Keeping The Interest Of Pupils, Especially beginners Options

[Binka]

Hi,

I'm just starting off in the teaching world and am trying to build up a few ideas.

I just wondered how people keep the pupils interest during their lessons, especially beginners?
I realise that it must be really hard to keep the enthusiam of pupils when they are learning the basic techniques. Just wondered if anyone had any ideas of how to do it, as learning the fundamentals can become really boring for a beginner?

Thanks

Binka

[pianodub]

Hi Binka,

The key to keeping your student interested to keep the lesson varied. Don't spend ages on one piece of music or concept, move on to something different. Try to do a little bit of rhythm, notation, singing and playing of the instrument in the lesson. If the student's concentration is waning move on for a few minutes, you can always go back to something later in the lesson. With beginners don't feel you need to work like mad for the whole lesson; a little enquiry about how school was etc is a good way to build a positive, trusting relationship with your pupil (who will see that you are interested in them as a person too!) as well as a nice way to have a two-minute break, thus making the lesson less intensive.

Good luck and let us know how you get on!

[Clari Nicki1]

With my very young pupils, I break the lesson up into bits.... We might do some echo and response playing and look at what we did last week, then play a game. Then we might look at note values... do some matching to me playing- or clapping the beat- or clapping out a rhythm.
With a laminator I have made some simple games- pairs games with notes. We play that. Sometimes we share the notes out and improvise on the notes we have. I have just made a note value game and we play games matching up semibreves etc with the amount of beats. I use a whiteboard with staves on- sometimes we write out notes, then play them etc. Or we look at a new time signature then use the whiteboard to see how many different ways to make up a certain time sig etc.
I think the key is to change activities if they are losing interest. When you begin to learn an instrument you can get information overload. Some of my pupils now say 'Can we play that note game?'
With non-beginners, I try to find some music they might be interested in- Don't know what instrument you teach- but Junior Guest Spot Abba goes down well with some of mine- as does the Beatles. Some of mine have things like 'Take the Lead ' Bumper Pack- and using Star Wars to introduce triplets goes down a treat with lots of my 10-12 year old pupils!!!! I find older pupils will attempt challenging things, or things they perceive of as boring if I explain why they have to do it - 'This might not be as exciting as Star Wars, but we need to work on staccato for this reason..... and so we're going to do a study'.


My primary school pupils love stars and stickers....

Good luck.

[2broth3rs]

Hi,

I'm just starting off in the teaching world and am trying to build up a few ideas.

I just wondered how people keep the pupils interest during their lessons, especially beginners?
I realise that it must be really hard to keep the enthusiam of pupils when they are learning the basic techniques. Just wondered if anyone had any ideas of how to do it, as learning the fundamentals can become really boring for a beginner?

Thanks

Binka

Although I am not a beginner, My piano teacher is very good. He teaches me etc, when I do well he gives me pieces I want to learn that are at my level (grade 3/4). Also when learning new stuff like a new style of music, how to use the pedals and techniques etc he gives me informative information about it etc. Also he is a very friendly, smiley and jokey person this is what mainly keeps me interested is because of his teaching style.

[jenny]

The key to keeping your student interested to keep the lesson varied. Don't spend ages on one piece of music or concept, move on to something different. Try to do a little bit of rhythm, notation, singing and playing of the instrument in the lesson. If the student's concentration is waning move on for a few minutes, you can always go back to something later in the lesson. With beginners don't feel you need to work like mad for the whole lesson; a little enquiry about how school was etc is a good way to build a positive, trusting relationship with your pupil (who will see that you are interested in them as a person too!) as well as a nice way to have a two-minute break, thus making the lesson less intensive.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif) Breaking up the lesson is essential with young students. My youngest was 4 when she started and the only way to make it work was to have 'all round ' music lessons, rather than piano lessons. She's just 6 now, and is starting to treat the lessons herself as piano lessons. But we still have lots of fun together! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Also he is a very friendly, smiley and jokey person this is what mainly keeps me interested is because of his teaching style.

That's good to hear! Music should be fun! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Binka]

Thanks everyone,
That's all really useful advice!!

Much appreciated,

Binka