Communication skills need to be sharpened to improve student engagement. • Listen: No matter how many years of experience you have don’t always assume that you know what is going on through your student’s head. If you’re not having the results you expected with it could easily resolve just by asking and listening. • Describe Clear Goals: make sure you communicate a clear vision of the objective you wish your students to achieve. • Give praise: everyone likes to hear they’re doing a good job and your students are no different. Don’t be cheap with your kind words! • Be accessible: you have an important job to do and your students depend on you for their learning process. You can also give them a special email address you have set up for this purpose or create an online forum for open questions. You don’t have to offer “24-7 service” but make sure they can reach you if they need to. • Build teamwork: if your whole classroom is working together to achieve similar goals it creates an environment that makes communication easier, it will help students help each other and build the camaraderie needed to make the classes run more smoothly. • Use humor: Sometimes humor can lighten up the mood and be the lube that keeps the gears moving smoothly in your classroom. This does not mean you have to turn your lecture into standup comedy –unless, of course, you teach standup comedy!- but keep things light and have a little fun. A little humor can even get your students to do a task that may not be their favorite. • Embrace Variety: it really is the spice of life and routines are a mood killer. So introduce new tools in your teaching repertoire. • Keep it real: it’s easier to learn something new when you understand how it relates to your life. So next time you tackle a new subject show your students how they can find evidence of how they can use the new information in their life or how it relates to their daily activities. Be creative!