How To Keep Your Students Longer (Part 2)

In the last blog I spoke about how to keep your students longer by showing your students that you care about them. While monitoring their progress in the classroom is very important, it isn't the only thing you need to do.

We don’t just focus on our weaker students, we also celebrate their successes too. We do this by congratulating them after they pass each stage. Usually we take a group photo and post it on our FB page. This also has the extra benefit of showing visitors to our page that our students are happy and that they are progressing.

These photos work as great testimonials too, because what better way to attract more new students than with pictures of our happy and content full classes?

How often do you socialize with your students? Probably not as often as you'd like to. We try to do it every week by inviting them for coffee at a local coffee shop. This is a great way to add a social aspect to your school. It is a great way to get your students practising what they have learnt in the classroom. Usually this just entails getting one of our teachers to go out with a group of students. If we have some free time we try to join them as it lets us get good feedback from them.  At these coffees, our main job is to ensure that the students keep speaking in English and to help them when they are stuck with vocabulary. Both teachers and students enjoy these coffees/beers and it helps students get to know each other better.

We constantly try to keep in touch with our students, trying to keep an open channel of communication with them. When a student passes a stage, they automatically get sent a congratulatory email with a video from us giving them an overview of what they have learnt. Sometimes students can't see their progress so these overviews let them see how far they have come. 

Here is one of our congratulatory videos that they receive after passing Stage 5:

When a student starts a new stage, they also receive an email with a video that informs them on what to expect from the next stage.

Here is an example of this:

While this may not seem that important, these little touch points go a long way. It gives us a reason to email them more often and they know we care about their progress.

You are probably thinking this seems like a lot of work, but all of this is automated by software like mailchimp or active campaign. 

I hope this gives you some ideas on how to keep your students happier. 

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