TEACHING TEENAGERS

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Using what teenagers

know to teach them
what they dont

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To tackle these questions, we need to

begin at the core of how teens live their
daily lives and take a serious look at what
it is generally like to live as a teenager.

Throughout the westernised world,

teenagers are consuming more media
and information at a faster rate than
we as teachers care to realise. They are
bombarded with thousands of emails,
text messages each day from friends,
advertisements and invitations. This
can distract them immensely from
their education or more importantly,
in our eyes, their second language
learning. These distractions do not
bode well for the average TESOL
teacher and are beginning to spark a
rethink in terms of language education
around the globe.

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rom Jacqueline Wilsons Tracey

Beaker to Harry Enfields Kevin,
we all know what teenagers are like
and how they are represented in
todays media; yes, lazy, uninterested
and slightly annoying. However, the
questions we are interested in are: What
is it like to teach teenagers? What issues
arise when teaching them? And, how
can we overcome these challenges?

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David Matthews encourages teachers to get onto the same wavelength as their
teenage learners.

The key word here, as previously

mentioned is, of course, motivation;
and the questions we have to constantly
ask ourselves are: How can we keep
our teenage students motivated to
learn English or any second language
for that matter when they are
bombarded and somewhat infatuated
with this ridiculous amount of media
consumption? And, what methods are
there out there to help us spark more
interest in learning languages?

What is motivation?

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Of course, we all know that different

TESOL curricula have different aims and
goals for their learners. Many may want
to steer their students towards a final
exam, whereas some may be constantly
reassessing throughout a course, and
even a few may be in favour of a more
general English conversation base.
Whatever your curriculum targets are, it
is motivation that remains key to learner
linguistic progression.

Defining what exactly motivation is

can be rather tricky. However, when
concerning teenage motivation in
language learning, we may be able
to analyse Gardners (1982) SocioEducational Model which defines
motivation in three separate elements:
desire, effort and affect. Desire
demonstrates how and in what way
the student wants to benefit from his or
her language learning. Effort denotes

www.modernenglishteacher.com

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Possible solutions

Pa

I teach English in an Austrian uppersecondary school. Therefore, I teach

solely teenagers from the ages of 1419,
preparing students for a standardised
final English exam known as the Matura
(equivalent to the British A-levels).
The Matura, which is put together by
a governing board, is sent out to all
secondary schools in Austria to be
completed by all pupils on the same day
(Austria Education, 2016).
Our primary goal as teachers of English is
to prepare students for this standardised
final exam from the ages of 14 all the
way up to 1819. This includes improving
students listening, reading, writing and

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speaking whilst focusing simultaneously

on the standardised examination
question formats. This can sometimes
be a challenge as improving students
language usage can become masked
by constant attention to standardised
question formats, i.e. constant repetition
of exercises that have been designed to

lis

Throughout
the westernised
world, teenagers
are consuming
more media and
information at
a faster rate
than we as
teachers care
to realise. They
are bombarded
with thousands
of emails, text
messages each
day from friends,
advertisements
and invitations.

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the time students spend studying, and

the overall drive of the learner. Affect
emulates areas of the students emotional
tie with his or her language proficiency
(Norris-Holt, 2001). In general terms,
motivation can be seen as why people
decide to do something, how long they
are willing to sustain the activity, and
how hard they are going to pursue it
(Drnyei, 2014: 519). Therefore, knowing
about these subareas of motivation can
help teachers plan accordingly and
adjust areas of the curriculum that may
help shape teenagers linguistic ability
further, i.e. by knowing these factors, we
are able to ask ourselves what the best
method of channelling this knowledge of
motivation into our teaching is.

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TEACHING TEENAGERS

www.modernenglishteacher.com

look like Matura exam exercises.

However, through teaching teens on
a daily basis, I have tried and tested a
number of methods that teachers may be
able to use when teaching adolescents.
Some of the methods I have found useful
are to use those so-called distractions, i.e.
their media consumption, within lesson
planning. I have found it rather effective
to use the odd Meme or Facebook post,
or WhatsApp chat messaging examples
when teaching grammar, vocabulary
and colloquial language. By projecting a
WhatsApp message on the whiteboard, it
is possible to analyse areas of colloquial
language and focus on idiomatic
phrases. These expressions can then be
embedded in other messages in other
contexts to offer the students further
practice. These new media not only
support teaching but offer students the
sort of distraction they enjoy. Another way
we can keep the level of motivation up is
by using the internet to steer our lessons
into active discussion. Using YouTube
and other visual aids to support discussion
and writing tasks for a number of topics,
together with perhaps songs and lyrics to
explain a certain grammatical function
can help motivate students to listen and
watch English-speaking media themselves.
Examples I have used are the difference
between Beyoncs If I were a boy and
Justin Biebers If I was your boyfriend,
to explain the difference of subjunctive
use. This has proved rather beneficial
when explaining the difference between
prescriptive and descriptive grammarians.

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TEACHING TEENAGERS

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References
Austria Education (2016) Matura or Graduate
Examination in Austria [online]. Available at:
http://www.austriaeducation.info/Tests/K-12Tests/Matura-in-Austria.html

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By projecting
a WhatsApp
message on the
whiteboard, it
is possible to
analyse areas
of colloquial
language and
focus on idiomatic
phrases. These
expressions can
then be embedded
in other messages
in other contexts
to offer the
students further
practice.

we can try to get (literally) on the same

wavelength as our teenage students,
and involve them in lessons which
cater more directly to their linguistic
and motivational needs. The simple
idea behind these methods is to let
the students take an active role in your
planning procedures, let them do the
thinking and take charge of the lesson
once in a while. These methods can help
keep motivation levels high and keep
teenagers interested in the items you
wish to teach, and sometimes, theyre not
even aware of the fact theyre learning.

Drnyei Z (2014) Motivation in Second

Language Learning. In M Celce-Murcia, DM
Brinton & MA Snow (Eds) Teaching English
as a Second or Foreign Language (4th
edition) (pp518513). Boston, MA: National
Geographic Learning Heinle Cengage.
Gardner RC (1982) Language attitudes and
language learning. In E Bouchard Ryan & H
Giles Attitudes Towards Language Variation
(pp132147). London: Edward Arnold.
Norris-Holt J (2001) Motivation as a
Contributing Factor in Second Language
Acquisition. [online]. The Internet TESL
Journal VII (6) (http://iteslj.org/Articles/
Norris-Motivation.html).

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Interestingly, what I have found helps

is asking students to find, say, articles,
videos and pictures themselves on
the topic you are teaching at the time,
for example that topic might be the
economy for advanced learners or the
environment for intermediate learners,
etc. Although this may seem rather simple,
it can produce some fantastic results.
By doing this, students have to find
something that interests them about the
topic you wish to discuss with the class.
For example, I recently had to cover the
rather controversial topic of stem cell
research with one of my classes, which
proved useful as teenagers tend to like
to dive into more provocative questions.
Through this method, students will
have to read an article or watch a video
prior to the lesson thus picking up and
learning any vocabulary they may not be
a hundred per cent sure of. In the lesson,
they are more often than not eager to
explain in the L2 all about the article they
have found, thus learning summarising
techniques whilst recycling any
vocabulary they had to previously look up
before the lesson. This can be great news
for English teachers, as it creates a sort of
low preparation, high outcome lesson,
which still manages to maintain a level of
motivation from the learners.

know a word or idiom etc. in English

and the teacher may not be able to
explain the word or phrase a hundred
per cent due to it not translating well
into their L1. Therefore, in my view,
dictionary usage from L1 to L2 can
help to speed things along. If you
prefer not to use the students L1 in
the classroom, the use of a standard
English dictionary app can also be
mutually beneficial, or why not both?

lis

The issue here with teens is they are

their most active when encouraged to
participate actively in lessons. Simply
handing out worksheets with the sole
purpose of sedating teenagers for 30
minutes or more is doomed to fail.
Teenagers simply cannot be mitigated;
they need to remain active for 50+
minutes, and this is when you get the
best out of them.

Pa

Other areas we can use to maintain

motivation include letting the students
use their mobile phones and iPads
in lessons to look up unfamiliar
vocabulary. Clearly, using the
students L1 in the TESOL classroom
may spark a huge number of debates
and emotions among TESOL teachers;
however, through my own tested
methods, I have found that allowing
students to have access to their mobile
phones in class helps them to actually
stay engaged with the lessons. This
can be particularly helpful in reading
tasks as it may be that students do not

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Naturally, these new media cannot

and should not be the sole area, or the
be all and end all of your teaching.
Nevertheless, being supported by
something that teenagers know a lot
about can bode well in keeping their
level of motivation up which, in turn, can
further their linguistic ability. Drnyei
(2014: 520) quotes that a long-term
learning process such as the mastery of
a second language [] always depends
on the level of motivation. With this in
mind, it is by using these new media that

www.modernenglishteacher.com

David Matthews is an English

teacher in an Austrian upper-secondary
school located in Lower Austria. He
teaches teenager students aged
1419 and teaches primarily the English
Matura (The Austrian school leaving
examination) which after successful
completion enables students to go on
to higher education. Before entering
the Austrian education system, he
completed his B.A. (Hons) in German
and Spanish at Swansea University
and worked in numerous language
schools and companies in Vienna,
teaching General English and Business
English. He is now currently studying
long-distance for an M.Ed. in Teaching
English to Speakers of Other Languages
at Sheffield Hallam University.

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