4 minute read
Helping teens become their own life coaches
By Herbert Puchta
Dr Herbert Puchta is a writer of course books and other ELT materials and a professional teacher trainer. For almost three decades, he has researched the practical application of cognitive psychology in EFL-teaching. Herbert has co-authored numerous textbooks and resource books including THiNK, English in Mind and MORE!
Teaching English successfully to secondary school students is a rewarding activity. It develops their ability to communicate well in the world’s most widely spoken language, and provides them with key communicative competencies that they will be able to draw on at various stages, and in various situations, throughout their lives. However, if we want our students to flourish in a challenging and fast-changing world we need to help them develop competencies beyond language, as shown in the Cambridge Life Competencies Framework. We need to help our students to foster their critical and creative thinking potentials, utilize their full potential through learning how to learn, and develop their
collaborative competencies and social responsibilities. Teens can be a challenge to teach at times, and insights into the adolescent brain help us understand why this is the case. But these insights, coming from the ‘new science of adolescence’ (Steinberg 2015), also make it clear that the teenage brain has an amazing capacity for change. That offers us teachers some unique opportunities to assist our students in their personal development, and suggests an approach to teaching that goes beyond language and language skills into topics that challenge our students into thinking about issues that affect them.
The process of becoming a responsible adult is dramatically influenced by the development of two structures in the teenage brain: the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex. The limbic system is all about emotions and the drive to have fun – without pausing to think what the possible consequences might be. The prefrontal cortex, in contrast, is about higher-order brain functions; it is connected to mature adult thinking (which pausing and thinking are part of!), and developing a sense of responsibility. What brain science shows us is that the plasticity of the teenage brain is extraordinary, which means that as teachers we are in a very good position to challenge our teens cognitively. But this is not a call for stricter tests or bigger workloads. Rather, it’s an appeal to present your students with thought-provoking content that they will perceive as highly relevant to their lives, present and future. And it’s a plea to support the development of their brains by helping them learn how to pause for breath and start thinking, rather than reacting emotionally. It’s a plea for you to involve your students in thinking tasks that they will find challenging, and also for you to set up constructive interactions enabling them to express their (thought-out!) opinions, and develop their own thinking further by exploring their classmates’ similarly thought-out opinions. The ability to differentiate between subjective opinions and facts, instead of acting and reacting impulsively and emotionally, is one of the criteria that lie at the heart of maturity. But a teen’s inner world, with its strong emotional dynamics, may cause them to express opinions in a spontaneous rather than well-thought-out manner (Nobody likes me! My parents are never happy with what I do! Adults just don’t understand teens! etc.). As a consequence, young people frequently show a strong tendency to overgeneralize, which can lead to prejudices and discrimination against others.
For us to support our teen students in gradually becoming responsible citizens of this world requires us to help them recognize their instinctive limitations, so that they can look at issues from a wider perspective and avoid jumping to hasty conclusions. Only then will they gradually develop into their own life coaches with a range of intelligent and constructive ways of thinking and acting available to them. Of course, the emotions will still arise, but the mature brain will then modify its owner’s behaviour to take into account the needs and sensibilities of other people.
Tell them what hasty conclusions are (i.e. opinions about large groups that are formed based on experiences with only a few members of the group). Invite them to write up a list of hasty conclusions they have come across (about certain groups of people, including their own group).
Get them to find concrete counter-examples for each of the hasty conclusions (e.g. Hasty conclusion: People who live in big cities are less caring than people who live in the countryside. – Counter-example: I live in a big city and I know people who are very caring.)
Ask them how they could react properly (i.e. without becoming emotional) when confronted with other people’s hasty conclusions about themselves.
Get them to explore different reactions in role plays. Encourage them to search for and challenge their own hasty conclusions.
A LITTLE TIP! When students get challenged to talk about real world issues and notice that what they are saying is taken seriously by their teacher, they perceive the learning process itself as more relevant to them, and will also in consequence develop important life competencies.
