Stephanie Montiel

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47133/tegc_ch05 

ABSTRACT

As educators, we must acquire a variety of information about our students in order to build relationships with them and be effective at helping them learn. To do so, we must first consider our students’ preferred learning modes, their goals for language learning, their personal interests, and their educational background. To strengthen our relationship with students, we should also target other kinds of information and plan activities and lessons that generate that type of information. This process will help build rapport and trust with students. It will also provide us with personalized information to plan lessons that support our students in learning English. In this chapter, you will learn to prepare effective English language lessons that motivate students in becoming more engaged with their own learning. You will also learn to use personalized lessons to build stronger relationships with your students. 

Keywords: learner relationships, preferred learning modes, goals, interest, rapport, trust, personalizing lessons

How to cite this chapter: 

Montiel, S. (2023). Building Relationships With Language Learners. In V. Canese & S. Spezzini (Eds.), Teaching English in Global Contexts, Language, Learners and Learning (pp. 79-87). Editorial Facultad de Filosofía, UNA. https://doi.org/10.47133/tegc_ch05 

INTRODUCTION

Know Your Learners is the first of six principles being promoted by the TESOL International Association for the effective teaching of English learners (Short et al., 2018). This principle states that teachers must gain knowledge about their English learners and then use this knowledge when teaching to be effective at helping them learn language and content. Effective teachers know their students by building relationships based on the premise that “social, emotional, cognitive, linguistic, academic are deeply intertwined in the brain and in behavior” (Jones & Kahn, 2017, p. 4). After learning about our students, we can plan authentic and engaging lessons. When students see that we are invested in them and their learning, they are more likely to want to learn. 

To establish a trusting relationship with students and build positive rapport, we must show personal interest in them. We must listen when they talk about their experiences, feelings, and goals. Our attention to students is a signal that we care about them and wish to build a binding relationship. According to Pierson (2013), “Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.” Therefore, our goal is to build a mentor-mentee relationship where students feel comfortable about sharing their successes and frustrations with us. After gathering meaningful information from our students, we can use our pedagogical skills to incorporate this information into activities, lesson plans, and units for motivating them to learn and achieve their own goals.

Background

To establish trust and security, Covey (2013) proposed establishing an emotional bank account nurtured through deposits of “courtesy, kindness, honesty and keeping commitments” (p. 198). Initially used in corporations, Covey’s framework was extended to schools through a collaborative effort between school leaders and Franklin Covey Education called “The Leader in Me.” This whole-school improvement model can guide educators in “developing relationships with students and parents, gathering resources, and establishing routines [that] will yield a fruitful learning experience for all” (Ferlazzo & Hull-Sypnieski, 2012, p. 13). Such relationships have led to reduced discipline issues when incorporated within Alpert’s Cooperative Discipline model and Glasser’s Noncoercive Discipline model (Charles, 2005). 

When students feel they can trust their teachers, they are empowered to take academic risks. Rather than feeling embarrassed about wrong answers, students view their attempts as learning opportunities. This trusting relationship leads to positive two-way communication. Teachers can implement instructional strategies that also serve for building relationships with students and helping them “feel welcome, accepted, and valued” (Marzano, 2017, p. 89). Through these strategies, teachers can build rapport with students and establish positive relationships that will lead them toward gaining confidence as English users. Once students feel confident, they will take risks with using English and thereby begin the process of language acquisition.

MAJOR DIMENSIONS

When getting to know our students, we should consider their interests, preferred learning modes, social-economic background, and cultural practices. Some teachers might think, “Why should I try to get to know my students? Their job is to come to school and learn, and my job is to teach.” Although this might be the reality in some educational settings, we—as language teachers—must build relationships and know our language learners to be able to support their language learning. 

Student Interests

According to Burgess (2018), the secret to creating effective and engaging lessons is taking the time to discover our students’ interests and then developing our lessons around these interests. Burgess’ shortcut to engagement is spending “less time trying to get students interested in what you are presenting and more time making connections between what you are presenting and what they are already interested in” (p. 20). As English teachers, we must incorporate our learners’ interests within our lessons so that they will want to explore, repeat, take risks, and collaborate—all in English—such as they did as young children when learning their first language.

Our students’ age determines how we go about identifying their interests. Elementary-aged students share their interests by drawing pictures or participating in show-and-tell activities. Parents are also an excellent source of information regarding children’s social interests and learning habits. Secondary-aged students can share their interests on a survey or in an “All about me” assignment. Adult learners can share their interests through online inventories. After sharing their interests, students can participate in goal setting activities (e.g., learning to ride a bike or becoming gainfully employed), which will vary widely depending on their age. 

These interest-gathering activities would optimally be done in English to help teach the language. However, some activities for building relationships might need to be done in a student’s native language to initially build rapport and trust. Establishing a safe environment and trusting relationship is essential for students who are learning a new language. If language learners perceive the environment as negative, they will not engage in risk taking, which is essential for practicing and learning language. Although all learners make mistakes, they must keep trying.

Preferred Learning Modes

We can gain a better understanding of our students by learning about their talents and preferred learning modes. Students have different types of intelligences and talents as explained through the theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner, 2006). To optimally educate all students, we must consider their intelligences defined by Gardner as bodily-kinesthetic, logical-mathematical, musical, linguistic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist, and existential. With this information, reflect on the intelligences that you and your students bring to class. This means encouraging students to choose projects and assignments that match their intelligences and that also match their learning preferences. Students can then learn English by using their strongest (or most comfortable) mode of communication. 

Social-Economic Background

Nurturing positive relationships is the foundation of successful classrooms, especially for teaching languages. As teachers, we need to learn about the experiences and backgrounds of our students and connect these to new learning because “(w)hen students feel that they matter, their level of motivation and achievement are more likely to increase” (Ferlazzo & Hull-Sypnieski, 2012, p. 15). This includes considering our students’ early opportunities at exploring personal interests and learning habits as well as their social-economic background. Yet, students from resource-challenged environments have often not experienced opportunities outside of their immediate environment, which, in turn, could hinder their ability to make connections to content in the classroom. Consequently, we should also consider their socio-economic background.

Cultural Practice

When building relationships with students, teachers must also consider cultural practices. Some cultures may view relationships between students and teachers as solely professional and not for sharing personal information. For example, students from certain cultures may find it awkward to divulge about their interests, learning styles, or preferred learning modes. Therefore, we must work within these cultural constraints to learn about our students in culturally appropriate ways. 

Depending on our students’ cultural practices, we might de-emphasize talking about personal interests and emphasize sharing educational goals (short-term and long-term). A vital ingredient is an environment perceived as safe by all students. Yet, no single solution exists to build relationships with all students. Therefore, because relationship building is inherently an individual experience, we must tailor our approach to match each person’s needs, interests, and cultural practice.

PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATIONS

Upon receiving your student rosters, start planning how to build relationships with these students. On the first day, implement activities for building trust, establishing rapport, and informally evaluating student needs. This will give you insights for the best ways to gather further information about their interests and then to infuse these interests into your instructional activities. The main purpose of these initial activities will be getting to know your students by having them share their interests. If possible, such activities should entail multiple language domains (listening, speaking, reading, writing) such as through surveys, discussions, models, and artwork.

To support relationship building, choose already-known tools and activities. One way to start is by consciously following aspects in Covey’s (2013) emotional bank account:

• understanding the individual

• attending to the little things

• keeping commitments

• clarifying expectations

• showing personal integrity

• apologizing sincerely (pp. 200-207)

Gathering Information

Surveys are an excellent way of gathering information from students about their interests. Some surveys are accessed online, and others can be created by teachers. According to Greenwood et al. (2012), surveys can focus on different areas, such as the following:

• Types of learners. This can include multiple intelligences (e.g., Music is important to me. I learn vocabulary easily.).

• Learning preferences. This is how the student perceives learning (e.g., I prefer working in groups. I learn better when information is presented to me.).

• Personal interest. These can be open-ended questions to gain more knowledge about the students (e.g., What is your favorite sport? What do you do to relax?).

• Background information. These can be short answer questions. They must be worded according to cultural norms (e.g., Where did you grow up? How many people live in your house?).

• Generational information. This is globally relevant and tends to relate to technology and social values (e.g., On a scale of 1-10, how comfortable are you using a computer? Rate these values in order of least to greatest: family, community, self, church group, professional colleagues, personal friends.).

These types of surveys can focus on reading and writing (multiple-choice, short answer) or on listening and speaking (interviews). Surveys provide insights to student interests and learning preferences. When this information is used by the teacher and the students, it serves to establish a fair and equitable classroom where trust is built and fostered. In this supportive setting, students are more willing to take risks and, thus, build confidence in using the target language. 

Through surveys, you can discover students’ shared interests (e.g., musical artist or political headline). Based on this information, build a thematic lesson around a shared interest and, thus, motivate students to learn technical vocabulary needed for discussion. Include questions about pop culture in a survey or on a daily writing/oral prompt (e.g., What is your favorite song?). Introduce local or world news that impacts your students and can lead to paired or group discussions. Such open-ended questions serve to elicit responses from students and build English language vocabulary and structure. When faced with open-ended questions, students do not feel pressured to produce answers that could be judged as either correct or incorrect. Because of this, they are more willing to take risks and offer a response. This can also help with building rapport. 

Building Background

When students participate in surveys, they are simultaneously building vocabulary and learning basic sentence structures (e.g., My favorite food is chicken. I like to play soccer.). Consider incorporating your students’ interests in upcoming lessons. In these initial activities, introduce vocabulary that is based on student interests and, as such, can serve toward building more complex language learning. You might discover that some students prefer lectures and independent work. If so, you can decide to pre-teach using lecture style but then incorporate pair or group work to build student language. 

By connecting students’ personal and academic experiences to new information, you are building background (Echevarria et al., 2017) that will enhance learning during upcoming lessons. Follow-up activities might be a class competition, news article analysis, or collaborative game as well as sharing short stories, writing poems, watching videos, or answering questions about student interests. Such content can then be incorporated into a grammar activity. 

Setting Goals

Another way to infuse your lessons with student interests is by understanding their goals. Consider doing this by asking your students the following questions, either orally or written:

• Why do you want to learn English? 

• What do you want to be able to do? 

• What is your timeline for meeting this goal? 

• How will you practice English outside of class? 

• How much time will you work on learning English outside of class? 

After gathering students’ answers to these questions, focus your lessons on guiding students toward their goals and tracking their progress. When students feel frustrated, help them refocus by reminding them of their personal goals and, by doing so, support them in reaching success. Sometimes the question “Why am I doing this?” results in a simple answer: “Learning English will help me make more money,” or “My parents put me in this class.” Such responses might not be that helpful if students are overly frustrated or stressed. Yet, with time, by knowing your students and their goals, you will be better positioned for positively building and maintaining relationships.

As teachers, we should help students dig for deeper reasons to be motivated and reduce stress. The following questions often lead to fruitful discussions: 

• Why do you need to make more money? 

• What job interests you? Why do you like this job? 

• Who has influenced you along this path? 

By answering these questions, students’ goals and desires will emerge. Such questions, however, can be difficult if students have not previously thought about these topics. In this case, consider asking these questions in a student’s native language. 

In this chapter, you learned about gathering information from students to build relationships with them and to help them set goals for learning the target language. You also learned that investing time in learning more about your students will result in your students investing their time and effort in learning English.

Stephanie Montiel acquired her love for teaching while working in Paraguayan schools as a Peace Corps volunteer. After returning to the United States, Stephanie earned a master’s degree in English as a second language (ESL) and an education specialist degree in teacher leadership, both from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (USA). She also completed a school administration program at the University of West Alabama and earned National Board Certification in English as a New Language. After having taught ESL for 15 years in K-12 schools in Gulf Shores (Alabama), Stephanie became the English Learner Supervisor of the Baldwin County school district (Foley, Alabama). 

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-9445-2021 

Email for correspondence regarding this chapter: smontiel@bcbe.org

Cover Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash