Many education programs are training new teachers to not say the words “good job” to students as this is ineffective praise. Let us take a closer look at why this is, and whether it would be appropriate to use this praise in the classroom.
When praising a student, it is important to be as specific as possible.
- “Excellent handwriting!” is praise that will encourage more neatly written work.
- “Good question” thanks the student for participating and provides great opportunity to further learning.
- “I like the way you….” tells the student exactly what he or she did well.
The more specific the praise, the more sincere it is to the student and the student in turn knows exactly what he or she is doing well.
Does this mean that saying “good job” is bad? Not necessarily. Let’s take a look at when it would be appropriate to say good job to a student.
When praise is appropriate but time is short, good job might be an acceptable statement. For example, after a student gives a presentation to the class, a teacher might say “nice presentation, Sam” and turn to the next student in line. Specifying one thing that the student did well during the presentation might put undue stress on the next student, so a generic well done is appropriate.
Anytime when specific praise might complicate the situation, general praise is useful. For example, if a student has done something that helps prevent embarrassment for another student, a simple thank you is less intrusive than a more specific praise.
Finally, when praising a student for accomplishing a task, such as finding an answer in the text, the general praise “good job” is appropriate. This tells the student that the teacher is pleased when it is not necessary to tell the student exactly what he or she has done.
Read more about praising students.
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I liked the insight to making sure that praise is specific the majority of time. Too often as teachers, we find ourselves telling a child \Good Job\ when they cannot really pinpoint what it is that they did so well. This can cause confusion with the children and undermine our good intentions of the praise.