what would you do if you were me???

I would search and see if there is a way you can combine the two methods. There is not one teaching style that can reach all students. Every child learns differently so perhaps you can have certain days as your more creative days and certain days study days. I believe then you will hit all your goals. I know having 3 daughters that learn differntly one has to be creative. Best of luck to you.

the best way to improve the grade of any student is make the study there interest, the job of there interest. Your method of changing the teaching won't change there grade till the time tgey dont create the interest in study.

Hi utopias! I am a bit confused. You said with your previous teaching method, your students are getting more interested to learn the English Subject... You also said that they became more creative and analytical... Then why need to change your teaching method? As far as I know, back when I was a student, when I am interested with the subject it shows in my grade... The more I like how things are being thought, the more I get involved to the subject, the higher the grades I am making... I always believe that proper and good Motivation is the key to influence and make ones successful... For they will do their part enthusiastically, not just they are obliged to do so...

the way i see it, you were confused not by your student's grades, but by the content of the letter that you received from your students. the letter was just from two of them, but if those two were the top of the class, they I might as well feel the same, confused/puzzled. It's always good to introduce new techniques and make some twists to make your teaching effective, but, you , must also be keen to their reaction. You can always tell whether they appreciate your new method or not, but that's not the point. Your role as their teacher is not to meet their low standards, it is to lift their standards to yours, always remember that, but make sure that it is not over the top. If your concern is their grades, then you may give them special tasks where they can earn additional scores, it's never wrong to do it this way, it's even one more way to make them participate in your class. get them to compete for their grades. If this doesn't work, then there're only two things I can think of, 1. the students are simply lacking or 2. your standards are too high for them to meet.

try incorporation both in at the same time so that you can teach them and still push them to their limits but at the same time, they're still enjoying their studies

As a student, I can somewhat relate to their letter. I love it when the teacher makes the subject easy and interesting at the same time. Usually what interests me the most is that when the teacher can relate to what the current generation of their students feel to what is the current topic. Like in our Literature class like talking about love and first discussing the different courting methods of the men nowadays which really sets the mood and our interest as a student. It is also important to be not very serious when teaching lessons by throwing up jokes every once in a while. Hope my point of view as a student helps :)

hello utopias, considering two of your students write a letter regarding your teaching strategy, how about the rest of your students? were you able to ask them if they feel the same. Isn't it that you have a procedure or syllabus to follow in teaching? I think you have to speak to your English Coordinator in school regarding your problem.

Note that you are only receiving feed backs from two students, and your students i believe are many not only two. Consider asking the voice of all the students. Outweigh the majority and then you decide. You change you style because you believe it is the right thing to do. Well consider also implementing it for a given time and then compare the output and decide. Remember that the better the students learned, the better the style is.

I am also student and i would suggest you to provide more live examples while taking students mind into the story.I once attended a memory course by a guinness world record holder bishwaroop roy he has really good memory techniques he explained us about how to read understand and memories things with pictures and how to relate thing in more of a movie format instead of boring text formats.Usually many English book have pictures and all but they are mostly boring and i suggest you to bring some humor in the teaching make student explain the stories in their own way by and give more realistic type of homework basically making it something challenging to do or something new to do not just old boring way of doing homework i.e some how write something.These are suggestion from me but speaking of how to do them i have no idea lol.I would suggest you ask them how they want to learn its th best way of teaching you just might get some brilliant ideas