Three Key Strategies to Ease Student Nervousness and Foster Connection (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: I can think of three things off the top of my head, smile. We have to remember that our students are sometimes nervous, much in the same way I might be a little nervous of recording myself at this moment. No reason to be, but sometimes students, even at the advanced level, can be nervous. So if you greet them with a warm smile, it's amazing. Even if you can't see them and they can only see you, you can feel it coming through. It puts them at ease, just like it does when you're in person, meeting someone in person. The second suggestion is that I always ask what a person does for a living, whether they're a student in the university, what their job or profession is. It helps them realize that you are interested in them. And I also go a bit further, I make a note of that in the teacher's notes because I know when I'm reviewing what other teachers think of a student, it's helpful for me to know where they're from, what their job or profession is, maybe if they're married, if they have children. It's just some common point of connection so that I can easily relate to them and make them feel at ease. And the third and the final suggestion I have is have fun. I know that there's a lot of things in my background which make me be able to easily connect with many of these students. I spent two years in Hong Kong and traveled and lived in London and various places around the world. So, I do know a lot about different countries and cultures, so that helps. But having fun and making jokes, of course, appropriate jokes, but it can put the students at ease and nothing pleases me more than to hear the students laughing and to sharing information with each other and maybe in a group lesson. But those are my suggestions for you.