older teachers like to use the ‘put-the-notes-on-the-board-and-know-this-for-the-test’ younger teachers i feel are getting the students involved. students with short attention spans should be given hands on teaching and not just the ‘read from the book’ technique. i found that teaching that gets all students involved is key. reading from a book, memorizing terms, and regurgitating it back onto a multiple choice test is outdated.

It does depend on the subject you are teaching, which you do not specify. My experience is with training English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers so my examples apply mainly to those. In general terms, a lesson with variety will keep students with short attention spans interested. To get students to participate the lesson needs to be personalised (e.g., do a questionnaire to find out their topics of interest, then select your lesson materials to include these). They also need to be helped to understand why the lesson is important for them, either short-term, e.g. to understand the lyrics of a popular song, or long-term, e.g. to get a better job in the future. Such motivation will encourage regular attendance; with young learners you could have a reward system such as a wall chart with stars, or bright stickers and stamps on their homework. Participation cannot be forced, some people are shy or afraid of making mistakes and being laughed at by others, so creating a supportive classroom environment is important. Within EFL terminology, a communicative approach gives learners more reasons for using the target language. Obviously the teacher must be well prepared for the lesson, perhaps bringing in outside material or realia e.g. to liven up the presentation of vocabulary. Teachers who have studied a methodology course such as CELTA or DELTA are more likely to have a wide range of good techniques to improve their teaching.

Structured Academic Discussion.

Students are given a question, and allowed time to brainstorm answers. Then they share-out and select their favorite answer.

Then, they are given a sentence starter, which they use to write an acedemic response.

Lastly, the teacher calls on students they select to read their answers, then the teacher asks for volunteers.

This takes a little time, but it works well because students are not caught off-guard and don’t feel unprepared to answer.