Chapter 2Recognising students One o

Chapter 2
Recognising students One of the students I talked to in my research said that a good teacher was ‘someone who knows our names’ This comment is revealing both literally and metaphorically. In the first place, students want teachers to know their names rather than, say, just pointing at them. But this is extremely difficult for teachers who see eight or nine groups a week. How can they remember all their students? Teachers have developed a number of strategies to help them remember students’ names. One method is to ask the students (at least in the first week or two) to put name cards on the desk in front of them or stick name badges on to their sweaters or jackets. We can also draw up a seating plan and ask students always to sit in the same place until we have learnt their names. However, this means we can’t move students around when we want to, and students - especially younger students - sometimes take pleasure in sitting in the wrong place just to confuse us. Many teachers use the register to make notes about individual students (Do they wear glasses? Are they tall?, etc) and others keep separate notes about the individuals in their classes. There is no easy way of remembering students’ names, yet it is extremely important that we do so if good rapport is to be established with individuals. We need, therefore, to find ways of doing this that suit us best. But ‘knowing our names’ is also about knowing about students. At any age, they will be pleased when they realise that their teacher has remembered things about them, and has some understanding of who they are. Once again, this is extremely difficult in large classes, especially when we have a number of different groups, but part of a teacher’s skill is to persuade students that we recognise them, and who and what they are.

Results (Indonesian) 1:

Bab 2Recognising students One of the students I talked to in my research said that a good teacher was ‘someone who knows our names’ This comment is revealing both literally and metaphorically. In the first place, students want teachers to know their names rather than, say, just pointing at them. But this is extremely difficult for teachers who see eight or nine groups a week. How can they remember all their students? Teachers have developed a number of strategies to help them remember students’ names. One method is to ask the students (at least in the first week or two) to put name cards on the desk in front of them or stick name badges on to their sweaters or jackets. We can also draw up a seating plan and ask students always to sit in the same place until we have learnt their names. However, this means we can’t move students around when we want to, and students - especially younger students - sometimes take pleasure in sitting in the wrong place just to confuse us. Many teachers use the register to make notes about individual students (Do they wear glasses? Are they tall?, etc) and others keep separate notes about the individuals in their classes. There is no easy way of remembering students’ names, yet it is extremely important that we do so if good rapport is to be established with individuals. We need, therefore, to find ways of doing this that suit us best. But ‘knowing our names’ is also about knowing about students. At any age, they will be pleased when they realise that their teacher has remembered things about them, and has some understanding of who they are. Once again, this is extremely difficult in large classes, especially when we have a number of different groups, but part of a teacher’s skill is to persuade students that we recognise them, and who and what they are.