You are ten minutes into your lesson and it is not turning into an all-star lesson. Everyone looks bored and the content you are presenting doesn’t seem to come across as overly interesting. It’s time to save the lesson by getting the class involved—get them talking. So you naturally ask a question, “So brethren, what are your thoughts on the scripture I just read?”
And then you wait….
…and you wait
…and wait
…wait
…still waiting
By this time the feeling of awkward silence settles on the class like it did on your first date in high school, sweat beads appear on your forehead and you just can’t take it anymore, so you break the silence yourself. “Well….ok….What about this…” By the time you finish answering your own question you get a few nods from the quorum. You then look uncomfortably back down at the lesson manual and move to the next point. Hopefully there is a next point.
Tough crowd, eh? What is it that makes a crowd tough? Let’s consider this exchange of ideas from the perspective of a class member. Remember the last time you were in a Sunday School class and the teacher asked a question that you knew the answer to but you didn’t raise your hand? Or you whisper the answer under your breath? Why does this happen? Why don’t you raise your hand and proudly proclaim the answer to the question?
When we walk into a room with a group of people, regardless how familiar they are to us, our comfort level seems to reset. We naturally put our guard up and our personality takes a back seat. As soon as we regain that comfort we then have no problem expressing ourselves.
Get them to hear their own voice
Many instructors in church jump into their lesson without realizing everyone in the room is in a closed state. No matter how intriguing you sound they won’t participate even if they know the answer. It is your responsibility as the instructor to prime the pump before you start with your lesson plan. The mental switch happens once they hear their voice among the group and realize they are safe to participate. This involves simply asking basic questions and having a natural conversation with the group.
“Well thank you for making it to Gospel Doctrine today. We are going to talk about missionary work. I need five of you to quickly tell me where you served your mission.”
This is a simple question and many will feel comfortable speaking up with an answer. The trick is to make the initial questions simple and have the feel of a normal conversation.
Additional examples of questions:
- What are some things you miss about being a missionary?
- Who enjoyed the MTC?
- Who hope they never have to go back?
- Who have contact with people from their mission?
- Who still uses the language they learned on their mission?
- How many copies of the Book of Mormon have you shared since you returned from your mission?
At the beginning of the class should be inundated with questions such as these in order to get them in the mode of participating. Once someone responds immediately give them a follow up question. “Brother Watts, tell me in what capacity you still use your Icelandic since your mission.” Just hearing their voice in the new setting will help them feel more comfortable later on in class to speak up.
The Shy of the Shy
The above technique may work for many in the class but there will always be a group of people that simply refuse to respond to your questions. It’s important that you address this at the beginning of the lesson so all will feel comfortable participating throughout the class. Once you see who isn’t responding ask them questions directly.
YOU: “Sister Nevershares, where is it you served your mission?”
Sister Nevershares: “Antartica West Mission”
YOU: “Wow, What sort of food do they eat there?”
Sister Nevershares: “Frozen whale.”
Continue with follow up questions until he or she feels comfortable speaking in the group.
Taking the time to get the class talking at the beginning is crucial. If you are able to help the class feel comfortable with active discussion at the beginning the rest of the lesson will be much more comfortable as the teacher.
Or you can skip this step and enjoy the sound of silence after each questions.
Thanks for sharing this. This should really help me. However, this leads me to wonder how to transition from "priming the pump" to the lesson material?
Great question! No transition is needed. Once you have the talking you can simply say "thank you" then move to your planned lesson.
This is a great idea! I teach 3rd Sunday R.S. lessons and I very often have the famous “huh?” stare when I teach . Do you think this technique will work if i use it during the lesson…sometimes I think the class has fallen asleep. Like they aren’t following the topic. It is probably ME and I need to ask better questions…anyway, I surely will use the “pump’ exercise before class. I can see how it will put both teacher and students at ease. Thanks!
I don’t think that it naturally transitions. If the teacher continues to ask questions that require something we always refer to ‘primary or sunday school answers’ nobody wants to answer something with, Uh. Prayer? or the age ol, ‘guess what the teacher is specifically looking for’ so we get answer after answer until we hit the jackpot that the teacher was looking for.
The key is in the follow-up question, I think, as Kurt mentions above. If you do happen to slip and ask a bad question, you can always ask something like, How? – If you get an answer like Prayer, respond with a follow-up, How? How does Prayer…..
This does not address teachers asking Primary level questions which only annoy the audience because they’re not provocative which is one of the main reasons why I don’t answer because I’m not interested in repeating what I know I am interested in actually learning or applying the information to challenges I face in the real world. For example, a teacher should not ask us what is Hope or faith. Or other dumb questions like what does it mean to be humble. If I am ever called to be a teacher, I will start the lesson with an opening monologue that discusses a current event that has relation to the material at hand. Most people come to church not having read their scriptures in months or years. But they probably read the news or some similar report on things that are going on in the world. It doesn’t help someone to rehash that Nephi made a bow to feed his family. Rather, teacher should investigate stories about how people have used their unfortunate circumstances to rebound. For example, kiss for sharing the story of the origin of Burt’s Bees Cosmetics. It’s actually rather interesting and maybe will inspire someone to go look it up. someone who was out of options and needed to feed her family and now is a multi-millionaire. Draw a parallel between what is going on in the real world and how the scriptures actually help us to understand how we can approach our real problems.
We have two (2) teachers in our ward Sunday School. One teaches the way you suggest with questions and comments from those in the class. The other teaches using power points that are excellent and asks questions but does not let those participants take over his class by droning on and on. You need to understand that some of us learn differently than others. I am a visual learner. The question teachers lose me to my iPad because they are so boring. I watch Ben Wilcox’s Teaching With Power on YouTube for my study of Come Follow Me lessons. He is fantastic.
Maybe you should check him out sometime.