Meeting and dealing with the changes in the brain of a teenger

 

Before start working with teens, it is important to understand how the adolescent’s brain works, the way they use to behave, and some other details we as teachers need to know and take into account in order to take advantage when teaching languages to teens and make them feel confident in the target language learning.

To be honest, before taking the Teaching Practicum II -Teaching English to Teens course, I had never asked myself why adolescents behave the way they do. Even though, I was a teen I believed that the adolescence was just a “difficult” stage in huma's life. My perspective about adolescents behavior was negative at some point for the reason that most of the teens are dramatic, emotionals, lazy, and they also get angry easily without any reason. However, at this period of life humas have more capacity to learn new things or develop a new talent such as play an instrument. During adolescence, teens start experiencing new things, and this last point may be a risk for them if they are out of their parent's control. For example, teens may taste drugs or be part of gangs in order  “to be accepted in the society”.

Looking and researching for information about the adolescent brain, I learned that some of the reasons that explain the behavior in teens is that teenagers want to be independent, as well the values and the environmentin which they grow up may influence in teens behavior. Besides, in adolescence, unused connections in the thinking and processing part of the teen brain (grey matter) start working, that is why between 18-19 years old the brain becomes more efficient. In addition, there are some important parts of the brain such as the amygdala that influence in the teenager’s brain and the decisions they make. The amygdala is associated with emotions , impulses, agression and instintive behavior. Due to the role this part of the brain plays , teenagers are not aware about the consequences of their actions and decision making. However, it is not until the Prefrontal cortex of the brain is “developed”, teens start making jugdments, they control their impulses and emotions, as well they tend to think about the consequences of their own acions. Moreover, I learne that when teens become mature they ask and think what kind of person they want to be and they see themselves in the real world. (Source http://www.livescience.com/21461-teen-brain-adolescence-facts.html)

As a teacher my expectations for working with teens are high. Besides teach my students a new language, I also want to learn from them. I consider that through practice, I will understand better what are the teens' needs and how to deal with different behaviors in the classroom. It will help me as a teacher to be even  more creative by the time to create lesson plans according to adolescents likes in order to catch their attention. Finally, I think that more than be a teacher, we need to be a positive guide to our students specially in adolescence stage.

"Adolescence represents an inner emotional upheaval, a struggle between the eternal human wish to cling to the past and the equally powerful wish to get on with the future". - Louise J. Kaplan