THE DROPPING INTEREST LEVEL

Every school year has it’s rhythms it seems. The new students to the school are so eager to learn. They are excited, polite, attentive. They enjoy meeting and seeing a foreign teacher. However, as the year progresses the students are streamed as to their English ability. Some who had high hopes of learning English and doing well are beginning to lose interest. It’s the same with any subject and any school. The teacher tries to maintain the interest level as best as he/she can but it’s in the students mind.

Since I teach 800 students only once a week, I have no time to learn their names or to give them individual attention. When they begin to lose interest there is not much I can do. Many begin to fade out in the classroom. They turn around and talk to friends. Some read comic books. I am usually really offended when they do so. My anger is always in control though and I understand there is not much I can do. If I took their comic books away or unplugged their walkmans from their ears, they would just find some other distracting interest. Generally all I can do is try to keep them all busy by designing a lesson that uses a lot of TPR.

I can get them to stand at the blackboard and play sentence or spelling games. I can design lesson segments shorter, because attention span is gone after more than five minutes. The classroom gestalt can sometimes take over. If the majority are fading out the teacher is in trouble and it’s very difficult to build confidence back into the system.

If my interest level in teaching a particular class begins to drop all I can do is determine to give that class as much attention in my lesson planning as possible. The work I do for them generally pays back. If I just let it slide, which is what they are doing, I am doing the few students in the class who have maintained interest a disservice.