D
IN THE CLASSROOM ealing with teenagers has
always been a challenge for
language teachers. Acquiring
another language is not a
simple matter of just studying it or
being exposed to it. Students have to
have opportunities to interact with
others in the target language. This is
not easy for teenage students because
adolescence is a time of great changes:
everything is new to them and they are
not quite sure of their roles and their
Teaching
teenagers
By interviewing opinions. Having to risk exposure by
using a foreign language in the
successful colleagues, classroom, although vital to their
learning, is very difficult for them.
Cristina Damim, Although we should be careful not
to overgeneralise, there are certain traits
Marcia Peixoto that are evident in teenagers. In contrast
to adults, they are usually fast learners,
and Waleska moody, lacking in concentration,
dynamic and sometimes aggressive
towards the teacher, as they try to test
Wasenkeski have
limits. Coping with all these variables
in the classroom is challenging for
learned some useful
teachers, and uncertainty as to how to
reach their teenage students often leads
strategies.
them to feel anxious and stressed.
What’s the secret?
Taking as our starting point the Neuro-
Linguistic Programming principle that
modelling excellent behaviour leads to
excellence, we carried out a project
involving fellow teachers and our teenage
students, aged between 12 and 16.
The procedure was simple: first, we
selected teachers who were considered to
be good at dealing with teenagers. We
defined ‘successful’ teachers not simply
as those whom the students liked, but as
teachers who enjoyed working with
adolescents, who were involved with
them and got along with them. Then we
interviewed these model teachers and
tried to find out what made them so
successful. We asked about their personal
10 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue Twenty-three April 2002 •
beliefs, their classroom management,
and about their commitment to and
relationship with their students. Next,
we compared and analysed the answers
and came up with some common
characteristics. Here are some of our
findings, based upon their comments.
Using the mother tongue
One of the hardest questions is whether
or not to let teenagers use their mother
tongue. Ideally, a class should be
conducted in the target language, but
there are times when by demanding that
they use the target language we interrupt
our students’ flow of ideas. As a result,
they lose concentration and clam up.
Our efforts, therefore, are wasted as we
once more have students who are not
willing to expose themselves.
It is essential to understand that
teenagers have their own style and idiom
when they communicate in their mother
tongue. This is part of their identity and
they do not want to lose it when learning
another language. This might explain
why it is so difficult for them to
communicate only in the target language.
Using movement
Classroom dynamics are important.
Being naturally boisterous, teenagers
usually enjoy activities which involve
movement. We need to make sure we
include kinaesthetic activities in our
class planning, such as miming words
and sentences or even activities in
which students have to leave the
classroom to find pieces of information,
or run to the board to circle the correct
answer. Teachers should also remember
to move around the classroom and
change the pitch of their voices. These
strategies lead to a more dynamic
classroom atmosphere which teenage
students really appreciate.
Avoiding too much pressure
The classroom atmosphere may be
spoiled if excess pressure is put on
teenagers, so it is crucial to avoid this.
Teenage students tend to lose
motivation, become uneasy and
aggressive and see teachers as enemies
if they are not able to establish a good
rapport with them. Moreover, putting
too much pressure on a particular
student may have the effect of
contaminating the rest of the class with
a negative attitude. Certainly, we have
to make demands on our teenage
students; the syllabus is there to be
learned and covered. However, teachers
should not overestimate their students,
misjudging their actual potential. If we
demand much more than our students
can produce, they may feel they can
never live up to our expectations and
standards, and they will become
demotivated.
Sharing responsibilities
Responsibilities should be a permanent
issue in the classroom. We need to be
explicit about what we expect our
students to do because both teacher
and student must take part in the
language acquisition process. Teenage
students need to be made aware of their
responsibilities in the learning process
and the fact that it is not one person’s
job, but everybody’s job, to create a
positive class atmosphere. They have to
trust their teachers to do their part, and
By putting our hearts into what we do,
we get not only the best from our students
but from ourselves as well
acknowledge that they will have to do
theirs. For example, you can let
students know that the consequence of
not doing their homework will be the
correction of the assigned exercise in
class – much less interesting than other
things they could be doing.
Establishing limits
Limits is another keyword. Although
students try to break limits, they
themselves admit that they are vital.
When students push limits, they are
actually asking teachers to show how
far they can go and thereby teach them
how to behave in a social group.
Students faced with a classroom without
limits tend to complain. One reason for
this may be the feeling of being
neglected; students want to feel you are
there for them and that you care.
Showing pleasure
We consider it really important to show
pleasure in teaching. Make sure your
students see that you enjoy teaching the
subject as well as being with them.
Although sometimes you may not feel
like being with your students (or at least
with some of them!), it is important not
to let this negative feeling spoil your
class. Teenagers themselves say there is
no clear distinction between enjoying a
teacher’s company and enjoying the
subject taught. Therefore, if they like
the teacher, most likely they will also
appreciate the subject and the lessons.
Teachers should have a positive attitude
towards the subject, constantly trying
to persuade and convince students that
what is being worked on in class is
relevant and can be exciting for them.
Being tested
Accept being tested. Teenagers not only
want to test your knowledge, but also
your patience and your limits. It is
essential for them to feel you are firm
but not inflexible, that you have your
own beliefs about teaching and
learning, but that you will also listen
and accept their opinions. Do not stick
to your lesson plan if you realise that it
is not working, and don’t hesitate to
adapt what you have to teach to your
students’ interests.
What’s the result?
Having gathered and analysed these
ideas, each of us tried them out with
different groups of students. We found
that all the strategies worked. We think
this was mainly because we really
committed ourselves to this project,
showing students how much we cared
for them and demonstrating that we
were genuinely interested in making
things work. By putting our hearts into
what we did, we got not only the best
from our students but from ourselves as
well. The most important thing we
realised was that whichever strategy we
chose, we had to be available for the
teenagers and open to new ideas which
could be implemented in the classroom.
Combining the strategies and
matching them to the different groups
of students was another key factor that
contributed to our success. We had to
identify the needs of each group and
then decide which strategies to use.
After having put all these strategies
into practice, we observed that our
students became more confident, more
• Issue Twenty-three April 2002 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional •
involved in classroom activities and
more responsible for their own learning.
Furthermore, we felt we had broken
down the barriers that had previously
been between us, and we felt more
confident that we could reach the
hearts and minds of teenage students.

If you try out these strategies and they
don’t work out, don’t panic! The task
of learning another language depends
on both students and teachers. If
students don’t acquire the language as
well as they should, it does not
necessarily mean you did not do your
utmost. Sometimes students are not
mature enough or really dislike being
there or even have personal problems
which cannot be identified or solved by
the teacher.
There is no single formula that will
enable us to deal with all teenage
students, as each one is an individual
and deserves to be treated as such.
However, teachers should always try to
do their best in class, not only preparing
good lessons but also being there for
the students. Teaching teenagers may
be one of the hardest tasks for a
teacher, but it can be very rewarding if
we realise that the beauty of working
with adolescents lies in understanding,
accepting and guiding them. E T p
Cristina Damim, Waleska Wasenkeski and
Marcia Peixoto are teachers of English at
Yazigi Internexus in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
They are particularly interested in classroom
management and in the study of the
relationship between teachers and students.
They would like to thank Francesca Michalski
for her help and supervision of this project.
damim@santinho.yazigi.com.br
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