Guest Post By Jessica Robinson

“Tell me, and I forget. Teach me, and I remember. Involve me, and I learn.” – Benjamin Franklin.

As teachers, our heart is always filled with the aspiration to teach our students in the best manner. We wish to pour so much knowledge into their cup of wisdom that it becomes full up to the brim. But, our efforts alone are not sufficient for our aspiration to come to fulfillment. We cannot teach effectively until and unless our students are attentive in the class. If they are preoccupied with thinking about something or creating mischief, they won’t receive the knowledge we try to provide them. So, along with putting our dedicated efforts to teach effectively, we also need to direct our efforts to captivate and withhold our students’ attention. Now, here are six effective techniques to help you enhance your students’ attention in the classroom:

1. Making use of smart technological tools for teaching:

Children are too fascinated by technology. The moment you bring some technological tool in your classroom, you’ll see their eyes beaming with curiosity. They’ll be super excited to know about it, it’s working, and what they can do with it, so much so that they won’t take their eyes off it for a moment. This implies that we can easily captivate our students’ attention by using smart technological tools for teaching. These days there are many technological tools available for teaching. Smartboards, Document cameras, and tablets are some examples. So, to increase your students’ attention in the classroom, you can try making use of such smart technological tools for teaching.

2. Using persuasive and appropriate body language to support your verbal teachings:

Here is a question for you. According to you, what captivates your attention better: a podcast on some subject or a video on the same subject? Your answer will be the latter one, i.e., a video on the particular subject. This is true, and the reason why a video captivates our attention better is that it involves two of our essential senses, i.e., listening and seeing. Similarly, if we support our verbal teachings with non-verbal means of communication, i.e., our body language, we can attract more students’ attention. We should utilize persuasive and appropriate body language to support our verbal teachings. For example, if you are an English teacher and you are narrating a lesson in the class, then you can try to enact the different characters mentioned in the chapter while teaching. Moreover, you can also use voice modulation to speak in a different tone of voice for other characters. This will help you in captivating the attention of your students.

3. Gamification of learning:

Children love playing games. You have all their attention, the moment you say that we will play a game. This implies that you can easily stimulate your students to become attentive in a class by gamifying the learning process. For this, you’ll need to find suitable games that you can utilize to teach a particular concept to your students. You can use the internet for this purpose. For example, if you are a Geography teacher and have to teach your students about the world map, you can make them play Pictionary. In it, different teams will draw the outlines of different countries of the world, and other groups will have to guess the name of the country. The team which gives the maximum number of correct answers will win the game.

4. Extending rewards to the most attentive students in class:

Rewards and prizes act as vast sources of motivation for all of us. So, if you announce in your class that the most attentive students will be rewarded at the end of the class, your students will start paying more attention in your class. You may ask how you will know about the most attentive student in the class? For this, you can ask some simple questions regarding whatever you taught in the class on a particular day, and the student who gives the correct answers will be the most attentive one. A straightforward technique to enhance your students’ attention in class is to extend rewards to the most focused students.

5. Making the students exercise a bit before proceeding to teach:

At times, students lack attention in class because they are feeling lazy. Under such circumstances, you can make your students exercise a bit before proceeding to teach. For this, you can make them play simple games like sit, stand or make them jump on their seats. You’ll help them become energetic, which will naturally enhance their class attention.

6. Cultivating cordial relationships with the students:

Students are naturally more attentive in the class of their favorite teachers. This implies that one straightforward technique to enhance your students’ attention in class is to cultivate cordial relationships with them. For this, you can spend some time regularly to interact with them and know about their lives. Moreover, you can also interact with them about topics like life in general, moral values, etc. All these interactions will open the gateways of communications between you and your students and help you cultivate cordial relationships with them.

Effective teaching is possible only if your students are attentive in your class. The techniques mentioned above will help you attract maximum attention from your students. Now, wishing you All the Best and happy teaching!