FOR many teachers, teaching English is a chore and for students, learning it becomes a bore. Is there a cure? Teaching English is hard to do. Understandably, teachers keep trying harder, in a desperate bid to get learners interested. But this gives rise to a paradox – the harder the teachers try, the harder it becomes for students to learn it.
This is because often the teacher’s heightened sense of desperation soon reaches an unbearable level only to explode, and insidiously manifests itself in high levels of stress in the classroom. Stress if left unchecked can become a major hindrance in the language learning process as it upsets student-teacher chemistry, undermining student attention, motivation and ability.
