Обновлено September 11, 2021 OSVITA.IN
“Should I send my task in Word or PowerPoint?”, “Oh, I forgot to attach a file!”, “Homework.doc”
Every student’s biggest fear is online communication with teachers. From my own experience, I can admit that such communication can sometimes be quite a stressful experience. How to start a message, how long to wait for a response from the teacher, whether to say thank you at the end of the message, whether it is ok to contact the teacher, for example, via Facebook, if the answer via email is not received, how to explain the missed task and lots of other “hows” bothered me and most likely bother many students now.
Now, as a teacher, during the first lesson with my students, I try to clearly explain where to send completed assignments, how to name the file, how quickly I respond to messages or when to remind me if I suddenly did not send a reply. This helps to establish effective student-teacher communication and minimizes the number of stressors for students who already have many reasons to be nervous, especially in the run-up to the exams.
So here are 8 tips to help even the shyest students communicate with their teachers.
Say hello.
A proven and effective way to melt the heart of any teacher. Being polite is so easy.
Write a letter “from the bottom up”.
If you are sending a task and plan to attach a file to the letter, start with this step and then write the text of the message itself, then be sure to specify the subject of the letter (later it is easier to find a specific letter in the entire message chain), and then the recipient’s address. Otherwise, you will have to send a message with the following content: “I’m sorry, I forgot to attach a file with the completed task.” Appreciate time: both your own and the teacher’s working hours.
Help the interlocutor to fulfil your request faster.
Formulate clear tasks and questions to get a quick answer.
Most students write: “I have changed something in the theoretical part of the work” – and a 30-page file is attached.
Students who respect the teacher’s time write: “I changed the conclusions to the first section and expanded paragraph 1.3. All changes are highlighted in yellow. I have two questions about these changes: the first and the second. ”
It is easy to guess which letter will get a faster reply, right?
Name the file.
About half of the files I receive from students are called “homework”, another 40% are called “homework 6.11”, and only a few students name the file as in the following example “Andriy Andrienko’s homework for 6.11”.
Indicate the author of the letter.
Email addresses sometimes make it difficult to guess who wrote the email. Don’t waste the teacher’s time guessing who is hiding behind the names lucky777 or smartcookie. Always state your name, academic group number, your speciality.
Read the letter before sending.
Errors in letters are annoying. However, it is not the illiteracy of the sender that is irritating. Do not be lazy to re-read the letter to check the auto-replacement in T9 or annoying spelling mistakes and misprints. Be sure to write the teacher’s name correctly as well.
Deadlines
“The document disappeared somewhere”, “the computer broke”, “I forgot to add the file”. What other excuses did you come up with to justify the failed deadline? How can you expect quick feedback or a nice grade from the teacher if you neglected the specified date for homework? Appreciate time.
Use the communication channel indicated by your teacher.
As a rule, at the very first lesson, the teacher sets the desired channel for communication. For example, e-mail, so do not abuse the patience of teachers and do not write directly to Instagram or Facebook Messenger.
Anastasiia Kyrychenko, Nataliia Kyrychenko