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Low self-confidence among students is terribly common. For many pupils, they dread having to stand at the front of the class, answer questions on the spot or read a snippet of text out loud. There will be many people in the classroom who don’t have an issue with any of those, though there will be a few who struggle with the idea. So, what can you do in your London-based teaching job to help students who are lacking in self-confidence?

What does it mean to be self-confident?

As a teacher, one of your main roles is to make sure that your students believe in themselves. And that’s essentially what teaching self-confidence is. Having self-confidence is having the ability to trust in yourself, as well as your skills, potential and judgement.

Self-confidence is not something that comes naturally to all students. And if your class has many larger-than-life characters, then those who are lacking in it may feel as though they can just sink into the background without worry. It’s your duty to make sure that this doesn’t happen by giving them all of the confidence in the world. As long as your students believe in themselves and their work, then you’re doing something right.

Giving Your Students Self-Confidence

If a child is lacking in self-confidence, you may have to take a step back and ask yourself why. Perhaps they’ve taken a knock from being cyber bullied or maybe they’re battling with dyslexia. No matter what the reason is, it’s your role to help.

By being self-confident, your students are much more likely to engage, look forward to class and even take risks with their work when necessary. It’ll boost creativity and imagination, meaning that there’s more chance of them investing in their work and producing better results on assignments and exams.

However, it’s not just about the work. It’s also about their wellbeing and general state of mind.

How to Bring Self-Confidence to the Classroom

To help your students feel a sense of self-confidence, there are a few things that you can do to help. From promoting active learning in the classroom to promoting reading for pleasure, there’s a few tips and tricks you can introduce into your day-to-day teaching methods.

Here’s a list of techniques you can try:

· Praise students on their accomplishments
· Keep encouraging students to do the best they can
· Offer support and guidance on topics students find difficult
· Don’t interrupt or correct students while they’re talking
· Set goals which are achievable
· Give students a choice by creating a learning menu
· Ask questions on a certain topic they know about – this one doesn’t have to be classroom related
· Don’t point the finger or show mistakes in front of the entire class
· Provide constructive criticism when needed
· Be complimentary but don’t sound over the top or sarcastic

Self-Confidence and Body Image

Teaching body confidence among young people isn’t always easy due to influences from media publications and social networking sites. However, every young person should be confident in the own skin. Tragically, many school children have the wrong idea about body image and believe that they need to look a certain way.

The most important step for you to take here is to show students that the media doesn’t always give the best representation. Teach them about photo manipulation and how celebrities have come out and talked about their images being edited to not even look like themselves. You want to talk openly about unrealistic appearances and reduce the amount of appearance-focused conversations and comparisons that goes on in the classroom.

This is a subject that needs to be tackled carefully. However, when done right, you can teach students how to enjoy the feeling of being self-confident.

If you’re an overseas applicant coming to the UK to teach, there are many ways in which you can help your students. Alternatively, you may wish to broaden your horizons by applying for an international teaching job and helping children in another country. No matter where your teaching job is based, you can help students get to grips with the issue of self-confidence.