{"id":549,"date":"2012-05-14T01:19:23","date_gmt":"2012-05-14T01:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/?p=549"},"modified":"2012-05-14T01:19:23","modified_gmt":"2012-05-14T01:19:23","slug":"working-with-difficult-students-cecilia-lemos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/2012\/05\/14\/working-with-difficult-students-cecilia-lemos\/","title":{"rendered":"Working with difficult students – Cecilia Lemos"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is Difficult, after All?<\/strong>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The MacMillan Online Dictionary defines the word difficult as \u201cnot easy to do, deal with or understand\u201d. After many years teaching and having many different types of difficult, I think dealing with difficult students all comes down to RISE.<\/p>\n

R<\/strong>espect between teacher and students and between the students themselves. Foster that respect. Respect difficulties, fears and individual characteristics. Help students respect their own individualities.<\/p>\n

I<\/strong>nterest, genuine interest in the student, working to find out what makes him a difficult<\/em> one.<\/p>\n

S<\/strong>how you understand and care. Many times the source of the difficulty is a cry for attention.<\/p>\n

E<\/strong>xperiment with different ways of doing the same thing. Don\u2019t be afraid to admit something is not working. By admitting that we can move on, try other ways, and find one that works.<\/p>\n

Here are some examples of how I\u2019ve used RISE in my classes:<\/p>\n

I had a student exhibiting typical teenage behavior for Brazil, talking about sexual things and making others uncomfortable. I tried subtly asking him to stop and other approaches without success. On the day I snapped and told him in front of the whole class what I thought, he stopped.\u00a0 Although it was harsh and maybe inappropriate, it worked. If at first I was afraid of visits from angry parents, my fears were calmed after he simply stopped. It was especially nice, years later, to meet him in the hallway where he gave me a big hug and said I was the best teacher he had ever had.<\/p>\n

When you have teenagers with attitude problems, all you need to do is show you care and establish limits. Many students lack parental care because of parents who work too much and are too absent. Even if unconsciously, the students need that. It can make a difference. If you\u2019re interested in reading more about this story and how I deal with it, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sometimes the difficulty involves learning or physical disabilities. Such situations can be very challenging.\u00a0 I recently did a Teaching Village post<\/a> about a student with real disabilities.\u00a0 After feeling despair, I embraced the challenge and researched his problem. I learned how to keep his attention for longer periods, learned that keeping him busy with a variety of activities was key, and was honest with the other students and asked for their help. I treated him with respect, and didn\u2019t patronize him while still keeping his difference <\/em>in mind. It worked. That student with difficulties wound up socializing, being accepted, doing group work, and most importantly, learning.<\/p>\n

Right now it is my beginner adult students who are difficult<\/em>. They want to learn fast, have difficulty with sounds and are L1 dependant. I\u2019ve been working on building their self-confidence as language learners, suggesting ways to fit extra practice into their busy lives, and helping them find immediate uses for English. \u00a0I talked to one especially difficult<\/em> student a few times after class, learned about his interests and together we discovered a source for articles in his field that he could understand. He\u2019s been writing reviews of those in English. He stopped complaining and now never misses a class. He is my biggest victory this semester \u2013 the one that makes the hard work worth it.<\/p>\n

Still, things don\u2019t always work. In addition to success stories, I have many where I wasn\u2019t successful. There\u2019s nothing wrong about that. We can\u2019t expect to be perfect, or to always win, but we can\u2019t stop trying. To overcome difficult<\/em> we have to really want and try to understand it.<\/p>\n

Difficult<\/em> and different<\/em> have the same root. Sometimes difficult only means different, and if that is the case we have to look at it differently. RISE to the challenge. It\u2019s the only way to do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is Difficult, after All? The MacMillan Online Dictionary defines the word difficult as \u201cnot easy to do, deal with or understand\u201d. After many years teaching and having many different types of difficult, I think dealing with difficult students all comes down to RISE. Respect between teacher and students and between the students themselves. Foster … Continue reading Working with difficult students – Cecilia Lemos<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":75,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-working-with-difficult-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itdi.pro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}