How a teacher can inspire shy students to participate in class

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For an educator like you, it is essential to create a supportive and friendly ambience in the class for students. But since not all students are similar, some would be super active and participative, while some may feel reluctant to open up in the class.

As a teacher, your job becomes tough when it comes to encouraging the second category of students to speak up. You should think of creative ways to put the introverted student on the spot. It is possible that your shy students are intuitive and knowledgeable.

But they lack the ability to express their views in front of the class. You can expect active participation in the class from those students who are outspoken. They enjoy the thrill to voice their opinions.

For students struggling financially, you can insist on taking out financial help in the form of student loans in Ireland. This ensures these students are able to continue studying despite the financial crunch.

You being a teacher, there are ways to help students improve their ability to speak up and communicate in the class. This guest post can be a helpful guide for you. Take a glance at it.

Different means to motivate the students

Making every student participates in classroom discussions and debates can be difficult for a teacher but not impossible. Find out how you can do this:

Create a comfortable classroom culture

As a teacher, it is your liability to make sure your students are at ease in the class. You should make them understand that it is alright to be an introvert. But this should not prevent them from opening up in class.

Students fret about speaking up in class, thinking others would make fun of them. This hesitation may come from the scenario where they see extroverts being praised for being well-spoken. In order to avoid any mistakes while speaking, they tend to shy away from taking part in class discussions.

You need to encourage them to take part in debates despite knowing that they cannot deliver perfectly. Inspire them not be shy to express themselves and their views and speak up. Learning from mistakes is essential, but this can be done in the second step.

As a mentor, you can guide your students on their mistakes. Try to help them understand how they can prevent making mistakes. This facilitates improving the rapport between you and your student.

Students speaking out negative thoughts in class should not be tolerated. Address them right away. Create a classroom culture that motivates and the students should feel free to share their voices.

Other ways to encourage more participation

Motivate your students to overcome the fear of how to act on being cold-called. You must point out such behaviours in students, which confirms they are feeling anxious and are avoiding taking part. Think in a different way.

For example, you can ask students to raise their hands first if they want to participate. In another approach, you can induce the student to respond in a non-verbal way. Lastly, you can even insist that they share their responses with their partner instead of the whole class.

There is another strategy where you will inform the student in advance that you are going to call the student to give an answer to this question. Your learner will get the opportunity to prepare and speak. They would even confirm if their response is the correct one in order to gain confidence.

You can also ask your students to read aloud the already known answers to some questions. This will surely raise the confidence level of the student as they already have the answers. They can even surprise you with their presence.

Work on building a system in your class where the student gets acknowledged for participating in the discussion. They will feel self-assured about being recognized even for silent signalling also. You must understand that your student might need some time in order to be ready for the transformation.

You can set a timetable for presentations where students will participate alternately. Any topic based on current affairs can be used for these presentations. You can ask them to discuss the reason behind choosing this recent event.

Provide them time for preparation by informing them in advance. You can even change the seating arrangement in the class by placing the nervous student among confident ones. These are alterations that you should do on a need basis.

Don’t forget to celebrate their success to keep up their motivation. You can even start a reward system where the top-performing students will get a shout out from you in the class.

Let them collaborate and excel.

Motivate your students to help each other in grooming their confidence. The additional advantage of it is that it will build a support system among the students. Provide them with a partner so that they don’t feel alone.

It is easy for some students to open up when they know that they are not the centre of attention. Moreover, it has been seen that students outgrow when they are allowed to work in collaboration.

You can divide the students’ work into small groups in other ways. Assign separate roles to each student of a group where one of them should be the presenter.

The bottom line

A class constantly witnesses an amalgamation of extrovert and introvert students. So, for students who feel terrified by the thought of being called on in class, the teacher should apply a different approach to change the mindset.

The teacher has the capacity to transform the students. That just needs some creative and practical ways to be implemented by the teacher. Here, the classroom culture that is created by the educator can play a pivotal role.

As a teacher, you are responsible for enhancing the scope for these students and motivating them to take part actively. Your duty would be to make sure the student feels safe in your class. All these together will definitely help you drive a change in the student behaviour inside the class.