Why do EFL students misbehave in our classes? This basic issue bothers every new English teacher at some point. For many, the reasons are a frustrating mystery. They certainly were for me years ago. Fortunately there’s a theory that in my experience greatly illuminates why children, and even everyone else, misbehaves. That theory is Choice Theory by Dr. William Glasser. It states that people misbehave when one or more of their Five Basic Needs isn’t met.
Once you start to understand this simple theory you’ll quickly notice patterns in your own classrooms that you can change and improve. You’ll also start to understand why simply demanding students must behave isn’t enough. Here is a brief outline and how it affects our classrooms. It is the first in a series of posts on this topic.
Choice Theory’s Five Basic Needs
Choice Theory outlines five needs that are naturally hardwired in every human at all ages. While each person puts more emphasis on some needs over others, they are all absolutely necessary at some level for healthy functioning.
The Need for Survival
This includes the physical needs required to sustain life. Everyone needs food, water, sleep, and shelter. The need for survival also includes the need to feel safe and secure from harm. Finally, we need to feel a sense of predictability and routine in order to feel secure; we need to know when, where and how we’ll get these things each day.
The Need for Love & Belonging
We need to be connected with other people. The need for love and belonging drives us to be close with either parents, siblings, relatives, friends, lovers, coworkers, pets, or groups. Everyone has a deep need to connected to and accepted by someone else.
The Need for Power
This is the need to make things happen in our lives. It’s the need to be competent and feel successful at what we do; to master skills. It’s the need to to matter and make a difference. Finally, it’s the desire to be recognized and respected.
The Need for Freedom
We all need the ability to make choices in our lives. We need to determine what we will do without overbearing restrictions on those choices. This need also encompasses creativity in all its forms.
The Need for Fun
This is the often unrecognized and disrespected need for play and pleasure. It’s the need for laughter and relaxation. It’s the need to feel “flow” while we’re working or the excitement that comes along with learning something new.
Fulfilling the Five Basic Needs
Each and every person has their own expectations of how to satisfy these needs. These personal mental pictures are the people, places, things, values and beliefs that are important to us. They make us feel good and therefore meet our basic needs. We act in the best way we know to get them, or they are provided for us.
For example, the love and care of parents can fulfill a small child’s need for love & belonging. They give them hugs and kisses and come when they cry.
Parents also feed, clothe and house their children. Children believe that their parents will keep and protect them.
Parents play games with their children and teach them new skills like tying their shoes. Moms and dads praise their babies for starting to crawl, walk, or kick a ball around.
Parents at home can let their children choose what snack to eat or what color shirt to wear. Children can cry or, later, talk to communicate when they’re hungry, tired, bored or lonely to get their parents to solve the problem.
Early on, parents or relatives provide a child’s every basic need at home in a healthy family.
The Five Basic Needs and Why EFL Students Misbehave
We feel frustrated when we can’t satisfy one or more of our needs in a way that we value or expect. The greater the gap between reality and expectation then the greater the frustration we feel. Also, the younger we are the less we’re able to understand or cope with this frustration. The more mature and capable we become, the longer we’re able to handle frustration or manage it in other ways.
We behave to the best of our ability to meet our needs.
- Children can ask for a snack if they’re hungry.
- They can hold their arms up to get a hug if they’re sad or lonely.
- Kids can play with toys and act out imaginary stories where they’re superheroes, doctors, or moms and dads.
- They can color, draw, craft and build with blocks.
- Children can play games with friends or watch TV.
As we grow up we learn which behaviors work and which don’t in many different situations.
However, we can also choose to act in unhealthy or irresponsible ways to fit our needs when we are feeling frustrated. This is misbehavior.
- A hungry child grabs food off a tray without asking.
- A boy acts sick so his busy mom will take extra care of him.
- A girl throws her red shoes across the room because she wants the yellow ones.
- A bored brother and sister run wild and chase each other in a supermarket.
- An older brother bullies his younger sister to make her do what he wants.
- A teenager starts smoking or drinking with new friends, even though his parents forbid it.
A key thing to remember is that we choose behaviors that we think will meet our needs, even if that behavior isn’t approved of by others. It just needs to meet our needs at the moment.
In addition, telling a child to stop a behavior won’t remove the underlying cause. Punishing a child for their misbehavior might temporarily halt it, but it won’t remove the frustration and eventually the bad behavior will return.
The Five Basic Needs at School
One of the biggest transitions in each person’s life is the first day of school – first preschool and primary school, and even later in secondary school and university. At each of these stages how we are used to meeting our needs goes under rapid, jarring changes. We have to throw out old expectations and habits and replace them with new ones. We all have to find new ways to fulfill our needs for ourselves or get them provided for us. EFL students misbehave, like others, when these need aren’t met.
Upset Routines: At home parents create all sorts of routines and children learn ways of behaving that will get them what they need. These most likely won’t exist or work at school. Students will need to learn and adapt to new routines, some of which might not be as needs-satisfying as what they’re used to.
Survival: At home they could ask for a drink or snack whenever they needed. There were familiar routines for nap-time and using the bathroom. On the other hand, schools have preset meal times. Students can’t always get a drink when they want. They have to ask to use the bathroom and take a nap with everyone else.
Love & Belonging: They won’t be with parents and relatives anymore. They’ll have to look to their teacher and classmates for a sense of love and belonging at school.
Power: At school they’ll be confronted with all sorts of new skills to master, like how to read and write. Some students will try to learn these skills before they’re mentally ready. They might be compared (or compare themselves) with older or capable classmates.
At home their parents might be encouraging and patient with slow progress, but at school teachers will grade and mark them against set standards. There are right and wrong answers, good grades and bad grades.
Freedom: At home they often could play as they liked with siblings and friends. They could choose what toys to play with and what videos they wanted to watch. Parents are able figure out what works best for each of their children and customize responses.
However, at school, teachers and staff work with classes of 30 to 45 children and tell everyone what to do and when. Many times the teacher chooses the activity that everyone will do, even if many students don’t care for it. In traditional schools teachers expect students to follow all of their instructions. They don’t have any choice.
Fun: At home and with friends there are many opportunities to play and have fun. In many traditional classes, unfortunately, there isn’t the same emphasis on fun. The classroom is a place for work, for memorizing and regurgitating.
Successful Transitions
The good news is that many or even most children do adapt to their new environments. They find new opportunities and behaviors to satisfy their five basic needs and they become successful students.
Great teachers and schools can work to meet each students’ needs to maximize their success.
- They institute clear routines so students feel secure in knowing what they can and need to do to get along.
- Teachers and staff get to know their students and build strong relationships.
- Students make friends and classrooms become communities.
- Teachers use growth-oriented, effective techniques to teach each child, and they work to help slower students stay positive.
- Children have some freedom in the activities they’ll do and they have some voice in the classroom.
- The students spend their days feeling in “flow” and learning while having fun.
Sadly, though, not every teacher or school achieves this. Even in good classes and schools some students feel the frustration of unmet needs. These are the students who start to misbehave and cause problems. How their teachers act in response either improves the situation or further erodes their relationship and the students’ future opportunities.
The Five Basic Needs and Why EFL Students Misbehave
This has been a general introduction to Choice Theory’s Five Basic Needs in schools. If you’d like a more detailed discussion on any of the Five Basic Needs, then check out our posts on each topic!
You can find them here Survival, Love & Belonging, Power, Freedom, and Fun.
What examples of the 5 Basic Needs in school can you think of? Comment below or like and share on Facebook!
