Why Don’t Our Students Remember What We Tell Them?

I don’t know why my students don’t remember this, I’ve talked about it a million times!  Have you ever heard another teacher say this?  Have you ever said (or thought) it yourself?  Come on, be honest, I know I have.  So, why is it our students don’t remember the things that we tell them?

1.)  They weren’t listening.  Not because they didn’t want to.  Well, maybe some deliberately aren’t listening, but for most kids they aren’t listening because they are distracted by something around them – the tapping of a pencil, the person walking down the hall, the bird outside the window, etc.  Or they got distracted by something in their own brain – what they want to eat for dinner tonight, the fight they had with their sister on the way to school, the cool trick they figured out how to do with their eyes, etc. Think about the last lecture or professional development you went to – how many times did YOU get distracted during the course of the session? 

2.)  They don’t realize what you just said was important.  You’ve talked to the kids for the past 35 minutes.  During the course of that time, you have talked about 3 or 4 different things.  The kids aren’t going to remember everything.  They will remember if you mess up, they will remember you say something completely different than anything you’ve ever said before, they remember surprises.  However, if it’s not a surprise, then it will most likely be moved into that ‘information someone told me, but I doubt I’ll remember that’ file in their brains.

3.)  They don’t understand what you meant.  I must have told my students 20 times last year that we would be building online portfolios at the end of the year.  I said it every time we did a project that I thought they should or could link up to in their portfolios.   In the beginning of the year, I showed students examples of online portfolios from the year before so they would have something to connect to.  Still, at the end of the year when I said it was time to start preparing online portfolios, I got the deer in the headlights look from a few of my students.  They didn’t realize that this was something they actually had to participate in.  All those times, they hadn’t realized what I meant by online portfolios.

4.)  They didn’t hear you.  Have you ever started giving directions to one activity before students have finished cleaning up the previous activity?  You think that they can listen to you and clean up at the same time, but in reality, they aren’t hearing what you’re saying.  Or maybe they are hearing bits and pieces, but most students lack the ability to multitask, unless they are dealing with a topic that is of extreme interest to them.  They can’t put away papers and listen to you.  They can’t walk down the hall and listen to you.  They can’t do anything else while they are listening to you, otherwise, most likely they didn’t hear you.

5.)  It wasn’t important to them.  If what we are saying isn’t perceived by our students as important to them as an individual, then we turn into those adults from the old Peanuts cartoons after about 2 1/2 minutes of speaking.  Tell them the date that their favorite singer will be giving a concert, they’ll remember it forever.  It’s important to them.  Tell them the date that the Declaration of Independence was signed, it’s forgotten before they leave class.  It’s not their fault.  It’s brain science.  We can’t remember everything everyone ever told us, because the important stuff would be all jumbled in with unimportant things and we wouldn’t remember anything.  So, our brain priorities.  Things that we perceive as important are remembered and the rest is pushed to the side.

 

I doubt these five things are “news” to any teacher.  We know these things, but in the rush to get through the day, we forget.  Here are a few tips to help your students hear your, and remember what you said.

1.) Be prepared to repeat yourself about 10 times.  Let’s face it, you’re going to say it a ton of times, so don’t get frustrated by it.  Try making it fun.  Tell students “This is the fourth time I’m telling you this, so it should start sinking into your short term memory soon.”  Challenge students to see if they can find a time when you have repeated yourself.

2.)  Don’t start talking until you have their attention.  Why waste your breath talking when they aren’t looking at you?  You’re going to repeat yourself anyways, we know this.  But, there’s no reason wearing out your vocal cords if they aren’t able to hear you well anyways.  Be patient, wait until you have their attention, and then begin.

3.)  Give them a signal that this is important.  Clap, ring a bell, jump up and down, or simply say “Guys, this is important and I need you to try and remember this.”  Do this BEFORE you say what you need to say.  The more you surprise them, the more they will give you their attention and they more likely they will remember what you are saying.

4.) Let them be the parrots.  Repeat what I just said, it’s important.  Okay, good, now tell your neighbor. Uh huh, and tell the neighbor on the other side of you.  All right, now tell the neighbor behind you.  And can you tell me again?  This technique lets them repeat the important ideas, facts or events 5 times, which means you may only have to repeat it 5 times (hopefully less) for it to really sink into their memories.

5.) Activate their other senses.  In addition to hearing it, and repeating it, use hand signals, songs, movements, smells, tastes, anything you can to help them remember.  Write important information on the board – big and colorful when you first introduce, and then smaller, on a calendar, organizer, or bulletin board for future reference. 

6.) Make connections.  Start out lessons by reviewing a bit from the day before and point out the connections that are being made with today’s lessons.  Write them the board, have students repeat them.  This will help students connect what they are learning to background knowledge you know they have experienced.  Also, help students connect what they are learning to other important things in THEIR life.  I wrote an entire blog post on this awhile back called My Background Knowledge is NOT the Same as my Students, with some specific examples on how to do this in your classroom.

7.) Make it important to THEM.  In addition to connecting learning to a student’s likes and dislikes, we can make learning important to students by connecting them to rewards in class.  Reward students publically – with stickers or points towards table competitions – for being able to remember big ideas, key events or details of a story, lecture, movie, mini lesson, etc.  At the end of class, have students work in pairs or groups of 3 to create a list of the most important ideas from a lecture, video, mini lesson or story.  The group with the longest list, or most inclusive list, can win a prize or a point for their team.

8.) Listen to what students DO remember.  Students don’t have to memorize the textbook, and expecting them to is only going to frustrate you, and them.  Research shows that they will remember more if they understand the big ideas first and then build the details in.  For example, my 2nd grader has been told over and over that the religion of Russia (the country he is studying for his Year Long Country Study Project) is Russian Orthodox.  We looked at churches, talked about their beliefs and traditions, etc. etc.  He cannot remember the word orthodox to save his life, and even struggles to remember the word Christian.  However, he can tell you that most people in Russia believe in Jesus and the stories of the Bible, not in the Prophet Mohammed and the stories of Koran, like people in Morocco (where we lived for the last 3 years).  This shows me he remembers the big ideas, but just hasn’t memorized the details – the vocabulary – quite yet.

9.) Make sure students understand what you mean. Blah blah blah blah blah, Do you understand?  Student nods, because they want to understand – not because they do – and we move on.  Take time to check and make sure that students actually understand before moving on.  Students won’t remember what they don’t understand, or they will remember a misunderstanding of the topic, which will be twice as hard to “unteach” later on.

10.) Prioritize.  Students aren’t going to remember everything you say.  Some will remember A, C and E.  Others will remember D, G and Z.  Still others will only remember F.  A lot of what students remember will have to do with what connects to their background knowledge or what is interesting to them – both of which will be different for every child and will be out of your control.  This is okay, and normal.  However, in each lesson, lecture, movie, etc.  there will be one or two key things that EVERY STUDENT should remember.  Pull those things out.  Write them on the board, have students repeat them, play with them, talk about them, etc. etc. etc.  Reward the remembering of these one or two things, and take joy in anything beyond this that individual students remember.

TESOL Teaching Tip #53 - Talk, Talk, Talk, Let Kids Have Discussions

As a teacher at an International School, many of my students were English Language Learners. Even my native English speakers were living in a non-English speaking country. Due to my unique teaching position, I have had some readers ask for tips on teaching English Language Learners. Here is this week’s Tuesday TESOL Teaching Tip:

Students learning a new language MUST hear and use that language A LOT in order to become truly proficient.  However, listening to a lecture does not teach students a language.  Neither does having them simply repeat random phrases or verb conjugations.  Instead, students need to be a part of purposeful conversation where they must listen for and use key vocabulary to keep the conversation going.  This is actually quite difficult for teachers because it means – KIDS NEED TO HAVE CONVERSATIONS!  This goes against the common purpose of most teachers – getting kids to be quiet.  Now, I don’t believe kids need to spend the entire day talking, but studies show that kids who engage in conversations regularly, build their vocabulary and usage rules much quicker than kids that don’t.
So, the million dollar question is:  How do you get your students to have conversation, and still maintain decorum in your classroom?

1.)  Have clear expectations - First and foremost, you have to be sure to set up procedures in your classroom which promote positive behavior during discussion times.  Give students the expectations before hand and take time to practice having discussions from the first day of school.

2.)  Begin with a set schedule -  When you are first introducing the idea of discussions to your class, have a set time that this will occur each day.  I used to start with the 15 minutes following Read Aloud.  My students would have a guiding question, which they would answer in their Read Aloud Journal while they were listening to the story. (Focused listening is great for ESL Students – find more details in this Read Aloud blog post.)  After the read aloud was complete, they would have to share their information with 3 classmates in the form of three 5 minute discussions.  Then, we would share out our answers, but students had to tell me what one of their partners had answered, or a conclusion that two students had formed during a discussion – NOT what they had written on their paper.  By doing Read Aloud Discussions every day, at the same time, in the same way, students got comfortable with the idea of discussions within a month and then I could turn around and use discussions in other subjects, at other times, and in other ways.

3.)  Choose groups wisely – With very few exceptions, I NEVER let kids choose their own partner(s) for discussions.  Children tend to choose students who are at close to the same language level as their own, which does not provide students with a chance to grow as an English speaker.  Additionally, students will choose their friends and often get off task or cause any number of management issue.  This is true no matter what age you teach – I have even found it true when teaching PD courses to teachers. :)  Instead, I try to choose partners by pairing up native speakers and fluent speakers with beginning speakers.  I also try to change partners regularly.  In my Read Aloud Discussion example above, I would give each student three partners that they would keep for the week, and then change the partner groups each Monday.  Sometimes I would change all three partners, but more often I would change out one at a time, so that students had a balance of consistency and change.

4.)  Be a part of the discussion – Make yourself a possible discussion partner.  Remember, you are your students’ best role model.  They need time to talk to you and hear you speak just to them.  This practice also gives you a chance to clearly model your expectations to your students, and do quick informal assessments of where their listening and speaking skills are developing and where they are in need of more assistance.  (Anecdotal note time!)

Now, the second question I often hear from teachers is:  When in my lesson should I let students discuss?  There is no right answer to this.  Whenever and wherever it feels right to your class is when it should be a part of your lesson.  However, here are some examples of where I find it easy to fit in discussions:
1.)  Book talks – read aloud, guided reading, novel studies, etc.

2.)  To answer guiding or essential questions – for a unit, a lesson, or for the school year

3.)  To clarify a new idea or concept in math (or science, or history, or whatever subject you’re introducing new content in.)

4.)  After doing research – in a jigsaw technique, students can share the information they learned with others

5.)  When brainstorming answers to a problem – great for justifying the answer to a problem

6.)  During current events conversations in Social Studies – great for building on Point of View

7.)  While peer editing essays and stories – give and get feedback, quick and painlessly

8.)  When compiling lists of current background knowledge on a given topic – think the K in the KWL chart

9.)  To clarify the meaning of a video or lecture watched in class
10.)  During peer tutoring sessions – have students help each other to find the correct answer, but they must explain the correct way to find the answer, not do the work from them.

One of the best things about have student discussions is that you will find that students will begin initiating meaningful, English conversations on their own.