Discipline in a Language Learning Environment
The 21st century has completely changed language learning around the world. Nowadays, learning a foreign language is a matter of surfing the internet and finding several courses or online apps the make it incredibly easy. In addition, young learners today have developed a series of skills that also give them a higher chance of learning languages compared to previous generations. However, this has also made people more laid-back and less motivated to try and learn other languages.
This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Jairo G. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.
Motivation and Discipline
Motivation plays a really important role when learning a foreign language, therefore, it also has a huge impact on the development and discipline of a class. Motivation varies depending on different factors such as age, job opportunities or love for languages. For instance, adults are normally more motivated about finding a better job or being able to communicate when they travel to other countries. Due to those reasons for learning and their age, it might be easier to keep discipline in an adults class. On the other hand, children have other factors that affect their motivation for learning a language like being forced by their parents, school requirements or it is just a way to give them something to do. Since young learners end up being unmotivated they get bored and it makes it a little more difficult to maintain discipline.
Teachers, caught up in situations in which students’ discipline is not the best, have to come up with many different ideas to make students be more motivated and disciplined in a class. Teachers should try and treat students in a very friendly way which can help them earn students’ trust. Teachers should also bring activities that match students’ learning purposes, styles, and interests. If most of the students find the class of their interest, the chance of having a smooth and nice class is very high. Finally, both young learners and adults tend to react to teachers’ attitude in class. That’s why teachers should try and always keep a positive attitude in class.
All of the aforementioned factors might influence discipline in classes. It is important to mention that discipline is strictly related to respect and for this reason, treating students respectfully and keeping your word about anything regarding their learning process may be key to having well-behaved students in a class.
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At the end of the day, discipline is an issue in which both teachers and students should be fully compromised and whether it is not present in a class, the teaching-learning process can be seriously affected. Teachers should try to use some of the strategies previously mentioned on their daily bases since their aim is to make the most of the time they share with students. In most of the cases, students reaction towards classes based on the previously mentioned principles is positive and discipline changes. However, following the previous pieces of advice might not give teachers a 100% certainty of having a perfect class, in some cases, students seem not to be motivated about anything that is not their social life, but it can surely help to achieve better discipline in classes.
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