TEACHER´S GUIDE

ATTITUDE VIRUS

BY

Jenny Contreras

ATTITUDE VIRUS?

No, It´s not a joke. This can be bothering your students and

affecting the classes. This manual is to help you develop in your

students

Sense of connectedness

Sense of capability

Sense of worth

And courage

what´s more, this will help you to take out negative thoughts and

bring new energy to your work environment.

We are going to check some examples to make you understand

in an easy way what to do.

We detected different virus that affect in a negative way so we

will present them and give the best medication to eliminate

those virus so you can have the expected results.

Now there, we are not talking about any kind of virus, of course

colds and fevers can make your class get behind and make you

lose valuable time. But there is another virus that is growing in an

epidemic way. So we will call this virus, the attitude virus.

It not like compare to a biological infection level 4, but it really

can affect your students learning in a very short time. It can

block them up to hating English, but don´t worry, there are many

ways to get vaccines and shots against them and in this way

avoid the effects. But in order to achieve this goal, me must

have and make a diagnosis on ourselves and upon our students

to make sure we can fight this disses over.

This is not easy because when a student or a teacher has the

illness the presentation varies according to every single person,

so in the following pages we will see the reaction to this virus, the

consequences and the way we can treat our student to get

better and feel better.

THE NOISY ONE

This student will show his or her infection by making all of the

students in class get to know what´s the problem he or she has,

but will say it in an exaggerated way.

Example:

s-1 Did you know that the teacher is going to make us do an

essay?

s-2 Yes, but she told us she would explain us how to do it

s-1 yeah, sure, so if that´s so, how come she hasn´t say a word?

How are we supposed to work without instructions? You see why I

hate English class, there is no consideration for slow learners like

me.

THE PERFECTIONIST

Even though we know that it is very important to work hard to

make things with quality, the perfectionist uses the word quality

as a weapon to hurt other students, to make them feel dumb,

unable to do a good job…. And better be extra careful,

because this type of reaction to the virus is often seen in

teachers even with a higher amount that in students.

Example

t- Do you think this is a good job? Rally? 16 pages! You had all

weekend to work it out! What´s wrong with you? That´s why we

can´t do better… this whole class is a mess…

THE RESISTER

To continue learning of our infected students, we have the

resister, this student (don´t forget teachers can get infected too),

is different from others because having a natural resistance for

changes is natural, the constant and insisted resistance is in

reality a manifestation of a severe infection. This student will

always resist any change, and will act and say negative things

among the projects and is always protesting disagreement to

whatever change might come.

Example

s- I don´t understand why the teacher is asking us to work with

this new system. We can perfectly handle this way, I don´t get

what her problem is. I am going to keep working the way I like

and if she likes it good for her, if not, sorry…

THE RUMOR MONGER

This student enjoys making stories up. He exaggerates and lies

about things worst of all, is a very negative person and can really

infect others with the negativism spread all over the room.

Example

s- did you hear that we will have extra homework? But the

teacher is not asking that to Will, you see, she has her own

preferences for some students.

THE UNCOMMITTED

This reaction to the infection can lowdown the group and affect

all students, for this type of infection is very contagious and will

make the students work less and with no enthusiasm.

Example

T- why didn´t you present your homework?

s- sorry, I forgot it was due today. (turns and lives in a careless

way)

THE PESSIMIST

This type of infected student will always act like if the sky was

falling apart, and if he or she sees that nothing happens, he or

she will start cracking the sky into pieces with their own hand.

Example

s- Your see teacher, nobody brought the exercise because is too

difficult. I knew we weren´t capable of doing all of that.

HOW TO TREAT IT

A good attitude toward thing will make the difference, because

it will directly affect our understanding of things, our productivity,

capability, even it directly affects health.

How can we prevent or cure this contagious virus?

Well we will mention easy steps to be prepared.

1. Recognize that there is an attitude problem

It is very important to guide the student to take a look to his

inner person and evaluate him or herself to recognize the

attitude problem and being responsible of own decisions

will help the student or infected person a guide to step out

of this illness. Sometimes the problem is not the

environment, sometimes the problem is our selves.

2. Help the students diagnose their problem isolating the

problem from the environment. Make sure you emphasis

that the person is ok, it is the attitude toward things that is

affecting others and his or her personal grow. When talking

to a student focus your attention on their behavior, not on

their personality

3. Show your student how behavior impacts on the rest of the

class, because the class is a team, and one negative

impact will affect the whole group. Show them how

productive a class can be with the right attitude. It is very

important to make sure the student understands what

impact his attitude can bring to the whole group.

4. Help the students to acknowledge underlying causes. Be a

good listener. Usually the cause of a bad attitude is hidden

sentiments. We need to knit personal goals with our class

goals so they become one. When there is a barrower

between the personal goals and the classroom goals you

will have a problem

5. Clarify values. Make sure you let your student know how

valuable is for you for him or her to be in the classroom with

a good attitude.

6. Next step is to REPLACE OLD REACTIONS WITH A NEW

RESPONSE.

7. Make sure that the student understands how important is for

the class the attitude change and all the good implications

that changes have.

8. Encourage your student to practice the new attitude

response

9. Address situations that cause stress and can make your

student go back to his or her old custom of being. Give

them a follow up, just to check progress

10. Remember to praise your students for their new attitude,

reinforce the good that this new attitude brings to the class.

11. MODEL A GOOD BEHAVIOR AND TRY TO MAKE IT

CONTAGIOUS AS WELL.

Ending this manual, please remember that bad and good

attitudes can be contagious and with practice they will become

part of our lives.

If you locate an abuse problem, please make sure is treated by

a professional.

As same as the physical problems, is better to prevent than treat

If you notice in your class room an attitude problem, don´t let the

time go by, act.

Always make sure you check yourself up to avoid any infection

We hope that this easy steps will help you in your journey to have

students infection free.