ABSTRACT
Students who are engaged and enthusiastic learners believe their teachers know them, consider their interests, make the work meaningful, give them useful feedback, and treat them fairly and respectfully—all crucial for learning across the grades and across the disciplines. Students are willing to work through challenging ideas they do not yet understand if teachers value questions and support students’ struggle and failure as a normal part of learning. Feedback must use carefully crafted language that helps the learner improve the quality of the work or effort. The majority of instruction needs to be delivered through meaningful conversations and teaching that involve showing and gesturing instead of just telling, the use of total physical response, real objects, and comprehensible input.
