ESTABLISHING RAPPORT IN THE CLASSROOM

By: Syams. Akbar (STKIP PGRI Pasuruan)

Teaching is about relationships. Positive rapport means having good relationships between the teacher and students, and amongst the students. As teachers, one of the important goals is to build a classroom atmosphere where students feel comfortable and willing to learn. When positive classroom rapport exists, students feel a sense of belonging and are prepared to work and share information together. The students are motivated, feel included and safe, and they believe that they are contributing in a worthwhile manner. When students have rapport with the teacher that means they are with you. The teacher is accepted in that role and students are prepared to follow the instructors activities and suggestions. A teacher is the leader of the class and has to set boundaries early on however, boundary setting does not mean that the teacher reinforces a hierarchical gap between him or her self and the students. Students should be treated respectfully at all times (no matter what age), and it will become apparent to them that they are in an environment conducive to learning English. They will soon become aware that their opinions, answers, efforts, and even their errors are all appreciated, as all aid the learning process. It is fairly natural that a student (especially younger students) may want to do their best because of a good relationship with their teacher whom is seen as a mentor and motivator. It is also common that students will continue their studies if they feel like they are achieving and are being given the best opportunities for success. There are many different ways of a teacher establishing rapport. However, remaining calm, positive and approachable are all vital to establishing rapport. The followings are the way to establish good rapport as Casey (2006); 1. start at day one and continue to make the effort as the year proceeds. Taking an genuine interest in your students, knowing little things about them and their families, asking how they are, listening and being approachable are all vitally important. 2. From the beginning, encourage the students to get to know each other (remember their names and use them!), and mix students up into differing sets of working companions etc. from time to time. 3. Play games that help the students to know each other and become familiar with each other to make everyone feel comfortable. If these sort of things are done early on, and if each class has an aspect of sharing (a story telling session, a news section for the week from one member, for example), then it would seem to follow that students would look forward to that class. The class would have a sense of unity, would be seen as enjoyable, and would ultimately motivate the students. 4. The teacher needs to be alert and observe students body language. If students are bored, tired and feel like the class is just wasted time, they will soon show it through their body language. Teachers must be viewed by their students as flexible and fair. 5. Dont bring personal issues into the classroom, and if there have been prior issues with a student, let it go. 6. Never ridicule your students, and try to give criticism discreetly, and above all, fairly. Students need teachers whom they respect.

syams@kbar | TEFL2012_STKIP PGRI Pasuruan

7. keep tecahers motivation at an optimal level as enthusiasm is contagious; it commands attention and inspires concentration. The behavior of students will rarely be a problem when they are interested and focused on the subject matter. Jiang, W. & Ramsay, G. (2005) list some items to build good rapport. They are; students getting to know each other (and their teacher) changing partners cooperation as much humor and fun as possible an ongoing process of activities

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Although a teacher may have good rapport with a class, they still may find that the students get bored etc. However, it will be easier for the teacher with good rapport to pick the class up. By establishing rapport, we can create bonding, affinity, empathy, and harmony, all of which are essential in the classroom. In sum, building up rapport with learners is essential for a teacher to teach successfully for the following reasons: (1) Rapport enhances learning: Teachers can help make learning more enjoyable by consciously building up rapport with learners. It is common knowledge that human beings are driven by emotional factors in whatever they do. Learners of language are no exception in being driven by emotional factors in their learning. It is thus worthwhile for teachers to make a special effort in developing rapport with their learners. The more successful a teacher is in developing a rapport with learners, the more likely it is that they will enjoy the class and put more effort into the course being taught. (2) Rapport helps motivate learners: Learner motivation is crucial to learning. Learners have various motivations in their learning and learner-teacher rapport is one of them. Although facets of a learner's motivation are beyond a teacher's control, there is still much that a teacher can do to influence the motivation of his or her students. Developing rapport with learners is an effective measure of motivating them. (3) Rapport reduces learners' anxiety: Anxiety contributes to an affective filter, according to Krashen (1982), which makes the individual unreceptive to language input; thus, the learner fails to internalise the available target language messages and language acquisition does not progress smoothly. Price's (1991) study shows that instructors play a significant role in the amount of anxiety each learner experiences in their classes. In answering the question "How can language learning be made less stressful" (p. 106), Price (1991) offers very concrete suggestions, among which: "the most frequent observation made by these subjects was that they would feel more comfortable if the instructor were more like a friend helping them to learn and less like an authority figure making them perform" (p. 107).

References Casey, Sarah. 2006. Establishing http://www.tesolonline.com/. Rapport in ihe Classroom. Retrieved from

Jiang, W. & Ramsay, G. 2005. Rapport-Building Through Call In Teaching Chinese As A Foreign Language. Unpublished Exploratory Study. The University of Queensland, Australia Haynes, L. & Backell, B. (2011). First-class teaching: Building rapport between teachers and students. In A.
syams@kbar | TEFL2012_STKIP PGRI Pasuruan

Stewart (Ed.), JALT2010 Conference Proceedings. Tokyo: JALT.

syams@kbar | TEFL2012_STKIP PGRI Pasuruan