HOW TO BUILD RAPPORT WITH THE STUDENTS?

Rapport is nothing more than a connection you make with your students based on their positive feelings for you. When they like you and trust you, and when you in turn like and believe in them, you’ll form a bond that makes classroom management a lot easier. 

Every teacher aims to establish a harmonious relationship with his or her students. Building rapport with the students is a work that is sometimes overlooked and undervalued by some teachers. This does not happen in just a snap of a finger. Doing such actually takes time and a lot of practice.

Indeed, building rapport with students is a process. It often takes weeks and months to establish a healthy student-teacher relationship, and such action can elevate the teaching-learning process that is taking place inside the classroom. Who wouldn’t want to end the school year with an effective and harmonious relationship with the students?

Here are the steps on how to effectively build such positive connection and relationship with the students.

1.   Never forget to smile genuinely.

In this way, students will be able to realize that the teacher in front of them is someone who is willing to connect with them.

2. Establish procedures and expectations on day one and enforce them consistently throughout the year. 

This would let the students know that you are serious in implementing the rules throughout the whole school year. 

3. Make time for non-academic discourse. 

With this step, you would be able to look into the other personalities of the students as you evade for a moment from the academic discussions.

4.   Tear down walls.

Some of the teachers have a hard time building rapport with the students, for they sometimes reprimand immediately the students who keep on misbehaving in the class. They show frustration, they scold, they lecture, and in so doing they erect a giant wall between themselves and their students. Indeed, building rapport is about tearing down walls, and some of which are put up by your students before you even meet them.

This process must be followed accordingly to draw your students to you and to build a genuine rapport. Such is indeed not an easy task for it takes patience, time, and effort to build this positive connection with the students. Building rapport with the students is truly beneficial not just for the teachers but also for the students since this is tantamount to creating positive emotional contexts for enhancing teaching and learning. 

PURELY DISCUSSION VS. TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION

In this digital day and age, the ways of teaching writing among English as a Second Language (ESL) learners have greatly changed over time. In acquiring knowledge about writing, ESL learners can learn differently based on the methods used by the teacher in teaching the aforementioned matter. 

While some like to use the products of technology in learning how to write effectively, there are also those who prefer to have it through paper and pen. In teaching writing, which between the two would serve best for the ESL learners?

Paris (2014) has mentioned that lecturing or discussion is a teaching method that involves, primarily, an oral presentation given by an instructor to a body of students. As long as there is an authoritative figure (in any given context) at the front of a room, delivering a speech to a crowd of listeners is a form of discussion and lecture.

On the contrary, technology integration is the use of technology resources - computers, mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, digital cameras, social media platforms and networks, software applications, the Internet, etc. - in daily classroom practices, and in the management of a school. (Lucas, 2007)

Well, these methods truly differ from one another. There is a thick boundary between the two, but both share the same goal in teaching writing – that is to develop the writing skills of the ESL learners at its fullest potentials. Certainly, these methods have their own advantages when used and incorporated in the writing class effectively.

ADVANTAGES OF DISCUSSION

1. Because discussion is delivered by one authoritative figure – a teacher, professor, or instructor of some other kind – that person has full reign of the direction of the lesson and the tone of the classroom. 

2. Lectures are literally just long-winded explanations of information, deemed important by the lecturer.

3.The lecture method makes the learning process mostly effortless on the part of the students, who need only pay attention during the lecture and take notes where they see fit.

ADVANTAGES OF TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION

1. The learners can make use of blogs and other computer-assisted programs in expressing their thoughts and opinion.

2. With the integration of technology in the teaching-learning process of the classroom, students can have fun while learning how to write effectively.

3. This method is anchored to the interests of the learners nowadays which would make them engage more into writing.

DIFFERENCES OF PURELY DISCUSSION AND TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION

As for the differences of these two methods, discussion is sometimes plain and boring for the 21^st century learners since it is going to be the teacher’s sole job to instill in the students the basics and nature of writing. With regard to technology integration, it defocuses the learners as it offers different tools that engage the interests of the learners. It sometimes can lead to confusion because there are some teachers and learners who are still not into this method. They find it hard to use, utilize and maximize the use of technology in writing.

Indeed, these two methods, which differ in various aspects, aim to educate ESL learners in becoming effective writers of today. These may be used accordingly to achieve desirable results for the writing competence of the ESL learners.