My experience with sports and coaches has been that it does not feel
like the same animal as language classes. For one thing, I find it
easier to find myself at sports practice than in a language classroom.
The goals a coach sets tend to be easy for sports students to
internalize and easy to place within the larger scheme of getting good
at the game. For atheletes, practice is largely showing up and doing
your best. I think in language classes (and most school classes), the
hard part tends to be finding yourself as a student - understanding what
has to be done and seeing clearly why. Also, I think the stakes tend to
be a little higher. People do sports because they want to. Most of my
ESL students are in my class because in some sense they are required to
be, which is a huge difference from sports, I think. I think it's
easier to be nurturing by being tough when you are a coach than when
you're a teacher.
I find that in class, being nurturing sometimes means being tough,
especially when students really understand (and can say) what has to be
done and why, and when they show a can-do spirit that will stand up to
toughness. On the other hand, I find that sometimes nurturing does mean
being a little more "touchy-feely", which can mean doing things like
listening to students feelings and insecurities long after I myself
envision what they actually need to be doing. It can mean asking for
students opinions and guesses as a way into a lesson that could also be
attacked from a different angle - one that could exclude students' own
(often wrong) take.
I also find that more and more I openly offer approval and lavish
positive reinforcement. I don't lie, of course, but I try to find
something to applaud when I can. I myself don't respond well to that
stuff as a student, and I'm not naturally inclined to offer it as a
teacher, but I find that a lot of my students really do find
encouragement in it. Students need to feel loved. I find this is more
true of students who aren't used to being independent learners or taking
a lot of initiative. Of course, helping students toward those kinds of
learning is job 1, but there is room and reason on the way - most days -
for a softness is a teacher's attitude. I find that using "soft"
gestures that students already recognize as signs of respect and caring
helps keep students involved.
Tom Farrell
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