How to integrate praise into every lesson (and why it's so vital)
What you praise more of, you get more of
In many contexts, when you praise something more, you’ll usually get more of it. In Arab culture, if you praise or say that you love something, the person may even try to give the thing to you!
Similarly, in any “first ever” Mandarin class that I teach, it starts really slowly, but I praise a lot.
I praise specifically the action of one or two who are saying the words out and follow along the way I hope for.
Before long, with the right praise and encouragement, the rest of the group follow suit.
The power of specific praise
In a recent lesson with a student, I was amazed that he managed to achieve so much in a short time.
I sometimes push different boundaries to see what’s possible and what a student can handle, and he handled everything I put out - but this student usually does adapt well to all challenges.
However, this time, with each activity and at each break, I did something I didn’t do the week before: I made a point of praising specifically.
For example…
I am impressed at how you got 100% in the tingxie, and wrote each stroke correctly…[I really want this student to nail stroke order and individual character recognition, so this praise is very specific to that objective].
I thought it was really cool that moment when you realised you still remember the character 谢… [again, I am looking for developing a robust recognition of individual characters, so this praise is toward that end].
Of course, peppering a lesson with ample doses of 很好，非常好，and 很棒 is a standard.
But it’s this specific praise of certain skills: it helps generate the motivation to keep developing those skills further.
Summary:
A simple way to integrate specific praise into every class
Reflection is a major part of the learning process in any context. So to make sure I do this next time, I’ve added a slide into the end of my lesson plans.
For anyone teaching bigger classes, you can ask learners to peer reflect together by finishing the sentences with a partner.
Praise and encouragement is a foundational building block of teaching, so structuring it in with prompts can help to make sure it happens every lesson - not just on the ones that go well.
Here are some sentence finishers you can embed into the end of your class:
Add a slide or post a sticky note near your desk as a reminder to do a quick reflection. Make some questions or sentence finishers that resonate with you and your learners. I like these ones
What was 很好？
I am impressed by…
I am happy that…
It was so cool when…
This is the slide from my lesson:
Ending on positive remarks like this helps propel learning, and makes your learners likely to come back refreshed for the next lesson.
To make this even more impactful, you can remind learners of the 目的 or learning objective from the beginning of the lesson, and link the praise to those objectives. Connecting the praise like this helps even more with generating motivation and developing specific skills.