Lately, I have heard from many educators that they do not want to put on a “dog and pony show” for students who do not want to be in their Dual Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) classroom. I hear this from DLBE teachers from Kindergarten all the way through high school. To be fair, in my experience as a teacher, principal, director, and parent, students are often disengaged from school in general, or at least from particular academic classes. My own child decided in third grade that she did not want to take any more math classes because “they were boring.” A rising junior in high school, she hasn’t changed her mind despite being an advanced math student. So perhaps today, I am not writing just for the Dual Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) teachers out there but for all teachers who have disengaged students in their classroom.

There is no doubt that we need to make our classrooms engaging, but no teacher should be putting on a “dog and pony show.” We, as educators, are not entertainers, and I challenge anyone who thinks that teachers should take on such a role. So what are we to do instead? 

Here are 5 tips to increase engagement in your classroom.

1. Introduce the lesson objective. – Goal setting is a huge motivator. Goal setting with students means that rather than the typical, “Students will be able to…” or “SWBAT” as is often the go-to objective-writing formula, lesson objectives should be written as, “I will be able to…”  Students need to own the objective at the beginning of class. At the end of the class period, they should be able to evaluate if they reached their goal. By having a purpose to the time in your classroom, they will be far more engaged than if they see school as a time pass.
2. Explain the why. – Students want to know when they will ever use what they are learning. If they want to learn why they are learning another language, that’s super easy to explain. So are math, science, reading, and social studies. Academic classes may get harder as kids get older, but every subject we teach is important, and we need to explain to students their importance. And honestly, that might require a little research on our part. Who knows? We may be even setting our students upon career paths that we never knew existed.
3. Connect to background knowledge. – Learning requires students to connect what they learn to what they already know. When this happens, neural pathways are formed in the brain, which then solidify to create long term retention. Before starting a unit, explore what students already know. You can use simple activities such as K-W-L’s or if you need to build background knowledge, you can consider virtual field trips or Inquiry-Based Language Experience Approach. When students are able to connect their learning to a schema that has already been formed in their brain, they will be far more engaged and learn more.
4. Scaffold at a Goldilocks level. – Students are automatically disengaged if they are at a point of frustration. We have to build scaffolds that allow students to experience success after an appropriate amount of productive struggle.  The idea of productive struggle also means that students need to be challenged. Otherwise, they become bored. By finding the sweet spot for each child, they will be much more engaged with the lesson.
5. Step off the stage. – As teachers, we love to talk and to actively teach. Kids and adults alike can only pay attention for 10-15 minutes at a time. Less if they are younger than 10 years old. If you are lecturing, how are students active participants in their own learning? Are you asking questions and giving sufficient wait time? Do you incorporate Think, Write, Turn, and Talks?  Have students mirror you. Give them a mission to catch your mistakes. But more importantly, create time when you are not lecturing and when students instead have the opportunity to construct their own learning without you necessarily leading the learning.

These are just five ways to increase engagement in your classroom. In my book, Puzzle Pieces: A Systems Approach to Multilingual Education, I describe in detail these and other instructional strategies for Dual Language Bilingual Education, World Language, and monolingual English speaking classrooms. Feel free to check them out or to reach out to me for more ideas. I would love to hear from you.