The efficacy of building and enhancing rapport to better manage the EFL classroom

Abstract

Managing the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom involves more than just controlling what students do. It includes many other decisions the teachers make to achieve teaching and learning goals. Besides, building rapport can be one of the main aspects teachers are concerned about, once it is considered central to a good classroom atmosphere. Through a qualitative bibliographic study, this article presents a reflection on how positive teacher-student relationships can help the teacher better manage the language classroom, and also verifies what is involved in this process. With this aim in mind, it relates what has been said about human development in psychological theories including social constructivism and the Wallon theory. Also, it discusses the concepts of “zone of proximal development” and “affective filter”, to demonstrate the impacts of building rapport. Moreover, it reflects on the challenges of teaching English in Brazilian public schools, and it further contemplates two possible ways to form good connections between teachers and learners: lowering students´ affective filter and leveraging similarities. Lastly, the available literature regarding the relationship between rapport and English language teaching indicates to some degree that constructing rapport can help the work of managing the EFL classroom.