s pet\u201d, for example, and worse besides.<\/p>\n We can therefore see that the teacher\u2019s role is far more difficult than we first expected and that before learning can occur we have to create a space apart from \u2018school\u2019 where the same rules do not apply – a place where students can feel comfortable enough to assert who they are as a person with confidence and create new, more supportive ideas of who they are as a group\/class. \u00a0This can only happen when the teacher acts as a guide and facilitator\u00a0and this requires a connection and trust in a person they have always seen as \u201cother\u201d. \u00a0The very label of \u2018teacher\u2019 puts us on the other side of the \u2018wall\u2019. \u00a0Breaking that wall down is clearly going to be difficult and will force us to look at our students in a much larger context; not just as “learners” but people. \u00a0In the next part we will consider the first of these new contexts and their effects – the learning environment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Why aren’t my teenagers\u00a0speaking? As any experienced language teacher knows, getting students speaking in their second language can at times be difficult. This is never more true than when teaching teens. \u00a0The variety and intensity of\u00a0the reasons for this reluctance can vary but the inevitable…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":211,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-teaching-resources"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"worried](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelondonschool.it\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2017\/05\/worried-young-woman-with-hands-on-face_1154-275.jpg?resize=191%2C239\")
As we all know, life is complicated. \u00a0What we can forget as we grow older, however, is that it has always been<\/em> complicated. \u00a0Even though these days we have bills and taxes, work and responsibilities, we have always been finding our way in life. \u00a0Back at school it was the mystery of inter-personal relationships that confounded\u00a0us; how we fitted
\ninto the microcosm of school society and it\u2019s myriad dynamics. \u00a0It was all-consuming,
\nthe most important question that life had to offer. \u00a0It was beyond simple studies, far bigger than trivialities like the origin of life or the universe – it related to our inner psychology, our self-image and the perception of us by others. \u00a0And let\u2019s be honest, very little time needs to be spent with a teenager before the importance of \u201cself\u201d for them becomes very clear. \u00a0All joking aside, however, it is safe to assume that there is more going on in a classroom than the teacher is aware of.<\/p>\nA teacher’s role<\/h2>\n