Suggestions for Building Student Confidence

For many students, self-confidence is a natural personality trait: You either have it or you don’t. Confident learners tend to speak more and know how to get their point across. For those students who aren’t so confident, learning new material can be overwhelming or might create frustration and feel like a failure. These students are always questioning their abilities and tend to shy away from answering questions.

This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Matias H. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.

Teacher’s Responsibilities

Being an educator consists of more than simply teaching your students their daily lessons. To a large extent, children develop self-confidence in their abilities through their academic environment. When students acquire healthy levels of self-confidence, they are better equipped to face the stress of school and college education. Students with self-confidence pay more attention in class, get along better with their peers and generally have a more focused and inquisitive attitude.

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Overview of the Strategies

Confidence can be taught via some creative teaching strategies. As teachers, we have a powerful influence on our students, and we can help them feel confident and proud of themselves and their accomplishments, especially at a young age. We can help them feel secure enough so that they are willing and able to learn new material. Encourage them to be curious and find their way to understand what, at that moment, feels difficult or complicated.

Build on Strengths

To create opportunities for students to succeed by building on their strengths is key. For example, if a student knows a lot about something, just showing some interest by asking them to talk about it can be motivating. “That´s cool how does this work, I’ve never seen it before, can you please explain it to me?” Asking students for their help makes them feel empowered and is a great confidence boost.

Also Read: How is teaching English in Asia different from teaching English in Latin America?

Vary Activities

Also, we can use a variety of activities and techniques to promote self-confidence in students by providing positive feedback when appropriate. To tell them when they've done a good job in an exam or report. Validating students with a simple smile and letting them know that we are pleased, will make them feel appreciated. Setting realistic goals so that students can feel a sense of accomplishment when a task is completed. Arranging the classroom to provide an opportunity for equal participation and creating an open and positive environment for learning is our responsibility as educators.

Give them credit for trying, even when they are giving the wrong answer, and show enthusiasm when they succeed, even if the topic has already been covered or isn’t that exciting. Students will become bored and apathetic if they sense that the teacher is bored or distracted. If we are enthusiastic about students' success, they will also be more motivated in achieving goals. Teamwork also plays an important role in the classroom. It helps foster problem-solving skills, reasoning skills, and group brainstorming. The students learn to use critical thinking and evaluation skills in a group.

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Do you want to teach English abroad? Take a TEFL course!

When we create a positive atmosphere in the classroom, students learn better. Students must feel safe and acknowledged for them to have the best learning experience. A positive classroom environment doesn’t just happen; the teacher creates it.

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