In the summer, one of the managemment and teaching recommendations I made was to place the use of the word ‘but’ with ‘and.’ It is a very small change but nevertheless changes the tone of the conversation completely.
Here is another simple replacement. Every teacher has to address behaviour in their classrooms, unfortunately there are times where you have to ‘confront’ a student about their behaviour. We often fall into the ‘why’ mode of questioning, when perhaps ‘what’ would be more effective in the long term.
The reason.. when you ask why, the student immediately has to defend themselves, aAsk ‘what’ caused that response and you will more likely get an explanation, or at least a nook or cranny to explore.