Learning their names

Learning students' names quickly in large classes isn't easy, but it is essential because:

• It promotes good basic human relationships.

• It is helpful in monitoring student records (test results, attendance, assignments).

• Calling people by their names is basic recognition that they are individuals and are being respected as such.

• Calling students by their names helps us to call them to order.

• We begin to feel more comfortable with a class as soon as we know our students' names.

• Students themselves feel better in a class where they know the names of classmates.

Learning students' names is particularly problematic and especially important in the adult education center arrangement, where new students may appear every night. In such a setting, new students feel much more welcome when they are introduced by name and perceive that it is important for them to become familiar with the names of other students. Like most people, students often have strong emotional connections to their names, and we benefit from tapping some of these connections for the purpose of language learning.

A word of warning is needed here. In western cultures people are used to addressing each other by their first names. This, however, is not the rule in many oriental cultures, and an insistence on a first name familiarity can make many students uncomfortable. It is therefore wise to ask for the name students want to be called in class rather than for their first name.