The Unteachables Podcast

#78: Feel like you're constantly repeating instructions? The 3 barriers to students just getting on with it (minus the off-task chatter, blank stares, and million questions)

• Claire English • Season 5 • Episode 78

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In today’s episode, I’m unpacking why students might not be listening or following your task instructions. Picture this: hands shoot up, students ask, “What are we doing?” or they sit there doodling, lost in confusion. What’s going on here? I’ll explore the reasons behind this and how understanding them is key to solving the problem.

Here’s what I’ll cover:

  • The assumptions we make that lead to miscommunication.
  • How students’ unique contexts impact their understanding.
  • The importance of clarity in instructions and where we often go wrong.
  • Strategies to make learning visible and consistent in your classroom.
  • Practical tools like timers, checklists, and scaffolds that can transform how students follow instructions.

Want to know a win-win? 

Overcoming these barriers naturally addresses student disengagement, reduces low-level behaviours, and mitigates dysregulated behaviours. The magic of a holistic approach to classroom management!!

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Speaker 1:

Oh hi teachers. Welcome to Unteachables podcast Congratulations. You have just stumbled across the best free professional development and support you could ask for. I'm Claire English, a passionate secondary teacher, author, teacher mentor and generally just a big behavior nerd, and I created the Unteachables podcast to demystify and simplify classroom management. I want this podcast to be the tangible support, community validation, mentorship all those pretty important things that we need as teachers to be able to walk into our classrooms feeling empowered and, dare I say it, happy and thrive, especially in the face of these really tough behaviors. So ready for some no-nonsense, judgment-free and realistic classroom management support? I've got your teacher friend, let's do this. Management support. I've got your teacher friend, let's do this.

Speaker 1:

Hello teachers, how are you? Hope everything is going well. How's the last week been? I know for some of you, right now you're listening to this as you're going into a new school year. I know that all of my beautiful UK teachers you've gone back this week. Maybe not all of you, but I know that a lot of you have. So I am keeping you in my thoughts. I know that it's going to be a brilliant year for you. Fingers crossed, I really hope it is, and I know that Ofsted have just scrapped their one word rating. So you know what. We're already starting off on a really good note for us UK teachers. I say us UK teachers. I'm not even a UK teacher anymore, but I think that that is a massive win at the very start of the school year. So let's all celebrate that. But I truly do hope it is a really good start. I know the Sunday Scaries can be amplified times 50 at the start of the school year, so I am holding you in my thoughts and, yeah, I just know you're going to smash it. You're listening to this podcast so I know that you're dedicated to you know doing some incredible things in your classroom, so I know that's going to be the case.

Speaker 1:

In today's episode we are diving into why students might not be like to say you give them a task, you give them some instructions, you set them off to do something. Why might they not listen to that? Why might they not be able to follow your task instructions? Why might you have a scenario where you've got hands shooting up? So you've just gone through all of the tasks and you've spent heaps of time preparing it and you think it's really clear, you think it's really on the money. You know you've you've done everything that you need to do, but then you've still got hands shooting up. You've still got students asking what are we doing? You've got students that are sitting there doodling. You've got students that are a bit lost in confusion.

Speaker 1:

Maybe the chat starts, the level of disruption starts. You know you've just it's not the vibe that you wanted for students engaging in the task. What is going on? Well, it could be one of three. Actually, it could be one of a number of things, but I'm going to be talking about three particular barriers. The three barriers that I want to talk about are the fact that we have our own assumptions that we come into the class with. We have a lack of task clarity when we're giving tasks to students, and it could just be the individual needs or context of our students. So I will be going through these in a little bit more detail in a moment. But what I want to say before I go into detail about these when we begin to address these particular barriers, when we put things in place that I discussed, when we're talking about overcoming the barriers and really delivering a task that mitigates all of those things that lead to these disruptions, we are also naturally, in general, addressing student dis disruptions. We are also naturally, in general, addressing student disengagement in the classroom as a whole. We're reducing low level behaviors as a whole. We're mitigating dysregulated behaviors as a whole. It is a holistic approach to classroom management. So when we do these things, when we put these things in place, when we start to think about the barriers to something as simple as like giving a task that students are going to get on with, we really do start to think about things as a whole. So let's dive into the barriers.

Speaker 1:

The first potential barrier could be our own assumptions about our students. We might assume that students have the prior knowledge they need, but they don't. We might assume that our instructions are super clear, but maybe they're not. Maybe we assume that students already have the particular skills needed. So maybe we think they have the foundational knowledge around, like the content itself, and then maybe we assume they know how to put that content, that information, into a paragraph. Maybe we assume that they know how to, you know, like, put together a complex sentence, like. There are so many things that we could potentially assume about our students and these assumptions they happen to all of us. We are constantly assuming things about our students.

Speaker 1:

I had a year eight class and I mean, like the classes that I taught in my last school were all very similar to this, but this one particular year eight class I'm thinking of, I had 30 students in the room and I was wondering why I had all of these issues with students actually getting on with what I was setting for them. And then I went back and looked at the data and the data said that I think about 30% of them were so in year eight. They were operating at the level of a year two student, a year three students. They actually didn't have the skills or that foundation that they needed for me to be able to teach them the things that I was teaching them. That was a really big wake up call for me in my early career, going, oh my gosh, like they don't come to this class with the you know they don't all come with the same, the same abilities, the same skills, the same knowledge. Like we really need to think about what we're assuming about those things. The last thing that we might assume is that they're actually going to ask for help if needed.

Speaker 1:

Very often we say, okay, any questions hands up. No, okay, let's get on with it. The average pause for a teacher, the studies showed that it was 0.9 seconds. So from the moment we say are there any questions? To the moment that we collect questions from our students or go on with whatever we're doing, it's 0.9 seconds. In fact, it needs to be much longer. It needs to be from anywhere between five seconds and 15 seconds. So what I say to my students now is okay, I'm going to get any questions you have, but I'm going to give you 15 seconds of thinking time, so they have some thinking time there. And then I go okay, time's up. Any questions that you thought about, you know. Do you have any questions for me? What questions do you have? What question do you think the person next to you might have? And if there are no questions, we can move on then.

Speaker 1:

But even if you do allow that time for them and you're really explicit about their time, there are still going to be students that don't ask for help. There are still going to be students who won't put their hand up and say actually, this is really confusing. That is something that we're going to be talking about in a different barrier, but the next way that we can assume things that might be a barrier to students actually engaging with the task is that we can assume as teachers that you know like things have been really, really clear, and we do this because we're so close to the work. We're so close to what we're doing. We were the ones to create the task. So in our brains we have developed something that we are a hundred percent clear on, a hundred percent all over the content, second nature to us. We're very close to it and when we're too close to the work that we're creating for our students, it's obviously going to happen. But when we are really close, we aren't aware of potential misconceptions. We aren't aware of potential ways that we're not being clear about content or clear about the task.

Speaker 1:

So one really great strategy to become more reflective and aware of these things is something that I call living the lesson. What living the lesson is. It just means trying out the tasks or activities yourself before giving them to students and it just helps you spot any potential issues, bust any misconceptions and just better understand what students are going to experience in the lesson. And when we are able to do that, we're able to adjust our lessons based on that experience to make them more effective, and it just can help us to anticipate where some students might struggle. What this looks like in practice is literally just sitting down with a cup of tea. You don't have to do this for every single task that you put together for students. Just do one a week, one a term. It doesn't have to be a long process, it's just. It's a great reflective opportunity for us to go oh okay, there are things here that I can improve in my task development and run through the lesson. Take yourself on that journey and note down any sticking points, like, just literally sit there with a pen, with a book, with the sheets that you're planning to give your students with the task anything that you plan to give to your students give to yourself and run through it.

Speaker 1:

There have been so many times where I have picked up on questions that I have written out for students and I'm like, actually that's a really hard question to answer. I put that together thinking that it was going to be easy and straightforward, but actually now, sitting here going through this question, it doesn't make sense in the way that I thought it did. It can be so powerful to do that and then just adjust your instructions or resources based on what you find. Again, you have to do this all the time. It's just a really great strategy to be able to get a bit reflective on our own practice. Another way to try to break down those barriers of assumptions that we make around our students is just simply to ask ourselves do the expectations that I have in my classroom right now of my students match their current ability level or the level of support that I provided them to be successful? Really important, just to ask ourselves that question Again, a really quick strategy that allows us to go oh, okay, maybe not, because we get so caught up in the day. We get so caught up in the million things that we're doing as teachers that sometimes these things do fall to the wayside. And it's nobody's fault necessarily. It's just something that does happen because we have got 5 million little things that we have to deal with.

Speaker 1:

The second potential barrier to students not getting on with the task is a lack of clarity, and a lack of clarity can arise from a bunch of things, like you providing multi-step or complex instructions only using verbal instructions. There have been many times where I have given the most detailed instructions. I've used my fingers. Okay, first, second, third we do this. I'm only using verbal instructions, so the second I finish those verbal instructions. There are obviously going to be hands up going hang on a second. I was just zoning out of that. What are we doing? And that's not necessarily the student's fault either. I have been in meetings where I completely glaze over and zone out and someone could say, okay, let's get on with that task and I, as a 35 year old woman, will go hang on a minute. What are we doing here?

Speaker 1:

The third way that we can have a lack of clarity is a lack of examples on modeling, so students then don't understand what success might look like or what it looks like to actually complete the task Like what is it actually what? What am I expected to do in this task exactly? And if that's not being modeled, if there are no examples, then that could potentially get lost in translation as well. The fourth thing is using language that's inaccessible. We need to be using student-friendly language, and very often we can use a lot of heavy meta language, language that we haven't taught them, again, assuming that students know the same words that we know, but it just is not the case.

Speaker 1:

The next one is a lack of understanding of the task's purpose. I think that giving lesson learning objectives is a bit of a sticking point for some teachers and ironically, it's because people haven't told them what the purpose is of a learning objective and why that's important for the clarity of our students and the task. But it is actually really crucial for students, in terms of their buy-in, even to know. Oh okay, the reason I'm doing this task is because I'm going to be meeting this outcome and if you can explain that to them in student friendly language, they're going to have more buy-in and they're going to be clearer about what they actually need to do.

Speaker 1:

And the last thing that seems pretty simple, but I see a lot of confusing or busy worksheets or really like fonts that are used on PowerPoint presentations that I would struggle to read. You know the size of font. So just making sure it's really clear. Comic Sans again something that gets a really bad rap, but the reason teachers use Comic Sans is because it's a really accessible font. I don't like Comic Sans, but I use Arial because that's another one that's really friendly. It's dyslexia friendly as well. So just using a font that's really clear. Don't use a font that's going to be like really hard scripts to read. I don't even use that kind of script in my training sessions because I know that that's going to be hard for you just want to remove as many barriers as possible, not add barriers on. So the third barrier that I want to talk about remember there are many, many barriers that it could potentially be. There are so many things that could be at play here when you do set a task for students.

Speaker 1:

But the third barrier that I do want to talk about are just your students' individual needs, and a student might be stuck to progress in a task for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons could be anxiety around failure. Maybe they have experienced like a lot in to say, I'm an English teacher. Maybe in the past they have experienced nothing but failure in English. Maybe they've been told they're not good at English or they've internalized those beliefs and they have a deep anxiety around having to pick up that pen and do their work. So maybe they've just got a lot of anxiety about actually trying something, trying something new or trying a task. Attempting a task is actually an act of absolute bravery for some of our students and we again, we assume that it's going to be easy for everybody, because it's easy for us and we assume that it's not that big of a deal but for some of our students and we also think that it's like a low stakes task, but for some of our students it is still incredibly scary for them to pick up that pen and complete that task.

Speaker 1:

Another barrier could just be a language barrier. Maybe English is their second language and again we haven't been really clear about things. Imagine English being your second language and English is a difficult language and you've got a font script that is really illegible. Or you've got language like meta language, really heavy meta language that is really difficult for even students who English is their first language to understand. So really removing those barriers and that's just going to help every single student it's not just going to help the students who have those particular barriers to accessing the learning, it is going to help every single one of them.

Speaker 1:

And another one is that maybe students have speech and language difficulties and we really need to be thinking about students who can't follow multi-step instructions. How are we actually accommodating for those students? It's just differentiation 101. But differentiation shouldn't mean doing a whole bunch of other things. It just means weaving things into our current practice that we do in the everyday, that naturally and automatically just make those learning adjustments for every single student. That's the goal.

Speaker 1:

So how do we overcome these barriers? What is the solution? What are some action points? Well, obviously, when it comes to busting the assumptions that we make, we do have to be reflective. Leaving the lesson is a great strategy for that and then just asking ourselves whether or not our expectations match the current skills and ability levels in our class and whether or not we're providing them with the right scaffolding, the right support to be able to achieve what we're asking them to do. The right scaffolding, the right support to be able to achieve what we're asking them to do. But in terms of actually delivering a task in a way that is going to give the utmost clarity for every single student in the room, it really is about making learning visible and consistent in the best way we can.

Speaker 1:

The way I like to put it is if you have lost your voice completely, if you cannot talk, if you are overnight you've had a horrible coffee get into the, I mean, you probably shouldn't be at work anyway, should you? But if you couldn't talk, how could you communicate that task to your students in a way that they would still be able to get and follow. Think timers. Think checklists. Think chunking information down into smaller parts. They say the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. Think success criterias to model what students are expected to do and what success looks like for them. Think task cards, where they can guide themselves through the task and it's like a map to their learning. They know exactly where they're going with it. Think sentence starters. Think any other scaffolds that students can have an access so they not only have real clarity around what the task is that you're asking them to do, so they can just get on with it straight away, but it helps them to navigate things If they get a little bit lost throughout. It takes away the pressure for you to be repeating your instructions 50 million times. It is just making things as clear as possible. It's naturally differentiating the lesson. Remember I spoke before about the fact that differentiation should not be something that is you creating 50 different pieces of material for all of your students. It should just be naturally interwoven into your teaching and learning practice. These tools that I've just mentioned checklist, chunking down, success criteria, task class, sentence starters scaffolds. That is differentiation in action and it's something that, once you have a handle on using these scaffolds and these tools, it won't take any extra time and you are going to have a far easier way of classroom managing and differentiating and all of the things.

Speaker 1:

In next week's episode I want to go over one tool that I personally think is the biggest game changer when it comes to us tasking our students with clarity. But if you are in the Behaviour club in September, the whole focus is on what am I doing, how to give instructions that students fully understand so they can dive into the task without the low level behaviors, without the disruptions, without the chat, without the million questions, without students doing anything that you haven't asked, without them just doing one sentence when they're supposed to do a paragraph. All of those things will be resolved through this particular month. So if you are a Behaviour Club member, go into either. If you're listening to this in real time it is in the September, this month, area or if you are listening in a few months time you've just joined the club and you're listening to this episode and you want to find it. It'll be in the vault with everything else that I have put into the club up to this point. It really is. It's a game changer and it is just living, breathing proof that classroom management is not just about behavior.

Speaker 1:

So much of classroom management is mitigating the barriers and removing the barriers. And when we remove those barriers, we can increase the barriers, like removing the barriers. And, you know, when we remove those barriers, we can increase the clarity, we can increase the predictability. We can, you know, reduce the dysregulation. We can reduce all of those behaviors that are due to dysregulation. We can meet our students' needs in a more explicit and meaningful way. There are so many things that we can control in our classroom and you can hear in my voice how freaking passionate I am about this, because if teachers were aware of this stuff going into the classroom, um, we wouldn't have half the issues that we do. I think there's such a disservice to teachers for not actually explicitly talking about this stuff.

Speaker 1:

So if you are in the behavior club or you want to join, I'll be guiding you through a four lesson mini course and it covers the barriers. It covers planning lessons with crystal clear instructions, with a teaching toolbox, canva templates to things like task cards and success criterias. It's got how to actually take all of this into the lesson and you know what pedagogy we use to actually deliver a task with clarity, diagnosing and resolving other classroom issues. And along with that I've got a huge growth mindset pack with lessons and activities and posters to help students build that confidence, that independence again, just removing as many barriers as we can so students can just get on with their learning. That is the goal it really is.

Speaker 1:

So it is a jam-packed month this month in the Behaviour Club and I had so much fun I can't even tell you how much fun I've had putting this pack together. Originally it was like four scaffolds and then it's grown to I think, about 20 different resources this month alone. I just couldn't stop. I kept thinking, oh okay, if this is a barrier, then let's create just a little growth mindset lesson and that turned into like a whole growth mindset pack with like six different things in it. But if you do want to join to be able to access all of those things, you can just head over to the-unteachablescom forward slash TBC.

Speaker 1:

And if you are listening to this in real time, then I actually am giving away the first session. So it's four, it's three sessions and I am giving you the first session for free to access, because I believe so much in what I do in the Behaviour Club and so much in these strategies that I wanted to give you a taste of the Behaviour Club first up, but also just access to this information. I'm so happy to be able to support you in any way that I can. I'm so excited for my behavior. Clubbers to you know, I've already had some feedback about this month and it's only the third day of the month, so I know all of you are already starting to engage in it. So I just can't wait to hear what you think. And again, if you are heading back into the classroom after your break, I am sending you all of my best wishes for the year ahead. And that's me signing off for the week. I hope you have a fabulous one and I'll see you next Tuesday.

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Claire English

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