From learners to explorers: How to develop an explorer mindset in language students

Jeanne Perrett
A young child with a hat on climbing on a tree

What do you think of when you hear the term ‘explorer mindset’?

Many people think that it’s about encouraging children to be interested in learning. To support them when they want to discover new thoughts and skills – and to find things out for themselves.

But we can expand on those thoughts.

Explorers who set off on expeditions have specific goals. They have to prepare physically, mentally and practically. They know where they want to go, even if they don’t know what they will find there. In the process, they stumble and fall and get back up again. And when they finally reach the place they were headed for, they see more opportunities and realize they would like to go even further.

Young people who develop this mindset will always want to learn, discover and keep searching for bigger and better things.

1. Prepare them for the journey

Before setting off on any journey, it’s crucial to have access to the right tools. In our schools, we (usually) have all the books, technology and stationery we need. At home, on the other hand, students might only have the basics. Books and craft supplies might also be seen as messy and something to be tidied away.

Therefore, in our classrooms, we should show our students that materials are always readily accessible. Learners should understand that while everything has its place, we still like to read, write, and make things.

How to encourage reading, writing and creativity:

  • Show students what you are reading; the books you have in your bag or tablet.
  • Show them your notebooks and other written work.
  • Allow time for craft work in the middle of the lesson and leave time to clear up at the end.
  • Allocate a ‘messy space’ in the classroom where craft material can be used anytime. We often do this with kindergarten classes; consider continuing it for older students.

2. Focus on the language learning destination

Most of our students will be excited about starting their journey through the English language. Some will be naturally motivated or innately inclined to become fluent speakers, and others will need your encouragement.

As a teacher, you are the primary role model for your students. Your most powerful tool is showing your own enthusiasm for learning through English. Show the children that you want to improve your own English.

Thanks to the power of technology, children have become excellent explorers.

We can now be genuinely surprised about the things they discover on YouTube, Twitch or TikTok – the phrases, ideas or even ‘life hacks’ they share with us in class. We can learn from them too. Real admiration is always more motivating than praise.

How to encourage show and tell in the classroom:

  • Allow five minutes for the children to show or tell you new things they have discovered online or elsewhere. Make it a routine with a time limit.
  • Help the children find out about the skills their role models have by searching the internet or reading magazines. Seeing what others can do from small beginnings can inspire students to create their own goals.

3. Acknowledge obstacles

We tend to think of obstacles as something we have to conquer and get over. But we can’t always do that. Sometimes we have to stop, retrace our steps, rest, redefine our goals and start again.

As teachers, we know that not achieving what we have set out to do can make us feel incompetent. The same goes for our students. If they can’t do their homework, they may not feel good about themselves and start to invent excuses. We need to set them small, manageable daily goals so that the students can find satisfaction in focused work with a finite outcome.

If they do not achieve those goals, we can reset them in a different way – for example, a writing task could become a speaking task or vice versa. Seeing that we can approach a piece of work from different angles is a life skill for our children. We don’t have to give up; we have to do it differently.

How to help individuals reach their full potential

Give them a homework menu with different tasks done in different ways. This allows them to work to the best of their specific abilities.
For example:

Describe your bedroom. You can…

  • write about it
  • talk about it
  • draw and label it
  • take a photo and label it

4. Continue to explore

It sometimes seems that the more we learn, the less we know. As we achieve certain goals, we realize that there are other goals beyond them. Viewed from afar, they might seem, like mountain ranges, impossible to reach. And it’s true. We can’t possibly learn everything. Just as we can accept obstacles as a natural part of life, we can accept limitations.

Instead of feeling inadequate, we can focus on what we have learnt and gradually extend our knowledge and skills. This can be done at any level, and it is rewarding to look back and see how far we have come as explorers of the English language.

Tips for extending students’ knowledge and skills

  • Create regular opportunities for the children to demonstrate new knowledge or skills. A bulletin board is a simple way of doing this; children could add a note or a drawing to a topic-based board and read it aloud or briefly explain why they think it is interesting.
  • Start or end a school term with simple revision activities and quizzes to help the students feel good about what they already know, however basic.
  • Point out the students' less obvious soft skills, such as punctuality, listening to others, or being organized. Reading and writing often dominate school lessons. This helps children realize that other aspects of their skill sets and behavior are recognized and valued.

Encouraging children to develop an explorer mindset helps them feel a sense of satisfaction, that they are responsible for their own education. They are, and will continue to be, the leaders of their own learning expeditions.

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    “We are all creative, but by the time we are three or four years old, someone has knocked the creativity out of us. Some people shut up the kids who start to tell stories. Kids dance in their cribs, but someone will insist they sit still. By the time the creative people are ten or twelve, they want to be like everyone else.” — Maya Angelou.

    We want our kids to excel in everything they do. This is partly down to the media, which has fostered the idea of celebrity kids and football leagues that encourage kids to become professional athletes at the age of eight or younger.

    However, we have missed the most crucial thing in their education – and that is to build their character through everyday creative activities which encourage the formation of human connections.

    Moving from kindergarten to elementary school

    Consider how nervous a first grader must feel after leaving the safe kindergarten playground and entering a strange new 'grown-up' world. The playgrounds are bigger, the kids are older, they have to line up to buy their first meal at the school cafeteria. The classroom has changed too: the desks look different, the books are bigger, and there are new challenges too.

    Some are thrilled to feel part of the older kids’ environment. Others, of course, are frightened and insecure. They have to understand and accept all the new rules and regulations, which now apply to them too.

    High expectations from parents must be met

    We also have moms, dads and caregivers worried for their little ones. They have high hopes for them. They want their children to become successful learners, multi-medal athletes, excellent readers, mathematicians or perhaps scientists…

    Professor David Healy, director of the North Wales Department of Psychological Medicine, said:“We want kids to conform to ideals based often on parental insecurities and ambitions.”

    Elementary school has therefore become something resembling a battlefield, where children must thrive in spite of (and not because of) their interests. Only top grades and excellence in everything will make parents proud.

    But what if a child is not successful? What if their reading skills are below average? What if their daydreaming about a trip to the moon doesn’t allow them to concentrate?

    Then we have two lists of kids, the thriving kids with excellent grades and the other ones.

    So how can we take the pressure off and help all kids to thrive? Here are some simple creative activities to help.

    Reaching out to your students with a simple hello

    When did we forget that education is about promoting playfulness, imagination, and creativity to build up confidence?

    My very first and most important recommendation would be this:

    Before you start a class, give yourself a moment to say"Hello"to each individual in your class. Take that moment to make eye contact with every student and see how they are doing that day.

    Make this an important part of your routine. Then have them do the same with their classmates. You could even introduce phrases such as:

    • "How was your day yesterday?"
    • "How are you feeling today?"
    • "What did you have for breakfast this morning?"
    • "I notice you look nice today!"

    You can also try another creative activity. Ask your students to say good morning to the new day and think of something they are grateful for or someone they are grateful to. For example:

    • "Thank you mom, for my breakfast."
    • "I am grateful because all my classmates are here."
    • "Thank you moon, for your light every night."

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    3 creative routines to help foster a safe learning environment

    By Laura Vazquez

    “The world is undergoing revolutionary changes, we need a revolution in education too.” -Creative Schools, Ken Robinson

    In February 2006, the late Sir Ken Robinson delivered a talk at TED titled: . This was some years ago and time seems to have stood still in education since then.

    Creativity is a key 21st century skill. Our young students need to harness it in order to be successful in further education and the workplace, especially now that technology is advancing at such a rapid rate.

    So what can we do to encourage creativity and create a safe learning environment? I’ll take you through three activities that I use with my own students to help them flourish.

    Clear and structured objectives

    To nurture and encourage creativity in the classroom, it is important to have clear, well-structured objectives and routines that give students a safe learning environment. Here’s a breakdown of a few you can try in your classroom.

    1. Monday activity

    As part of your routine, do something different every Monday and have your students guess what it is. For example, you could change your earrings or only wear one. You could shave your mustache, wear a hat, or do something less obvious.

    Students should participate too, so have them do something different every week. Select a student in the class and everyone must guess what has changed that Monday.

    This activity is designed to encourage students to pay attention to each student in the class and notice things about them during the week. At the same time, it will encourage them to be creative and think about how to do things differently and mix up their own routines.

    2. Friday team building challenge

    Every Friday, my class play a team building challenge activity which helps them set and follow rules, be respectful to one another, and work and play with students from different circles.

    Here’s a simple, energetic team building activity you could try:

    • Have students call out all the new vocabulary words they learned during the week. Write them on the board as they do so.
    • Split the class into teams of four or five students.
    • Tell them they have to use their bodies to spell each word (if there are lots of words, pick the top three). Wipe the word off the board and explain that they can stand up, lie down, and use their arms and legs – but they should work together to form the shapes of the letters. The first team that correctly spells the word you dictate wins a point!

    3. "Hurray, I failed” activity

    The final activity is all about celebrating failure. Start by putting students in a circle or a line, and have them each name a color out loud. If someone repeats a color or takes longer than five seconds to answer, they must stand up, dance, and shout “hurray, I failed!” as loudly as possible.

    You can select any topic – such as nouns, countries, or, even better, your students’ interests. The intention is to create a safe learning environment for your class, where students feel supported and being wrong is fun and okay. This will enable students to participate in class without fear of judgment or criticism.

    Try it out until your students become comfortable with dancing and 'hurraying' in front of everyone in the group.

    This activity has yielded fantastic results with groups of people I’ve worked with, regardless of their age group (young, old, junior high). Participants may feel silly or shy, until one participant starts doing it for fun, and then the rest of the group will start feeling comfortable with being wrong. They will realize it’s okay, and the exercise will start to flow with greater ease.

    If your group is shyer or your students are more introverted, you can ask the person who makes a mistake to wear a silly hat – until the next person fails.

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    3 activities to nurture creativity in the classroom

    By Laura Vazquez

    What keeps people from exercising their creative potential? From negative past experiences to the way we see ourselves, there are many things that can hold us back, no matter how old we are. As teachers, it’s our job to help each individual find out what their creative barriers are, whether internal, external or imagined.

    Our classrooms, therefore, need to become places where we nourish emotional safety and welcome mistakes. As such, we should encourage a culture that promotes failing as part of learning. 

    Here are three activities to help nurture creativity in the primary classroom.

    Activity one: My whole self

    In this activity, students express themselves in words and images, using a life-sized drawing of their bodies. The aim of this is to help them share their feelings and ideas. With a little adaptation, it can work just as well with teens and young learners. 
    Before the lesson, ensure you have enough cardboard or paper for each student. Each piece will need to be approximately 2m long. If you’re using paper, roll it into tubes, so it’s easier to distribute to each student later.

    In class, hand out the paper/cardboard to each student. Tell them to draw a life-size outline of themselves on the paper. Students working online can copy the outline you share onto a large piece of paper. They can do this in their notebooks if they don’t have any paper to hand. 

    In teen classes

    Tell the students that they are free to use their creativity. They should draw, write, and express themselves however they want. If they are stuck for ideas, ask them:

    • How do you feel?
    • What are your ambitions?
    • What are you worried about?
    • What do you enjoy?
    • What are you looking forward to?

    Note that questions should be adapted to your students’ age and level of English. 

    During the activity, your students can use colors, stickers, magazines – and anything that will help them express what is in their minds and hearts. 

    A note on using this activity in elementary classes

    Primary-aged students will need more support. Here are some example instructions:

    • In your right hand, write what you do when you feel frustrated.
    • In your right foot, write your favorite song.
    • In your left leg, write the name of the person you get good advice from.
    • In your right arm, write what makes you happy.
    • In your left hand, write your greatest dream.
    • In your left foot, write which cartoon character you would like to be.
    • In your left leg, write what you like to do in your free time.
    • In your left arm, write things you value the most.
    • On your stomach write your favorite meal.

    Afterwards, students should explain what they’ve included in their silhouettes to the rest of the class. Encourage students to ask each other respectful questions. 

    Activity two: Message in the box

    The aim of this activity is to establish a routine where students can share their ideas, thoughts and feelings on a regular basis. 

    Have students bring an old box into class (of any type). Encourage them to personalize their boxes with decorative paper, markers, crayons, stickers, etc. 

    Instruct students to write an idea, feeling, thought or question down. The complexity of the task will depend on the grade you teach and their level of English. Topic ideas include:

    • What are you grateful for today?
    • How do you feel today? 
    • What do you wish for?
    • What do you do when you’re angry?
    • What do you like most about yourself?

    Have your students write their answers and put them in the box. When everyone has finished, they should take turns to choose a piece of paper at random and read it out loud to the group. 

    Wrap up this activity by asking the class, “What things do we have in common as a group?”. This way students will see that everyone has similar worries and dreams and hopefully they’ll be more willing to talk about their feelings in future classes.

    Keep the box in a safe place and review the notes after a month to see if peoples' thoughts and feelings have changed since they did the activity.

    Activity three: Activity story board

    The ideal class environment is one where students feel challenged, but not overwhelmed.  The aim of this activity is to have students reflect on the challenges they have faced in their day-to-day learning and think about what they need to do to improve. 

    On a blank piece of paper, ask students to draw two vertical lines and one horizontal line to form six boxes. They should number each box from 1 to 6. Students should then write a challenge or objective in box number six. It should be something that they would like to improve, for example, studying habits, reading skills, doing homework, getting better at exam results, etc. Then encourage them to think of five things they can do to help them reach their objective and write them in boxes 1-5. 

    1. Read at least two paragraphs every day
    2. Draw what I think is the main idea on paper.
    3. Look up the meaning of words I don´t understand.
    4. Try to increase the number of paragraphs I read each week.
    5. Make a monthly progress chart  to see if I have improved. If not, I need to work on another strategy.
    6. My objective:  Ex. Get better at reading comprehension quizzes.

    Provide students with your support and constructive feedback. Have them share their objectives with the rest of the class and every couple of weeks check how they are doing. 
    Remember to praise their ideas and efforts to improve. Students are more motivated when they feel their teachers are invested in their success.