I teach, as you may already know, English at a Further Education centre. My students are 18+, many of them in their twenties. And now we, they, are all locked down at home,
My fellow teachers and I are quite lucky, since we have the tools (G Suite for Education and others) and the training to connect with our pupils on a regular basis and follow their learning process more or less easily. We have regular Meet sessions, connect through Classroom and Google Chat so we are able to keep on teaching more or less like always.
So, mature students, good connections, nice training, powerful simple tools.. Easy peasy lemon squeezy (I have always loved this thing sorry), no? Well, no.
The point is with students of this age, you tend to forget about their needs. I mean their psychological and emotional needs. Plenty of information and techniques are to be found everywhere about how to take care of young students, but, what about my post-pubescent, almost adult, finding-their-way, boys and girls?
They are in a very complex age. Trying to find their own real personality and roles, trying to be liked in real life and, specially, in social nets, trying to fight every adult available… On the top of that, hormones.
The state of Spain, in terms of economy, is not a solid rock upon they can stand. I mean the country was starting to get through the terrible 2008 crisis and now, when light was somehow visible at the end of the tunnel, this. For us adults it is hard enough to think of the future after COVID-19. Imagine what they have in their minds right now…
Being at home is a nightmare for many of them. They are a generation which spend loads of time at home and, quite often, they prefer to connect via Instagram or Tik Tok from their beds than going out and grab a pint but, when you are a young rebel (or rebel to be, just wait) and you have to stay at home, well, that sucks.
