As teachers we are always looking for ways to help increase our relationships and rapport with students.
Here are 20 ways to increase your report with students:
- Smile & Laugh… A LOT! Learning should be fun!
- Respect. It is a two way street.
- Know their names, nicknames or what they prefer to be called.
- Get to know them (likes, dislikes, sports they play, are they involved in theater, chorus, band, etc.)
- Stand in the hallway between classes and greet students at the door. This makes a huge difference for some students. (Some students can go a whole day without being noticed.)
- Give each student a clean slate each day. (We all have bad days!)
- Talk to students first before emailing home, contacting counselors or assistant principals, unless it is absolutely necessary. (Just use your discretion.)
- Have fun with them, joke around, show them you are a normal person just like them.
- Give students chill days where they can just work on something and listen to music. We all need a break every now and then.
- Praise in public, correct in private. When correcting, use the sandwich method.
- Advise a club or coach a sport. (I love to advise the French Club!)
- Have office hours for students either before or after school. (Make set times, so that you are not there all day everyday before and after school.)
- Go to school events if possible, to try to see students outside of class. This means the world to them! (However, don’t worry if you can’t, we all have our own lives.)
- Connect with the students’ families. Being a language teacher we get many students from the same family throughout the years. (Which is pretty cool!)
- Life lessons. Especially as a high school teacher, we are preparing them for the real world. (Teach them how to deal with disappointment, rejections, failure, etc.)
- Don’t pretend to know everything. If you don’t know the answer to a student’s question, tell them you will look up the response and get back to them. It makes them feel better knowing that you don’t know everything either. But, make sure you get back to them the next class.
- Provide your students with a structured learning environment. When students know what is expected of them each day (daily routines, procedures, expectations, etc.) they are more willing to work and learn because they feel safe.
- Have high expectations for all of your students and teach them to have higher expectations for themselves. Remind them if their best is a B, that is ok too they just need to reach their potential not anyone else’s.
- Be fair and consistent when it comes to student discipline. Students will remember how you handled other circumstances. My students know it doesn’t matter who they are if they break a rule or expectation they ALL get the same order of consequences.
- Most of all, just be YOU. Be the genuine, enthusiastic and a little crazy teacher that you are!
What do you do to build a rapport with your students?
As always, I hope that you have found this information useful and helpful to you!
Merci,
Amanda