I'm feeling overwhelmed by seeing my students yawning in class. It seems that they need to be the centre of attention or they get bored. It´s really frustrating seeing your classes are boring or at least that is what they seem to be. I try to include different activities to practice all the four skills, but sometimes it doesn´t work. In my experience with adults, I cannot give them activities to work at home because they never have enough time to do it and if I do these activities in class the get bored. So, even though I know that speaking is the main focus and in fact that is all they want to do in class, I also need other activities to work on and reinforce grammar or vocabulary. I need other activities as means to speak later on what they have seen.
It would be nice if any of you have a suggestion that probably may help me find a technique to avoid this. Thanks.
lu
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First off, yawning doesn't always mean people are bored. I find I'm most likley to yawn when I suddenly become inactive (eg. sitting down for an hour after a busy day's work). Not only that, but some people just seem to yawn more often than others. It's usually not about interest or motivation, it's just a physical thing.
Secondly, are you sure you need to do other activities to work on and reinforce grammar or vocabulary? From Krashen's theory that reading/listening is enough, to communicative theories that purposeful communication and interaction (involving reading, listening, speaking) is enough, to first language learners never doing grammar/vocab exercises, to CLIL developing people's English just by using it to teach other topics, etc, there's a lot of indication that people can successfully learn language without a focus on grammar/vocab.
Yes, research shows that a focus on form helps... but...
The teacher explaining a grammar point is a 'focus on form', but so is simply underlining a couple of sentences in a text, and so is drilling pronunciation, etc.
Most of the Ss I work with have studied grammar and vocabulary for many years already, and a lot of language focus I do is just repeating something they've already done/heard/know.
So chances are, skills work is enough.
If not, go for less obvious grammar and vocab activities. You can often draw people's attention to patterns and meanings without explicitly telling them, and a lot of pronunciation work and snappy substitution drills can highlight forms and structures in a light and energetic way.
Or you could get Ss doing skills work first and basing any grammar/vocab focus you do on their own use of language (highlighting good language that they used and providing a couple more examples, and correcting language they didn't use accurately, or providing language that you think they could have used to communicate more effectively, etc, after the task). Task-Based Learning takes this approach, for example.
Dear bujaldonlu,
in response to your very first problem mentioned above, i would like to make you sure that yawning in the class is a kind of universal problem and it occurs only when we have poor presentation of the subject matter. a person in well motivated, well managed, and well entertained classroom never yawns. so, if you try your best to make your classroom teaching lively, student centred, motivated and encouraged, i am sure you won't have to face this sort of problem in your classroom teaching.
Addressing to your second problem, talking in the class is again universal phenomenon. and if you wish them not to talk in the class you yourself are pushing them into the ditch of passivity which is adverse to their better learning. so, students talk in the class and it is not a big issue to worry but what you need to do is try to modify their purposeless talking to purposeful one means encourage them talk more assigning them the tasks or topics which make sense to the subject matter that you are planning to deliver in the classroom.
I Hope to some extent I address your problems.
thank you,
uddab
As you have interpreted, yawning does not necessarily mean your delivery is not effective. It could be just one of the many reasons. You could even carry the reputation of being a firebrand and electrifying trainer, but still you may find participants, yawning at periodic intervals. I have gone through this and I know how humuliating, it can be.
I am listing down some possible reasons due to which you find your participants yawning :
Your session is the last for the day and therefore they are mentally tired or scheduled for after lunch
Participants thinking about serious domestic or professional issues
A small number of participants having an off day
Not able to relate the activity with the concept
Influenced by opinions given about you by your earlier batches or some other faculty member
Expectation and delivery mismatch
Having a conventional outlook
Uncomfortable seating arrangement
Stuffy atmosphere in the classroom
Noise disturbances ( Internal or External )
Your voice not audible or loud enough for participants seated in the last few rows
Inferiority complex
Feeling of know all ( superiority )
Not able to appreciate frank feedback
Setting high standards and not being able to achieve it
You need to have a relook and reflect back on your sessions. I am sure you find out what is going wrong.