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The previous teaching method in Malaysia used to be chalk and talk. Chalk and talk method are much more on teacher talking rather the students. Teacher will be the one who talk and students just to listen or receive the information from teacher. In this case, it will become a problem for those students with shorter attention spans and the other students will lose attention easily as well. This method also cannot evaluate student’s understanding about the lessons have been taught. Teacher should plan a lesson that include explanation/elicit, activities to strengthen student’s understanding and evaluate student’s understanding. Usually students with shorter attention spans easily get boring during the lesson, sometimes might because of less understanding. What kind of activities can get student’s attention? How to run activities for students with shorter attention spans? In my opinion, no matter what kind of activities can gain students attention, it is more depend on is that a suitable activities or related activities to the lesson, and how teacher organize the activities. Here, I am going to share about my opinion, understanding and experience to let the students with shorter attention spans learn effectively. Teacher need to well prepare for the planned activities that need to run in the lesson. First thing that teacher need to have a clear understanding about the aim of the lesson. So that teacher can plan what activity is going to run and how the activity is going to be run. Teacher need to make sure the activities are suitable for the level of the students and related to the lesson. Plan an activity is not just to get students attention but then it can help students to learn through a fun way and understand the lesson more easily. Teacher also need to prepare the require materials and test run the activities. Teacher can have a plan B or modify the activity after test run activity if necessary. Well prepare for an activity is very important so that the activity will run smoothly. Next, choose the suitable materials are important too. In this time, teacher need to be creative to choose materials and utilize the materials to students. Sometimes simple material can be useful such as flash card with picture and word. Flash card can stimulate student’s visualization and it help students to understand and remember easily. There are many ways of how to use the materials to run an interesting activity, just depends on how creative the teacher is to get student’s attention and how to get students understand about a concept or thing. Fun activity with a suitable material can gain attention from students with shorter attention spans. Nowadays, there are many advanced technologies that can be used by teacher as materials while teaching. Teacher should know how to utilize the technologies to maximize student’s performance. During the lesson, teacher should bring the real object to show and elicit to students to enhance visual learning or else teacher also can use pictures. Usually teacher will use overhead projector to show students pictures or chart, sometimes it is better to use pictures and project it bigger to show in the classroom. Students with shorter attention spans can learn through visual and activities. Lastly, the instructions of the activity given must be simple and short. It makes activities run smoothly because students have a clear understanding about what they are going to do in the activity. Usually students with short attention spans can’t understand long or complicated instructions and they will not feel like participate in the activity. When the instructions too long or complicated, this will become a barrier to students to participate and learn things through activity. Teacher should well understand about the student’s level or understand in order to give a simple and short instruction to run the activities smoothly and achieve the aim of the lesson. In a conclusion, activities make fun for learning and strengthen student’s memory and understanding about what have been taught. Teacher need to well prepare for the activities, choose suitable materials and give short and simple instructions for the activities. It will help students with short attention spans to learn well and it can optimize their performance. Teacher should talk less and ask more questions then increase the student’s talk time. The lesson will be more effective and the learning process will have a lot of fun.
