How to have more engaging lessons with younger students
For piano teachers, engaging young piano students can be pretty challenging to undertake sometimes.
At an early age, the students’ particularities and individualities can make a huge positive difference in the pedagogical outcome.
For example, the first tip from Laura in her article is “get to know your student” this is crucial and most vital when teaching toddlers; they need to be recognized as a unique human being, take into account that at early ages, human are building their individuality and personalities, and acknowledging it is paramount for a good rapport between teacher and student.
Another tip that unfortunately lots of teachers don’t do due to (most of the time) is planning your lessons; not just one, but to have a wider scope of what are you planning to do for the next month or so. This task will be very beneficial as a teacher as we sometimes find ourselves lost in the number of activities that we design and prepare for our students, losing our sense of the goal of the learning process.
The latter brings us to another issue that many teachers commonly raise: the attention span of their students, or better said, the short attention span of their students! We have to face the facts that from the age of three until the age of six years, the students, in general, can not hold their attention for more than ten minutes, even on occasions, five minutes; that is precisely why the teacher should have a plethora of many activities prepared for just one content, and that is why the sense of learning outcome can be lost if we do not have the goal pre-determined in our lessons, whatever the topic is.
Lastly, practice at home is paramount, and this has to be aided by the parents who should commit to helping their children at the beginning of the learning journey.