How to get students to follow instructions in your classroom every time

As a teacher, have you ever had the situation where you tell a student to get on with their work and you find 25 minutes later that they haven't done a thing? 

You tell them to get on with their work, "Get on with your work," and you've come back to them later, and they haven't done a thing. 

I’m sure that resonates with you. Most teachers face this very frustrating problem at some time or another and in this video I’d like to give you an easy way to prevent it happening ever again.

It’s a very simple 3-step fix you can use in your next lesson to make sure your students follow your instructions every time. 

First let’s look at why this happens.

When a teacher gives a simple instruction like ‘get on with your work’ they unwittingly give the student TWO very effective excuses. Excuses which the student can use again and again.

Those 2 excuses are either, "I didn't hear you." Or “I didn’t understand what you asked me to do.”

The reason these excuses are so effective is that the teacher can’t prove them wrong.

If the student says “I didn’t hear you” the teacher can’t prove that they didn’t hear. So the excuse works.


If they say ‘I didn’t understand what you asked me to do” the teacher can’t prove that they didn’t understand. So again the excuse works.

Every time the teacher gives an instruction like ‘get on with your work. The student has two pretty good excuses for wasting 25 minutes or getting out of doing any work at all, any time they want. 

Here’s how you can put an instant end to this…

By giving a specific instruction. 

So, instead of "get on with your work", I’m going to say, "Johnny, in the next 15 minutes, you need to complete questions 1 to 8 on page 35." 

Now, that's pretty specific.

But Jonny still might sit and do nothing claiming “I didn't understand the questions."  Or “I didn’t hear you.”

So, we check for skills. 

"Johnny, before I let you get on with this, tell me how you would do Question 1." 

Once Jonny has showed that he has the skills to do Question 1 we’ve eliminated one of the excuses. He can no longer claim he didn’t understand what we asked him to do. 

Then I ask him to repeat the instruction. “

That’s great Jonny. Just so we’re both clear,  could you tell me what I asked you to do please?”. "Er Sir, you said, 'Complete these questions 1 to 8 on page 35 in the next 15 minutes." 

"Great stuff! Thanks Jonny" 

Now he can no longer say he didn’t hear me. 

So those two excuses have been completely eliminated.

Fewer arguments. Less work avoidance. And a happier, more productive classroom.

All by making a few very simple changes to our instructions and the way we communicate with our students.

This is just one of THOUSANDS of novel, creative ways to win the hearts of tough students and improve classroom management contained in the best-selling book Take Control of the Noisy Class.

Get your copy now on Amazon.

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