It was nearing the start of my first day of teaching and I was excited: excited because I had just been e-mailed the list of students I would be teaching during the next academic year. I clicked open the document with a sense of trepidation – which quickly turned to fear. The list was huge. As I scrolled through the list, which seemed inhumanely long, I remember thinking to myself “How on earth am I meant to learn all of these students’ names? Especially when, you know, I’m also trying to learn to be a teacher?”
I have just finished my first year of teaching, but I still remember the fear and struggle of learning students’ names. I have the memory of a goldfish. Maybe you also struggle with peoples’ names, or are about to start teaching but feel really uneasy about learning whole classes of names.
Luckily, there is hope! You can learn students’ names, and quickly.
This blog began as a list of things I wish I had known before I started teaching, but I spent so long on students’ names, I felt it deserved a blog in its own right. These tips I have gratefully magpied from more experienced colleagues, or learnt the hard way through trial and error. It is by no means exhaustive and if you have other suggestions, please tweet me to let me know what I missed. I hope you find them useful:
i) Forget about the elaborate seating plans. Seat students alphabetically.
At least at first.
Last year, I spent hours talking with colleagues and staying up till the small hours creating elaborate seating plans. It was a huge waste of time. Until you know your students, it’s really difficult to know who you should sit together (and just as important) who to seat apart. So make the most of a fresh start. Seat students alphabetically, with your As on you left and your Zs on your right. This way, as you become more familiar with a class’ register, you will begin to know where certain students should sit.
As a side note, it is highly likely that other teachers will adopt this tactic too. If they do, then you are sitting students together who are used to sitting together. While they may not be friends, they may have learnt to work together, which is another great bonus when you don’t know a class as well as you’d like.
Alphabetising your seating plan will help you learn students’ names faster and then, at a later date, you can create a more informed seating plan when you know your students better.
ii) Fake it till you make it.
Until you have genuinely learned students’ names, leave a copy of your seating plan somewhere in your classroom. I always had a copy in a folder that I left on my desk. I would surreptitiously glance at it throughout a lesson to remind myself who was who and to chose a name to direct a question to.
Also, try to use a students’ name as often as you can. There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that the more you use a person’s name, the faster it will take root in your memory. One of my colleagues once told me his secret to learning peoples’ names. “The trick is,” he said furtively, “to slip that person’s name into conversation as often as possible.”
For example, imagine you’ve just been introduced to Adam for the first time. This is how my friend might begin that conversation:
“Really nice to meet you Adam. So Adam, where are you from? Have you enjoyed your first day Adam?”
See how he crowbars Adam’s name into his sentences? While this might feel a bit contrived, it’s a really easy tip which makes you look like you’ve learned a person’s name really quickly, whereas you’re actually trying to engrave their name in your memory.
A good way to apply this tip is to use a student’s name when marking their books. This works particularly well because you will start to link students’ names with the style of their written work. If you teach a subject where students produce lots of written work, you will learn their names even faster as you familiarise yourself with their particular writing traits.
iii) If you can, hand out students’ books before the beginning of lessons.
This tip is great for a couple of reasons. First, it gives you a bit more thinking time in a low-pressure environment to try and remember students’ names and their seats. And if you get stuck, you can refer to the seating plan and try again to memorise their names. This will also make the start of your lessons much faster, is another bonus.
Some teachers dislike this approach, for good reason. One of my mentors quite rightly said that we have enough to do in the classroom, so we should train students to hand out books instead. I think there is a lot of truth in this, and indeed, it isn’t always possible to hand out books in advance of every lesson. It is also incredibly useful to have students who are in the habit of doing small classroom jobs for you. However, I have found handing books out before the start of lessons an invaluable way to learn names and ensure a prompt start to learning.
Also, if you change your seating plan throughout the year, it is an easy way to check that students are sitting in the right place. If you notice students have to swap their books at the start of class, you know students aren’t sitting where they ought to.
Any other tips?
These are tips that I have found really useful, but if you have any other ideas for learning a lot of names quickly, please let me know so we can share the ideas. If you’re starting teaching for the first time in September, good luck!
@MrKingEnglish 