Positive Language, Part III. Encouraging Students To Use Positive Language.

Posted by Jacinda Miller on

If you have read parts I  and II are of this  series, you have seen that there is a shift for educators to use positive language to guide what we want children to do versus telling them what we don't want from them. In part II, you evaluated your own language to see if you have any communication that is negative focused versus positive (and we  all do, I catch myself all  the time reverting back to a negative language pattern). 

In part III, we encourage you to have your students begin to  use positive language in  their self-talk and their evaluation of their practice sessions and  performances.  One example that we have used with our pre-teen and teen students is to use the worksheet found at  this link. This helped us to shift from me (as the teacher) telling the twirlers what to do, how to improve and what to work on to a student focused approach. The twirler/student completes the worksheet at the end of the practice and then I meet with them individually to review what they have written on their worksheet, discuss other ideas and areas of improvement and then make a plan for improvement.  This takes approximately 5 minutes at the end of the class and is a great way to connect with your students and work together on improving. 

We hope this 3 part series has helped you to improve your teaching!