Teaching

teens
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TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

Martin Sketchley,

eaching teens can be highly

rewarding, but its not without
its challenges. Here, we
interview three teachers of
teens in different contexts Martin
Sketchley (MS), Pete Clements (PC) and
Emma Paul (EP). They offer some
reflections and tips for other teachers
dealing with students aged 1217.

Pete Clements and

Emma Paul discuss

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their experiences.

How much experience do

you have of teaching teens?

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MS: The majority of my teaching is

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with teenage learners, and I have taught

a variety of them. My first experience
was with Koreans, but since then I have
taught teens from France, Spain, Italy,
Romania, China, Thailand, Germany,
Austria, Colombia in fact, too many
other countries to remember!

PC: Quite a bit! The bulk of my

teaching has been with teens. I used to

teach short-stay groups in the UK. They
were from various countries, including
Spain, Italy, Colombia and the Czech
Republic. Ive taught teens in Vietnam
and Thailand, too. I also worked in a
Korean high school for two years.
EP: I have to admit, given the choice

between a primary or secondary class, I

have always opted for the former when
negotiating my termly timetable. Having
said that, I have still racked up a lot of
experience teaching teens, namely in Costa
Rica, Spain, Thailand and in the UK.

What do you enjoy about it?

EP: Teaching teens is often a two-way

learning experience. Teenage minds are

freshly educated through a demanding

curriculum, whereby they are trained to
learn. Therefore, discussing topics such
as new scientific innovations, enigmatic
theories and complex problem solving
can throw up some amazing ideas and
perspectives that not even the teacher
could anticipate (or sometimes
understand!). The challenge, however, is
finding the right medium and conditions
for the learners to feel relaxed and
confident enough to really engage.

PC: Getting them onside. When teens

are learning with you, they can be great

fun to teach. Theyre often very switched
on, critical and creative. Its not always
easy to motivate them, though.
Personalisation is key.
MS: I enjoy the challenge set in front

of me. Many of my colleagues have

voiced their displeasure about teaching
adolescent young learners, because of
issues with rapport or engagement.
However, if you deliver a successful
lesson which fully engages and enhances
the students ability in English, you feel
a great sense of achievement. This is
what I enjoy about it.

What has been your best

experience with a teen
class?
EP: Writing and creating a superhero

comic with a multilingual class of 12 to

14 year olds at a summer school in the
UK. Once they had written the story,
each learner volunteered for a specific
role in the project, eg costume designer,
director, editor, photographer, writer, etc.

46 Issue 107 November 2016 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com

TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

What are some of the main

issues youve faced with
teen classes, and how
have you overcome them?
MS: Some of the main classroom issues

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confidence and insecurity can prevent

teens from really engaging in an activity
or project. I have found that roleplays
where the students assume a fictitious
character work well, as they are freed
from attachment to their own opinions.
Teamwork can be motivating, especially
if there is an element of competition.
For larger projects, allowing the students
to take ownership of the key decisions in
their work can be very effective for
example, they decide on the medium
through which to express their ideas
(PowerPoint presentation, poster, video,
etc).

Digital technology in the

classroom friend or foe?

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that I have encountered in the UK are

all related to intrinsic motivation. The
majority of our young learners attending
short courses here in Eastbourne have
been packed up and sent away by their
parents to attend a short, sharp course in
English, much against their own wishes.
True, there are some learners who are
already interested in English and are
willing to develop their language skills,
but most of our language learners in
Eastbourne still treat English as another
course which they must learn as part of
their national curriculum. To overcome
this, I have developed a curriculum
which is suited to teenage learners. If
you want to do this yourself, look at any
photocopiable resource book and you
will see a variety of topics which are
suitable for adolescent learners.
Furthermore, I try to encourage other
teachers at our school to ensure that all

EP: I agree with Pete that lack of

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Colombian adolescent learners with my

hands full of worksheets, handouts and
various other materials, but this was put
aside and the class and I ended up
chatting in English my first attempt at
a Dogme-esque teaching format. The
learners were pleased that they didnt
have any work to do, but the
whiteboard was filled with scaffolded
language from the conversation. At the
end of it, I left the class feeling that I no
longer needed so much material with
adolescent learners.

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MS: I remember going into a class with

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Italian students to perform Romeo and

Juliet in two minutes and one take. That
was such a fun lesson! There was also a
time when a student wrote to thank me
personally for inspiring them. That was
really rewarding and very unexpected.

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PC: I once got a class of 15-year-old

different. Behaviour and motivation

have been more common issues for me
in Europe, but shyness and lack of
risk-taking are major issues in my
current context (Thailand). Speaking
tasks here require a lot more scaffolding.
Disappearing dialogues are a great
tool, as theyre a useful model for some
speaking activities. I provide a lot of
process language for certain speaking
tasks, which helps things along. I always
make sure that each task has a clear
purpose. Also, teens here (more so than
in Europe) respond to an element of
competition.

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PC: Teens in Europe and Asia are so

UK, the majority of our learners have

their own smartphones or tablets. I feel
that sometimes they can be a hindrance
when it comes to the traditional
chalk-and-board lesson, but when I
really want to get the learners more
involved in a reading task, I embed some
text within a QR code, get the learners
to install a QR reader on their
smartphone/tablet and then have them
running around to scan the code and
dictate the text to a partner. This is
definitely a hit with adolescent learners,
but you have to strike a balance between
using technology to develop language
skills and using technology to motivate
the learners. You still have to ask
yourself: Why are we doing this, and
what will be the benefit for the learners?

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their teenage learners are relaxed and

enjoying their lessons. You dont need to
be too serious, and humour goes a long
way when relaxing a class.

I was astonished at the way everyone

engaged and worked together on this
project, despite having different roles.
What I learnt here was that letting a
project build organically from the
students own ideas and creative
direction promoted their buy-in and,
ultimately, was the key to its success.

PC: Friend, absolutely. I recently

attended a webinar by James Styring on

the topic of digital tech in the
classroom. He highlighted just how
much technology is part of life for
teenagers, and how we would be mad
not to include it in lessons. The best tip
he gave, by far, was to have digital
breaks. He said that teenagers usually
check social media on their phones
every seven minutes. He recommended
allowing the students breaks to do this
every so often. I tried this out, and it
meant far less sneaky phone checking in
class, hence more focus when needed.
Cheers, James!

MS: Great idea, Pete! I might borrow

this for my future lessons. Here in the

EP: Best friend! I dont think anything

engages teens more (in Thailand, at

least) than learning through technology.
I agree with Martin: QR codes are great!
It is strange how reading from a piece of
paper pinned to the wall is considered
dull, but reading the same text from a
mobile phone is brilliant. Integrating
technology is often just repackaging
activities that you would normally do,
but in a novel way. The teens I have
recently taught really buy into it.

Whats your opinion on

project work?
EP: I am a huge fan of project work

with teens. The benefits can be

enormous: projects promote
collaboration; they allow creative
expression; they consolidate language
and skills learnt; they can be authentic;
and they are goal-focused with tangible
outcomes.
PC: Ah, mixed opinions, to be honest.

Sustaining interest over a longer period

can be tough. L1 use is often too high for
my liking during projects, but that could
be down to my behaviour management,
or perhaps my unrealistic expectations.
Timings are very important during
projects, and I always find that things
take longer than I expect. As a
preference, I wouldnt do project work
frequently, but it is commonplace when
I work at summer schools.
MS: Like Emma, I am a huge fan of

project work not just for teenage

learners, but for any young learner class.

www.etprofessional.com ENGLISH TEACHING professional Issue 107 November 2016

47

TEACHER DEVELOPMENT

When was the last time

you tried something new
with a teen class, and how
did it go?
MS: Good question! I have recently

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EP: Understand them as individuals.

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Try to learn one thing that each of them

is into, and exploit this through
materials and general classroom
interactions. Once you have built up
some good rapport where all the
students feel relaxed and included, it is
surprising what they can achieve!

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Routines are often

important in younger
learner classes. What
about with teens?

MS: Rules can be important in the

adolescent classroom, especially for the

first few lessons, but you can soon
loosen up and go with the flow, once you
have developed rapport with all the
learners.
PC: Im with Martin here. I normally

devise a class contract with teenagers,

but after a while I tend to loosen up. I
like to repeat certain task types with
teens, as I feel that familiarity leads to
greater confidence. Thats not a routine,
as such, but a kind of thread through
my planning.

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tried grammar activities in various teen

classes with minimal resources.
Surprisingly, it was not an area of
teaching that I have tried with
adolescent learners before, and I
thought I would have a go. The response
to this focus on grammar teaching was
genuinely positive, and I have now
developed work on various areas of
grammar more suitable for adolescent
learners. I usually get the students to
produce something, with the practice of
the target grammar being the aim, but
also making the activity personalised.

Story Cubes. These are basically sets of

picture cubes (like dice with pictures on
them) on a variety of themes, which can
be used for storytelling. Theyve
featured quite a bit in my classes this
term and have proved a fun way to
generate ideas for speaking or writing
tasks. You can download the cubes as an
app, too.
Ive also been experimenting with
more task-based approaches this term,
which has worked really well in my
current context.

management, just dont take things too

seriously. If you want to get the learners
attention, silently look at all of them in
the classroom, maintaining eye contact
for a short while. If there is too much L1
(Spanish in my case) being used in the
class, draw a sad face next to your name
on the board or write Great Spanish!
on a blank piece of A4 paper and hold it
up. The learners will stop each other
speaking or encourage each other to pay
attention. Sometimes, less is more in the
teenage language classroom.

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True, there is a lot of L1 used

throughout project activities, but the
majority of this L1 is for the learners to
negotiate things, such as what English
they will write on a poster they are still
using L2 for the productive stage.
Timing is also an issue, as Pete has
highlighted, but if your learners have
one lesson a day, and you get them to
work on their projects in the last ten
minutes of each lesson throughout the
week, they will have spent 50 minutes on
the project work in total. Projects can
work, and sometimes getting the
learners to take their time and plan their
work can benefit the project. I would
also always encourage teachers and
learners to share the work that they have
produced, by displaying it in the
classroom or in the school hall.

PC: I recently bought some Rorys

MS: When it comes down to classroom

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Teaching
teens

example. They came up with some

extraordinary ideas, which fuelled a lot
of excitement and humour when they
explained their choices! This was a
surprising success.

EP: Ive been trying to exploit

technology in the classroom. I wrote

some abstract concepts on the board (eg
imagination, creativity, etc) and gave the
learners a strict time-limit, in pairs, to
take a photo of something in the school
that best represented one of these words.
They would then present their photos to
the class, justifying their choice. The
learners loved the discovery element of
exploring the school for a fitting

EP: Im certainly not as strict with my

routines in teenage classes as I am with

my primary classes. However, some
routines, such as reading a story or
watching a film that the students have
picked, can be a nice reward for hard
work at the end of a lesson.

If you could give one tip to

teachers of teens in your
current context, what
would it be?
PC: Personalise, personalise,

personalise. Oh, and use music in the

classroom. Check out this link from
talktefl.com for ideas: https://talktefl.
com/2016/07/09/six-ways-to-use-musicin-the-young-learner-classroom/.

48 Issue 107 November 2016 ENGLISH TEACHING professional www.etprofessional.com

Pete Clements has

taught in South Korea,
Spain, Vietnam, Thailand
and the UK. His interests
include data-based
teacher development,
supporting new
teachers and using
authentic listening
materials in class. He
currently works for the
British Council in
Bangkok, Thailand. You
can visit his blog at
https://eltplanning.
wordpress.com.
pgclements27@gmail.com
Martin Sketchley has
taught English for over
ten years in South Korea,
Romania and the UK.
He is also a certified
Cambridge Examiner. His
interests include natural
interaction, pronunciation
and online teaching. He
holds an MA in ELT from
the University of Sussex,
UK, and blogs at
www.eltexperiences.com
and http://dailytefl.
blogspot.com.
martinsketchley@gmail.com
Emma Paul has taught
in Costa Rica, Spain,
Thailand and the UK.
She enjoys teacher
training and materials
development for young
learner courses. She
works for the British
Council in Thailand as
Academic Manager
Young Learners.