1.# Communication opportunities

Communicating with students is critical for building positive relationships and maintaining a good rapport with them.

Hence, not all students have the ability or dare to share their thoughts in front of others. Even if you’re friendly, supportive, and sustaining students’ engagement you’ll have always those who show resistance to communication.

The student’s personality type, beliefs, previous learning experience, and relationships with his peers are among the reasons for being reluctant to communicate in class.

Therefore, creating multiple communication opportunities for students while varying the communication mode can help cater to their different needs and give them the chance to express themselves.

Engage students in team activities and group work. This can encourage communication, and cooperation and help students to talk more and express themselves with their peers.

You can also meet with individual students during recess, lunchtime, or any other break to talk about the problems and difficulties they’re having in your class. Students who have a fear of speaking in front of others or lack confidence in what they’re going to say can benefit from such an opportunity.

Yet, schedule those meetings and inform your students about their objectives and timing. Students who are interested in joining them can add their names to the list “Meeting with My Teacher”.

The number of meetings you can hold depends on the number of students who need that individual help. Yet, don’t overwhelm yourself. It’s more important to make regular meetings (for instance, twice a week) rather than schedule them during the whole week and then give up as you get drained.

Communication is not necessarily verbal and face-to-face. Students can also have the chance to communicate their thoughts via writing and drawing.

They can fill in reflective worksheets, send their feedback via email, or post it on a class blog or on any social platform you’re using. They can also draw posters and hang them on a class wall, send letters to their teacher, use checklists to check off their work, etc.

Here is, for instance, a teacher’s way of communicating with absent students. She uses a hanging wall organizer with folders throughout the week. Absent students can check the folder for the day they were absent to get their absent work. They can also follow up with their teacher if they have any questions or need her support.

Source: Math With Meaning

So, there are various ways you can encourage your students to talk about their learning journey: the kind of feelings and setbacks they’re experiencing.  Select those that fit your objective. Make them part of your classroom routine, and use them flexibly. Also, help your students understand their utility and provide the necessary direction to get them involved.

Besides, while creating those communication opportunities for your students focus on quality communication.

Here are some tips:

• Use open questions to allow more freedom of expression. You’ll gain further information and learn more about the issues your students are facing,
• use probing; an extended series of linked questions; to encourage students to elaborate on their ideas and sustain the dialogue;
• include thought-provoking tasks that promote students’ critical thinking and ideas sharing;
• offer voice and choice for students to increase their engagement and communicate their needs and interests;
• use your body language (eye contact, moving in the classroom) to engage students and don’t violate their personal space to earn their respect.

Now, it’s important to point out that creating those communication opportunities remains useless in case students don’t feel safe, engaged, connected, and supported in their classrooms. For this reason, it’s of paramount importance to create a positive learning environment before considering such opportunities for our students.

2. # Active listening

Another way to improve communication between you and your students is to use active listening. Unlike hearing, listening is purposeful. It involves being attentive to translate sounds and other signals to the brain to interpret the meaning and get the message.

When we are actively listening, we get more conscious of the act of listening.

So, active listening is key to effective communication with students. It helps us understand their intent, and reflect on and deal with challenging situations. It also enables students to express their thoughts more clearly and feel heard and valued.

Though communication is a powerful tool to support students’ learning as teachers, we tend to ignore its essential aspect: listening.

We talk a lot in class and we do our best to plan effectively for our lessons to get students attentive and listening to us.

But, have we ever considered the time to listen well to our students or allowed some opportunities for them to talk about their issues and concerns? Have we ever thought about refining our listening skills?

Active listening is a powerful tool that provides teachers with the chance to observe their students, get to know them better, and make relevant decisions to help them improve. So, it’s necessary to practise active listening in our classrooms.

But, how can we implement active listening and meanwhile do the job?

If you want to have time to listen well to your students, you need to talk less. This is the best way to improve listening in your classroom.

Don’t try to fill almost every moment with reminders, extra advice, or repeated directions. Your students are likely to tune you out.

Instead, be more selective with your words, more intentional about what you want to say and allow students some time to think about it and respond.

By doing so, your message will be clearer, more powerful, and worth listening to. So, your students are likely to get more attentive and focused on learning and improving.

Less talking also embodies encouraging more sharing and expression from students. Invite your students to share their ideas in class, participate in discussions, collaborate with their peers, be involved in peer teaching, etc.

While they’re speaking, try to give your full attention to what they’re saying by looking at them, making eye contact, nodding and paraphrasing. This will show them that you’re truly tuned in. So, they get motivated to talk more.

3.# Negotiation

Discipline and control have always been the preoccupation of educators. Establishing clear policies, procedures, and expectations at the beginning of the year is essential to maintain discipline.

Still, there are often situations where teachers are caught up in conflict with students who push their buttons and disturb the flow of the lessons.

When talking to these students to fix issues, they would either deny or show carelessness and resistance to improve their behaviours.

So often during this type of discussion, teachers try to reassert their authority while students feel more challenged and oppressed. This results in more power struggles in teacher-student relationships.

So, what’s the solution?

Negotiation is one of the most important communication strategies we should implement as teachers in such situations. It can help reveal all issues and sources of conflict.

No matter what kind of behaviour problems you’re having avoid shouting at, threatening students and losing your temper, negotiate instead.

The process of negotiation is not simply holding discussions with students. It’s more about being more strategic to elicit answers and reach solutions.

While negotiating it’s important to be calm, recognize others’ feelings, and focus on the current issues.

Here are the necessary steps to follow:

Step 1: Start your conversation with positive language

Point out any potential or quality the student has and how this can support him in reaching his desired goals. Make him feel that he is an important member of the classroom community.

Show that you want him to get involved and improve his learning. You also believe in him and in his ability to change his behaviours.

Step2: Identify the problem

Be assertive, and explain how important are classroom rules to students’ learning progress. So, breaking those rules can have negative consequences for the students concerned.

Be sure to establish clear communication to avoid any misunderstanding. Maintain eye contact with the student and show interest in supporting him to overcome any learning difficulties he’s having.

Then, address open questions to elicit the student’s emotional response and identify the sources of the problem. Be patient and listen actively to understand his response and determine what decisions you need to make to fix the issue.

Step 3: Make your plan

Work with the student to list possible options or suggestions to solve the problem. Identify the outcome of each option. Then, make an agreed plan that includes the option that appears to have the best chance of success and the least risk of negative repercussions to either.

Identify a time for review, usually a few days or a week after your negotiation process. If the solution works you can both implement it. If it doesn’t, meet again with the student to find out about the problem.

4.# Positive feedback

Communication strategies also include teacher feedback. Positive feedback not only enhances students’ learning and progress but also helps improve communication between teachers and students and clears out any confusion or misunderstanding.

When your feedback focuses on learning effort, it’s timely constructive and supportive, students will be more inclined to act on your feedback.

They’ll also get more confident and motivated to take risks, initiate and speak up their voices in class to learn from your feedback.

To read more about how to make your feedback a powerful learning tool for your students, check out this post: What Type of Teacher Feedback for Learning?

These are the necessary communication strategies we need to practise and use in class.

Communication is an essential component of classroom management. It’s the key to having the motivated and well-behaved class you want.

Using the above communication strategies, you’ll engender deep trust, and respect and rid your classroom of misbehaviours. So, you’ll have more passion and desire to inspire your students to learn at their best.

Reference

De Nobile, J. and McCormick, J.(2005). Job satisfaction and occupational stress in catholic primary schools. In PL Jeffery (ed.), Creative Dissent, Constructive Solutions: Proceedings of the 2005 Annual Australian Association for Research in Education International Conference, Parramatta, Nov. 27-Dec 1. Melbourne: AARE.