Failure is the Road to Success

The fear of failure may indicate the fear of success. No person, institution or country can succeed without having a taste of failure. However, it is our perception of failure that makes the difference. Two individuals may encounter the same ordeal; but one may get up quickly and recover while the other will be complaining endlessly. ‘Practice they say; makes perfect’, but it would have been better said: ‘practice makes improvement’. Therefore, in the process of learning students must not view their mistakes as a life sentence to failure but should look at it as the path ways to improvement. Teachers also must not be frustrated at
students’ mistakes as this is of necessity part of the learning process. How students emerge out of this situation to be successful is what is supposed to be the teacher’s main focus.

In this regard, my personal experience has taught me that mistake should be seen as the road to success
rather that the path to failure. The teaching method of an efficient teacher mostly impact students’ progress in a positive way. My journey to learning English as second language has not been a smooth one. Nevertheless, I can still remember one of my teachers who used to employ every strategy to help us
understand a particular concept. In helping us develop our vocabulary bank, he would frequently give us spelling quiz, then after correcting the answers he would ask us to write down the words which we got wrong several times. This method used by my teacher to focus in correcting mistakes helped me greatly to
progress in learning English. Indeed he was a great teacher!

Emerging out of this notion,instead of viewing failure as an outcome of unsuccessfulness, it must be seen
as a teaching tool to be used to help students improve themselves. Students should not feel intimidated when they make mistakes; but they are to be encouraged by teachers and parents to correct their mistakes rather mourning and complaining over them, since correcting them is the path to success. Afterwards, many
inventors and scientists made several mistakes before been able to invent or discover something. Likewise, little children stumbled many times before they can walk properly. So, success does not mean never falling, but getting up after each fall with a renewed determination. This positive attitude is the guarantee to success. Any contribution to this topic will be welcomed with gratitude and appreciation.

Sharing Goals with your Students

The importance of having goals whether as an individual or an institution can not be over emphasized. The aim of teaching is to produce students who would accomplish proper education,training and valuable skills.However, this can never be achieved without planning and direction. It is because of this, that teachers need to set specific goals and spell out action plan to be shared with their students. This means there should be a yearly plan for the entire syllabus that is achievable within a stated date. This plan is to be further broken down to semesters and the objectives of each lesson should be made clear to the students. The advantages of sharing goals with students are numerous; some of which will be enumerated as under:

 It creates a sense of direction– when goals are set by a teacher and shared with the students it brings about cohesion and understanding in the classroom. As everyone is aware what to do and what is expected because there are clear steps to follow. When this is the case, the desired objective will be easily realized. If goals are
not defined, there will be utter confusion and nothing meaningful will be achieved.

 It makes teachers and students to be focused In the presence of a clear direction, both teacher and students will be well focused and the learning process will be thoroughly enhanced. The overall consequences are success for the students as well as the teachers.

 Time savings Because there is clear direction and time limit, lessons will be easily and quickly covered and considerable amount of time will be saved. The bottom line is that, there will be a great tendency to finish the syllabus on time to allow for necessary revision. This will not be the scenario in the absence of set goals.

 Overcoming learning obstacles By setting goals and sharing them with students, teachers will be able to identify learning hindrances and come of with solution in time before it is too late. The learning process in essence will run smoothly.

 Self-Evaluation As teachers are playing their role effectively to remove obstacles in students’way, in the same way they the students may be able to make  self assessment of themselves and may take steps to improve their  strengths and address their weaknesses.

 

Enhanced Students’ activity Students’ activities will be enhanced as a result of set goals as they have a clear vision as to what is expected of them. Students may even prepare in advance and this would ensure their meaningful participation.

 In conclusion, the benefits of teachers sharing  goals with their students are many all of which can not be discussed in a single article but suffice to say that real achievement will be seen if the known steps are followed in setting goals and that probably may be discussed in another article. Your opinion in this topic will be most  appreciated. 

Making Students Overcome Shyness

When talking about imparting education to students thought should be given to their psychological well
being. I was shocked when I gave a deep thought on the effect of shyness in acquiring education. After a keen observation, I realized that this is a catastrophe for the students. Some of them feel shy to even express themselves if they don’t understand anything and this is also the case when you ask some of them questions. I found out that this is big obstacle to learning. Indeed, there must be a cause or causes to every problem. Then what are the some of the possible causes to this problem? These are what I will be discussing.

 The Parents or Guardians Effect

As they say, man is the product of his environment. Contemplating the importance of this wisdom, led me view the role of parents and guardians in the personality building of the child with special importance. Some defective behavior like shyness and lost of creative in a child may have been caused by parents or guardians who knowing or unknowing may have suppressed a child’s curiosity to learn and creativity to grow. So you find these type of child very inactive in class and feel shy to express themselves even when they are badly in need of it.

 The Teachers’ Effect

Some students may feel shy to ask questions or even answer to questions when they know the correct answer due to fear of intimidation from a teacher. Because some teachers discourage students from answering questions and embarrass others for making mistakes this may create fear on the students and as such impedes their ability to learn.

Negative Attitude of Some Students

This is another aspect which can make students feel shy to express themselves in class. Some students
subject their colleagues to mockery when they make mistake and at times to go to the extent of calling them bad nick names. This mostly causes some students to lose confidence in themselves and become too timid to make meaningful contribution in class.

What can we do to help students who are victims of these negative attitudes? Shall we leave them to their fate and allow to make waste some of their valuable talents that they would use for the betterment of society or rush  to rescue them from their pitiable situation. Well, I think some thing can be done to help them out of
this mess.

 Firstly, parents and guardians need to play a more positive role in the life of the kids that are under their trust. They are supposed to create an environment which is conducive for the child to grow an excellent personality. They should not treat them in a way that may erode their confidence. For instance, most intelligent kids are curious; you find them asking many questions and eager to discover things. Parents should encourage them and deal with them positively so that they may grow to be confident personalities.

Secondly, the teachers’ role in encouraging students to avoid shyness and develop self-confidence is dual. They should deal with students with respect and some degree of sensitivity so that they may not feel shy to participate in class. On the other hand, they should create a classroom environment wherein students may
not ridicule their classmate and as such destroy their spirit of confidence. I think if teachers implement these   steps in cooperation with parents and guardians we will see smart and confident kids rather timid ones.

Maximizing Student’ talk Time

It has been observed in many institutions of learning English as second language that the most difficult skill students fail to master is fluency in speaking. Some educators have even criticized the dependence on school text books as insufficient in so far as the speaking skill is concern. It is based on this scenario that I am discussing the above topic to find ways of minimizing the time teachers spent in speaking in class and maximizing that of the students. It is hoped that if students are given the opportunity to practice speaking in various activities during class time it will tremendously assist them in developing this skill. Below I will mention some of the methods which I think may aid students in their journey to become fluent speakers of English language.

Group Division

It is well known that if the number of students in a class is too large the teacher will find it difficult to handle them
and will not be able to reach most of them. It is because of this, that it is necessary for the students to be divided into groups. This gives the teacher the chance to easily check student’s performance and if there is any lacking
it can be corrected at the first stage.

Assigning Specific Task

Dividing students into groups is meaningless if they are not given exact goal to accomplish. Therefore, after dividing them into groups, each group should be given specific tasks that may involve activities like listening exercises and worksheets. With regards to listening,short stories may be effective. They may need to listen to it several times to get well acquainted with the story. After this, they should be allowed to read the text while at the same time been given worksheet to do specific task based on what they have listened to. Students in each group will be required to have discussion about specifics of these activities to prepare themselves for the general discussion.

General Discussion

After the completion of tasks by each group, time should be allotted for discussion of answers arrived at by each
group. Individual students will contribution by participating in oral discussion. Activities such as these should be organized often to afford the chance to students to improve their speaking skills. Listening to short stories
several times and also reading the text have proven to be very effective in enhancing the speaking skill; because it make students get accustomed to the right usage of words and phases which they can easily used in daily conversation. In other words, they are been exposed to a situation where they can practice and live the language.

In conclusion, students who are practicing their speaking skills in class will be more confident and motivated to speak in situations outside the classroom. Should in case anyone has something to share in relation to this issue, the contribution will be most appreciated.