The non-verbal communications expert Michael Grinder once said, ‘If you can teach teenagers, you can teach anyone!’ That's true of what we see in many teenage classrooms, and every teacher of teens knows how challenging they can be at times. Provocative and disruptive behaviour, aggressive language, inability or unwillingness to pay attention, lack of persistence when it comes to homework, problems with phones during class – the list goes on. In this section, we look at all these and other issues, and suggest practical things we can do to help and deal with the difficulties, being understanding and supportive, yet firm and fair.

• 83 Help learners find out how to pay attention best

• 84 Problems with homework? Don't give up!

• 85 Use specific language strategies to stop disruptive behaviour

• 86 Don't let conflicts escalate – make your learners think

• 87 Learners are shouting out the answer? Vary the expected response

• 88 Avoid conflicts around mobile phones

• 89 Help learners solve conflicts in constructive ways

• 90 Have strategies ready to deal with attention-seekers

• 91 Keep calm with difficult learners

• 92 When learners are verbally aggressive – go meta

83 Help learners find out how to pay attention best

In an experiment a few years ago (see reference below), a dull two-anda- half-minute voice message was played to a group of 40 people. Half the group was invited to do a kind of doodling activity while listening, and the other half was told to sit still. Neither group knew there would be a memory test afterwards. When asked about details from the recording, the doodlers remembered 29% more details than those in the other group.

This shows that our beliefs about what paying attention involves may not always be right. It appears that when we’re bored and about to switch off, doodling can in fact keep us alert and attentive.

Share this information with your learners and ask them whether they believe doodling while listening may influence their own retention. Then get them to try it, and see whether what they’d thought was right.

Drinking water, eating a snack and chewing gum could have an equally positive effect, by the way.