How can we encourage English learners to feel self-confident?

Jeanne Perrett
A group of students in a classroom sat at their desks, smiling and looking towards their teacher at the front

Encouraging learners to feel more confident in the classroom is a problem often faced by teachers. Below are five simple things you can adopt in your classroom to encourage learners to feel self-confident.

The small things

Let’s start with the physical comfort of our students. Having the room adequately heated or cooled, asking if they would like the window open, making sure everyone has had some water or checking to see if anyone needs to go to the bathroom or wash their hands only takes a minute at the beginning of the lesson. It helps our children to know that their welfare is our concern.

Then, make sure that everyone has their books and praise them for being organized or having their pencils sharpened and ready. These things seem trivial, but they count. They count because we are acknowledging the fact that it isn’t always easy to get up and ready for school every morning, day after day and that just managing that well is an achievement.

So, starting by checking the small things helps to give our students a feeling of well-being before the lesson has even begun.

Clarity and familiarity

Be clear. Be clear about what you are all going to do and why you are going to do it. There is no such thing as ‘the obvious’ when it comes to learning. For example, you know that English is spoken internationally, but primary-aged students may have no concept of what ‘internationally’ means.

They may never have considered the concept of language itself. So, we must state the ‘obvious’ and do it in ways which are meaningful to the children, through videos, pictures and relatable examples. This goes for everything; what a verb is, how we form negative statements, what question marks indicate and what today’s lesson aims are.

Whatever they need to know, we need to state it clearly and when they have forgotten, we tell them again without ever making them feel that they ‘should’ have remembered. They forget – we remind. That’s our job.

Then there is the familiarity of a routine. Apart from making us feel reassured that we know what is happening, routines also feed into the innate need for repetition. Young children want their favorite bedtime stories told to them exactly the same way each night and will pop their heads up to correct us if we do something differently. That repetition is part of practice; doing, saying or hearing something repeatedly until we are completely sure we know it.

Most teachers don’t need reminding of this, but it might be helpful to remember that within that routine, one can also have surprises.

A five-minute ‘something different’ slot could be built into your routine. This could be a fun quiz, game or song and dance. A straightforward way of managing this is to write the names of different ‘surprise activities’ on pieces of card, put them into a pot and let a different student pick a card each day.

Room to maneuver

We all feel more confident if we know that we are free to experiment and, within that experimentation, to make mistakes. It can’t be stated often enough that we will only ever learn something by doing it wrong, often many times, before we do it right.

This message may be even more important nowadays when we see and hear perfect versions of whatever has been created - music, cookery and writing to name but a few - especially on social media.

The learning process is not brought to our attention as often as the result, and the results are often digitally altered to look more impressive. We need to remind our children of this and make them feel good about their efforts, however small and halting.

Peer pressure often contributes to a lack of self-confidence; you only need one mocking ‘friend’ to put you off. So, we must be vigilant in noticing little glances or whispered asides and praise the majority of the students who are quietly accepting or encouraging.

Space to flourish

Finally, confidence in our language learning abilities will soar when we know we can make the language our own and use it however we want.

This goes beyond personalizing activities, which can be done at any level ("What’s your favorite food?" "Do you like tomatoes?") and is dependent on the teacher noticing and accepting what individual children are really interested in. So, for example, if we continue with the example of food, a sporty child might be interested in what famous sports people have for breakfast or which foods give us stamina.

A child who is interested in nature might want to know what birds and animals eat. For this to happen, first we need to notice their interests, show enthusiasm for what they are finding out and encourage them to share what they have learnt with the class.

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  • A group of friends sat outside smiling and talking

    Lesser-known differences between British and American English

    By Heath Pulliam
    Reading time: 5 minutes

    Heath Pulliam is an independent education writer with a focus on the language learning space. He’s taught English in South Korea and various subjects in the United States to a variety of ages. He’s also a language learning enthusiast and studies Spanish in his free time.

    British and American English are two well-known varieties of the English language. While the accent is often the first difference people notice, there are also subtle distinctions in vocabulary, grammar and even style. Many know about how Brits say boot and lift, while Americans would say trunk and elevator, but what about a few lesser-known differences?

    Here, we take a look at a few of the more obscure differences between British English (BrE) and American English (AmE).

    Note: British English is underlined and American English isÌýitalicized.

    1.ÌýFootballerÌýandÌýfootball player

    Along with the well-known difference of how in the U.S., football refers to American football, while football in Britain is what Americans like me call soccer, Americans also use player after the sport to denote someone who plays the sport. In British English, the sport with an added -er suffix is more common, like footballer and cricketer, not football player or cricket player.

    This is not universal, though. For some sports, the -er suffix is used in both dialects. Both Brits and Americans use the term golfer, not golf player. There are also sports where the -er suffix is never used, like for tennis, cycling and gymnastics. Nobody says tenniser, tennis player is used instead.

    People who cycle are cyclists and people who do gymnastics are gymnasts. Sometimes, badminton players are even called badmintonists. Overall, there aren’t really any concrete rules for what to call each player of a sport. Each sport has its own way of calling someone who participates in that sport.

    2.ÌýI ³¦´Ç³Ü±ô»å²Ô’t care lessÌýandÌýI could care less

    The American version (I could care less) means the same thing. Although technically incorrect, it is still widely used in North America as an idiom and will be interpreted as not caring at all about something. Although popular, both variations can be heard in North America. Regardless, miscommunications do happen surrounding this phrase.

    “I could care less about who Harry Styles is dating right now.â€

    “Oh, I didn’t know you were interested in tabloid news.â€

    “I’m not! I just said I didn’t care about it.â€

    “No, you said that you could care less, meaning that it is possible for you to care less about who he’s dating.â€

    “Ugh! What I mean is that I ³¦´Ç³Ü±ô»å²Ô’t care less. Happy?â€

    3. American simplification

    Both British and American dialects are filled with many minuscule differences in spelling and phrasing. For example, the words plough (BrE) and plow (AmE) mean the same thing, but are spelled differently.

    When two words differ, American English generally favors the simpler, more phonetic spelling. Hey, there’s another one! Favour (BrE) and favor (AmE). It’s apparent in pairs like analyse (BrE) and analyze (AmE), and neighbour (BrE) and neighbor (AmE).

    Many of these small spelling differences can be attributed to Noah Webster, author of Webster’s Dictionary, who sought to distinguish American from British English by simplifying many of the words.

    Some of his simplifications to American English are swapping the s for z, (specialised to specialized), dropping the u in words ending in our, (colour to color), and changing words ending in -tre to -ter (theatre to theater).

    4. Courgette and zucchini

    The history of this vegetable, whatever you may call it, tells us why zucchini is used in American English and courgette is used in British English. If you’ve studied languages, you can probably guess what country each name originated from. England was introduced to this cylinder-shaped vegetable in the 19th century by its French neighbors, while Americans were introduced to it in the early 20th century by the large influx of Italian immigrants.

    The word zucchini is something of a mistranslation from Italian, however. What Americans use (zucchini) is the plural masculine form of the proper Italian word, (zucchino).

    5.ÌýAnticlockwiseÌýand counterclockwise

    These terms mean the same thing, the rotation against the way a clock runs. In British English, this movement would be called anticlockwise, and in the U.S., they use counterclockwise.ÌýThe prefixesÌýanti- andÌýcounter- mean similar things.ÌýAnti- means against, andÌýcounter- means contrary or opposite to.

    You should use antibacterial soap in order to stop the spread of germs.ÌýBuying cheap clothes that only last you a few months is counterproductive in the long term.

    Can you guess how they described this movement before the invention of clocks with hands and circular faces? English speakers this long ago used sunwise. This direction at the time was considered auspicious and the opposite of the other direction.

    6.ÌýHaveÌýand take

    Have and take are used often before nouns like shower, break, bath, rest and nap.ÌýIn the U.S., peopleÌýtakeÌýshowers andÌýtakeÌýnaps, while in the U.K., peopleÌýhaveÌýshowers andÌýhaveÌýnaps. Another example of this is how AmericansÌýtakeÌýa swim and BritsÌýhaveÌýa swim. These are called delexical verbs and we use them all the time in English, both British and American.

    Although often different, both groups of English speakers have arguments, make decisions and take breaks.

    7.ÌýQuite

    This word is spelled the same in both American and British English, but means something different. In the U.S.,ÌýquiteÌýis typically used as an intensifier, like the wordÌývery.ÌýIn the U.K., it’s normally used as a mitigator, like the wordÌýsomewhat.

    It can also mean completely if it modifies certain adjectives. (e.g., It’s quite impossible to learn a language in one month.)

    American English: That Mexican food we had yesterday was quite spicy.

    Translation: That Mexican food we had yesterday was very spicy.

    In British English, quite means something more on the lines of kind of, or a bit.

    British English: Thank you for the meal, it was quite good.

    Translation: Thank you for the meal, it was somewhat good.

    8. Clothing differences

    The category of clothes is one of the richest, with differences between the two English variants.ÌýHow about those pants that people used to only wear at the gym and around the house, but now wear them everywhere?

    Brits call themÌýtracksuit bottomsÌýand Americans call themÌýsweatpants. What about a lightweight jacket that protects from wind and rain?ÌýBrits might call this anÌýanorakÌý(derived from the Greenlandic word), but Americans would call it aÌýwindbreaker. Both variants also useÌýraincoatÌýfor this article of clothing.

    9.ÌýTorchÌýandÌýflashlight

    As an American, I’ve been confused before when coming across the word torch while reading the work of an English author.

    To Americans, a torch is a piece of wood with the end lit on fire for light.ÌýWhat Brits are referring to when they use the wordÌýtorchÌýis aÌýflashlight (AmE), a small, battery-run electric lamp.

    10.Ìý±·±ð±ð»å²Ô’t and don’t need to

    Ah, the English contraction. Many English learners don’t particularly love learning these, but they are an essential and everyday part of the language. ±·±ð±ð»å²Ô’t, however, is one that I don’t think I’ve ever heard another American say.

    In the U.K., this contraction is fairly common. ±·±ð±ð»å²Ô’t, when separated, becomes need not.

    British English: “You needn’t come until Tuesday night.â€

    Americans would say the relatively simpler don’t need to.

    American English: “You don’t need to come until Tuesday night.â€

    Don’t be fooled into thinking British English has necessarily more difficult contractions than the U.S., though. Just come to the American South and prepare to hear famous (or infamous) contractions like y’all (you all) and ain’t (am not, is not, are not)!

    Conclusion

    There are hundreds of differences between British and American dialects, we’re only scratching the surface here.ÌýSome of these make more sense than others, but luckily, both Brits and Americans can usually understand the meaning of any English word through context.

    Some people would even say that Brits speak English while Americans speak American.ÌýAlthough each dialect from across the pond seems very different, they have far more similarities than differences.

  • A group of students sat together in a library around a laptop smiling

    Forgetting to remember – What active recall is all about

    By Heath Pulliam
    Reading time: 5 minutes

    Heath Pulliam is an independent education writer with a focus on the language learning space. He’s taught English in South Korea and various subjects in the United States to a variety of ages. He’s also a language learning enthusiast and studies Spanish in his free time.

    Almost everyone has studied for a test at some point in their life. Have you ever studied a lot for a test and still not received a great grade? Probably so. This is because not all study methods are created equal. Just because you’ve ‘studied’ doesn’t necessarily mean that the material has stuck in your brain.

    Some common study methods don’t do as much as you might think. One technique, however, stands out for its efficiency and effectiveness. It’s called active recall, and it’s regarded by many as the best way to study.

    What is active recall?

    In short, active recall is the process of pulling information from your brain without prompts. The idea is that when you force yourself to remember something, you memorize it much faster than you would by only reading material or passively studying.

    When you’re taking a test and you’re not sure about an answer, you search your brain for the answer; that’s active recall. The action of trying to remember is what essentially crystallizes the information in your head for the long term. Multiple study methods use active recall or the action of searching your brain for an answer.

    Active recall forces you to pull information from your mind. It’s not just for doing well on tests but also for long-term retention.

    Active recall is praised for its effectiveness, but it is also mentally taxing. Attempting to recall things that are not in the front of your mind is tiring, which is part of why some opt out of using it.

    Dr. Cal Newport, author of Deep Work, says:

    “It’s almost like you have a pseudo-photographic memory when you study this way.â€

    Passive and active study

    Most people are taught to study, but less about how to study. People end up using passive study techniques, like rereading material or rewatching lectures. Although not particularly effective, studies show that reading and rereading notes remains university students’ most common study method. (Dunlosky, 2013).

    These methods might feel like effective studying but aren’t really helping much. Yes, passive study methods such as reading, highlighting, or watching can help, but can also give you a false sense of understanding.

    With these methods, when the time comes to retrieve the information, you struggle to recall it because it is not in your long-term memory.

    The first step to becoming excellent at studying is understanding how important active study methods are, such as flashcards, practice testing, or practice teaching – all methods that use active recall.

    Spaced repetition

    If you’re researching study methods, you’ve probably encountered the term spaced repetition. This technique can be incorporated into active recall study methods, primarily flashcards.

    Spaced repetition involves reviewing information at increasingly longer intervals in order to improve long-term memory. You are using this technique when you learn something, so review it a day later, then a week later and then a month later. It helps fight your brain’s natural process of forgetting things.

    Combining spaced repetition with active recall is always a recipe for successful study.

    So, what methods can you use to employ active recall in your study sessions?

    Summarize what you know

    The simplest way to practice active recall is to try to remember the material actively. To do this, read or reread some material, then take some time away—take a walk, snack break, or whatever you like to do to take a break.

    During this break, try to replicate in your mind as much about the topic from scratch as if you had to teach about it. Don’t be discouraged if you have trouble remembering; part of the learning process is forgetting material and then remembering it.

    When using this for language acquisition, make up relevant sentences and translate them into your target language. What type of vocabulary were you learning? What grammatical structures were new to you?

    Take a mental note of which elements you were able to remember and which ones gave you trouble.

    When finished, go back to the material and review. Were you able to remember things? Whether you could or not, you’ve helped yourself. Your attempt to remember is you practicing active recall.

    When you do successfully remember something, you’ll realize that it is locked in your long-term memory. This method is as simple as it is productive.

    Teach a friend

    Similar to mental summarizing, after studying, find a friend and do your best to explain the topic to them. Language learning could involve explaining how a new grammar pattern works in your target language or taking sentences and phrases and translating them to a friend.

    As a teacher, your best lessons are the ones where you know the material inside and out. If you can effectively explain and teach someone about your target language, you are that much closer to mastering the information yourself.

    Flashcards

    Flashcards, especially when combined with spaced repetition, are the king of study methods for language acquisition.

    Between all that they can be used for, they are especially good for language learning, no matter what part of the language you’re studying. This is one of the best ways to learn sentence structure that does not mirror your native tongue, conjugations for speedy use and general vocabulary.

    I have found that using a spaced repetition-based flashcard program is the best way to study a language. This way, you don’t have to schedule a bunch of paper flashcards manually.

    Among the most popular programs for language learners is Anki. Anki is a spaced repetition flashcard program. With it, you create your cards and the program schedules them at increasingly longer intervals. It is also used widely among students studying for large tests, like medical and law exams.

    To make the best flashcards, make them yourself. Downloading a big set of flashcards for your target language is tempting but not particularly helpful. Instead, after each study session, make a few flashcards yourself covering the new vocabulary/grammar you’ve just learned about.

    One more thing: do not use multiple-choice answers for your cards. Active recall happens when you produce information without prompts or assistance.

    Personally, I use flashcards every day to learn Spanish through . This program has a learning curve, but the payoff makes it worth it.

    Test yourself

    The goal of studying for a test is to be able to answer questions about a topic or, even better, know the material for real-world application. As stated earlier, active recall happens during testing, so why not use this form of active recall before testing?

    Use your materials to make a mock exam in this method, then take it. Through actively remembering to answer each question, the ones you get right will stick in your brain. Review the questions that you ³¦´Ç³Ü±ô»å²Ô’t remember and retake the test focusing on them.

    While not particularly complicated, these tips and methods’ effectiveness comes from their use of active recall. As you forget information and pull it from the depths of your memory, you solidify it for yourself.

    Forgetting plays an important role in learning something for long-term memory.

    Now, get to studying; how are you going to use the power of active recall in your routine?

    References

    Dunlosky, J. "Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology." Association for Psychological Science, 2013, 1-6