Teaching Generation Z: Methodological problems and

their possible solutions

by Svetlana Popova

Svetlana Popova Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) [email protected]

Published in Training, Language and Culture Vol 1 Issue 4 (2017) pp. 25-38 doi: 10.29366/2017tlc.1.4.2
Recommended citation format: Popova, S. (2017). Teaching Generation Z: Methodological problems and their
possible solutions. Training, Language and Culture, 1(4), 25-38. doi: 10.29366/2017tlc.1.4.2

The focus of the article is on the younger generation of today, which is referred to as Generation Z. The theoretical
grounding is based on the Strauss-Howe Generational Theory. The paper discusses lack of motivation to study
efficiently and looks into the reasons for misunderstanding which often arises among students and teachers born a few
generations earlier. Analysis proves the significance of the difference in values and worldview influenced by various
venues, circumstances and surroundings that are unique for each generation. Online games, computerisation,
communication via text messages and inability to read the context are mentioned among the features of Generation Z.
Difference in the attitude to work and studies is explained with the continuous ‘information noise’ and special
hypertextual perception of reality that influences the personal and social life of Generation Z representatives. The
article suggests a number of steps to optimise the teaching process with the coming generation of students.

KEYWORDS: context reading, computerisation, fan fiction, Generation Z, hypertext, motivation, text messages, theory
of generations

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is
properly cited (CC BY 4.0)

1. INTRODUCTION return to the beginner level, in many ways due to

The importance of studying foreign languages is lack of proper motivation and a conservative
rarely questioned. Having failed to learn a foreign approach to the teaching process. The situation
language, one might find it quite tricky to soar to might appear even more challenging in view of a
success regardless of occupation, age or seemingly decreasing interest in education. What
nationality. Learning a foreign language is a must is the reason for this? Is it because teachers are
for most of the world population. Nevertheless, now teaching differently, or is that students are less
only a small number of students can admit that capable of learning? Is there any reason that we
they have mastered a foreign language easily, fail to notice or tend to ignore? Is it possible to turn
effortlessly and speak it fluently. By the end of things around? These are some of the questions
secondary school, students usually succeed in this paper aims to address.
mastering English at elementary or pre-
intermediate levels. Yet, should they fail to sustain 2. MATERIAL AND METHODS
their level of language proficiency, many learners The age gap between teachers and students is said

© Svetlana Popova 2017

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to result in misunderstanding and poor training behaviour in various life situations and manifest
outcome. To address this concern, the study relies themselves unconsciously and instinctively.
on the ‘Generational Theory’ developed by Sometimes the behavioural characteristics of one
William Strauss and Neil Howe (1991) and generation seem inadequate and inexplicable to
adapted for Russia in 2004 by a team of scholars the representatives of another generation, thus
led by Eugenia Shamis, Rugenerations Project leading to misunderstanding and conflicts between
Coordinator (Shamis & Antipov, 2007). According the two. Modern children are born in the age of
to this theory, everyone can relate themselves to computer technology, mobile communications
one of the following generations: and the Internet. Per Generational Theory, they
• Baby Boomer Generation (1943-1963) belong to Generation Z – people born post-2000.
• Generation X (1963-1984) They form their own set of social characteristics in
• Generation Millennium or Y (1984-2000) view of political, economic and cultural events
• Generation Z (since 2000) taking place during this period of time.

The theory is based on the values of large groups This study is about understanding the world of
comprising average citizens born within a today’s high school students and future university
particular period of time and having witnessed students against the backdrop of the Strauss-Howe
certain political, economic, technological and Generational Theory.
social changes. Their character, perception of
reality and reaction to what is happening around Teaching experience of the past has proved that
them has been formed by a combination of teacher-centred methods are conservative, flat and
factors. limited in tools and technologies. The teaching of
the future demands a student-centred approach as
Since the events of social life, educational the only possible way for teenagers to develop
methodology and the level of intelligence in skills and abilities, promote self-expression and
society are similar throughout separate historical keep motivated during the whole period of studies.
periods, the values of most people who form a
certain generation are similar, too. Some values Today’s teenagers are born into the world full of
formed in childhood and adolescence are technological knowhow. The global network also
acquired automatically in the process of social provides resources of a new kind. While earlier
communication and upbringing. Subsequently, websites offered piles of information to read and
they largely determine the model of human download, today one can create their own virtual

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space based on the suggested platform. Such analysed ‘the language of SMS’ (Crystal, 2008), i.e.
resources are called Web 2.0. Thus, in order to the language of abbreviations based on the
catch up with this dynamic world, teachers need standard English language. For example, a
to master and implement the latest computer common sentence like How are you doing today?
technologies. Want to go for a coffee later? can be transformed
into HRU 2day? Wnt2go 4 a cofy l8r? Such mode
To engage students and enhance their motivation, of writing allowed sending maximum of
the communicative approach should be information in one message and helped save
established as a teaching priority. The younger money on mobile communication services.
generation is very dynamic and versatile. Besides, it was a kind of encryption code for the
Therefore, it is difficult to meet everyone’s learning younger generation, as it was easily understood by
aspirations equally, for there is a danger of adolescents, but proved difficult to read for their
destroying the stem of the whole system of parents. Crystal (2008) points out most prominent
education that can end up lopsided, sophomoric linguistic features typical of texting, including
and unqualified. Thus, the communicative abundance of pictograms and logograms (xxx for
approach in teaching should be combined with ‘kisses’ or b4 for ‘before’), initialisation (i.e. words
constructivist strategies so that the teacher replaced by single letters, as in Y for ‘Yes’ or NP
facilitates the process of learning and encourages for ‘No problem’), omitted letters (englis, rite, txtn),
students to be responsible, interactive and shortenings (pos for ‘positive’), or the so-called
dynamic. genuine novelties incorporating several of the
above features. Later, with the introduction of
3. STUDY AND RESULTS touch screens with wide keyboards and decrease
3.1 Text messages in SMS cost, the need for contractions, once so
One of the phenomena of modern youth fashionable among modern youths, was no longer
communication is the language of text messages there. ICQ messages were surpassed by unlimited
originally presented in SMS (Short Message Internet access and a new generation of iPhones
Service) and ICQ (Internet Chat Query). Short text and smartphones with functional apps, such as
messaging began its rapid development about Viber, WhatsApp and Telegram. And while it is no
fifteen years ago, the resulting phenomenon being longer customary to use abbreviations in texting,
labelled ‘textese’, ‘slanguage’ or ‘hybrid ‘emoticons’ or ‘emoji’ are now coming into
shorthand’. The greatest development was fashion as a replacement for emotional writing,
observed in the sphere of SMS. Later on, scholars along with static pictures and gifs. This is a feature

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‘Later, with the introduction of originated in the second half of the 20th century
and for some time it was mainly of interest to
touch screens with wide
military and later academic professionals, since at
keyboards and decrease in SMS its initial stage it consisted mainly of an exchange
cost, the need for contractions, of technical documentation and e-mail messages.
once so fashionable among Rapid development of the Web took place after
modern youths, was no longer 1993, when a number of network nodes and users

topical’ began to grow in geometric progression. Soon, the

Internet was an alternative to other means of
of a more emotionally charged informal communication, as well as a convenient way of
communication, whereby one can express transferring and storing information. Today,
sympathy or convey interest in the conversation. Internet resources are used by a vast number of
people and has become an integral part of modern
Taking into account this peculiarity of youth life. At the moment, World Wide Web is
communication, one might set out to develop an acknowledged as the most popular Internet service
original evaluation system using ‘emoji’ and the most convenient means of working with
accompanied by a brief motivating comment. As information.
far as classes of English are concerned, one way of
doing this could be a verbal message with Together with the development of the Internet,
complex vocabulary, which students would have computer games have become widely popular.
to translate to understand the meaning. Such an This hobby is chosen by millions of people all over
assessment might be more relevant for young the world, regardless of gender, age and
people, and the teacher may earn students’ occupation.
approval by doing so. It could be a good
opportunity to build reputation, which is a With the transition of games to online mode, the
valuable intangible asset in teacher-student tradition of online text messaging has been
relations especially in the case of teenage developing as well. In a game, all messages
audience. between team members should be as informative
and brief as possible, since the time for making a
3.2 Computerisation of society and online games general decision and developing an action strategy
Text communication developed alongside the is limited, and the positive outcome of the game
advance in computer technologies. The Internet also depends on this. As a result, the slang of

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gamers has rapidly developed and is There are a lot of abbreviations that have special
understandable only for players with experience. meanings and are understandable only for gamers,
because they have rich experience of
Firstly, due to the limitation imposed on the communication on the network and therefore
number of characters in the message line (10 know patterns of virtual characters’ behaviour in
characters) and, later, saving time for the course of the game.
communication during a dynamic game, players
turned to all sorts of abbreviations, contractions B / S – I both buy and sell something;
and numeric designations, such as:
AoE – area of effect, spells of mass destruction
2 – addressed to (e.g. 2 Anna meaning ‘To Anna’); with damage to the area;
555 – laughing;
G2G – got to go; DD, Damager – the character whose main job is to
AKA – also known as; inflict damage;
BTW – by the way;
OMG – Oh, my gosh; DP – Divine Power, points of ‘rage’ collected after
WTB – want to buy; the 10th level and allowing the player to use the
WTS – want to sell; skills of special destructive power;
YT – your turn;
WB – welcome back; IDDQD – the code of immortality in the game
TISNF – that is so not fair; ‘DOOM’. Usually it’s a joke, wishing luck before
UL – upload; an attack.
Y – why;
RDY – ready; There is, of course, a possibility of
LOL – lots of laughs. misunderstanding, especially among people who
are not gamers. To avoid miscommunication and
They also use abbreviations widely spread among help beginners, special slang dictionaries have
computer programmers. been compiled. And since many concepts quickly
become obsolete while new notions appear, the
BRB – be right back; dictionary is uploaded to one of the chats rooms
NC – no comment; for everyone to see or make suggestions for editing
AFK/AFTK – away from the keyboard. the content.

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Online games erase borders between countries Bit by the bear (expression) – having a bad luck
and continents. People from different parts of the streak, often considered contagious by
world can play in one team. This can be a great superstitious players. Possibly comes from the old
stimulus for learning English because it is a ‘lingua adage, ‘Sometimes you eat the bear, and
franca’ for most of the online gamers. sometimes the bear eats you.’ Also called ‘bear-
bit’.
As a rule, it takes a long time to master the special
terminology of the game and become a full Clippy (noun, derogatory) – a player who reminds
member of one of the teams. Commonly, the study the GM (Games Moderator) of a rule that is
of such ‘online dictionaries’ does not require harmful to the PCs. Named after the annoying
knowledge of the English language, as about 75% paper clip from Microsoft Office which constantly
of the words included in such glossaries are only offered unwanted advice.
transliterations into the native language of the
gamer that do not clarify meaning and the ways of Four-Point Hanger (expression) – a positive phrase
word-formation. Perception of such vocabulary is referring to a close call that ended up working out
often passive, and the time of assimilation is perfectly. Taken from the barroom game of shuffle
directly proportional to the time spent online puck, in which a puck hanging off the edge of the
communicating in the network. board is worth a coveted 4 points. While on the
board, the puck is worth 3 points; had the puck
Trying to withstand the passive perception of fallen completely off, it would have been worth no
information, and also make the most of this points. Example: ‘Wow, those two mutant super-
fashionable pastime, it might be appropriate to Nazis accidentally killing each other instead of us
apply a more conscious approach to the study of was a real four-point hanger!’
these words. This study sets out to explain the
language processes that resulted in the formation Get Medieval (verb) – to use excessive violence.
of certain concepts, citing examples from Popularised by the film Pulp Fiction.
etymological dictionaries, describing semantic
parallels and also providing explanations about These are words and phrases that need to
certain features and rules of computer gaming. be explained even to native speakers. Teenagers
One of the gamers’ dictionaries offers the speaking English as a foreign language are bound
following interpretations for some of the most to encounter even more difficulties. Coming across
common notions. a new word while playing, they usually don’t give

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it deep thought but simply translate it into their and syntactical structures instead of a variety of
native language. They may guess its meaning by weapons. And when the student is graded, the
the action of the characters they can see on the following message can be displayed: GG (Good
screen but not bother to learn more about the Game!).
translation, etymology, etc.
3.3 Networking literature, fan fiction and
A more ‘linguistic’ way of providing vocabulary hypertext
will contribute to a better understanding of the By the end of the second millennium, the Internet
words’ semantic origin, their formation and included large arrays of literary texts. Initially,
translation, thereby increasing interest in learning these were primarily libraries with electronic
English. Implementation of this strategy has a versions of works that had already been published.
number of advantages. Later on, there appeared websites for posting
books by amateur writers. A special place in the
Firstly, being beginners and taking the study of network is occupied by electronic diaries – blogs,
gamers’ slang seriously, students can expand their many of which serve to discuss issues of interest to
vocabulary, especially if they play the original the author and to post small texts. This way of
version with the software written in English. writing has become widespread and has opened
the doors for a special kind of electronic literature
Secondly, a teacher of English who understands – networking literature.
the terms of the game will be elevated in the eyes
of students, and, as a result, the interest in the The volume and variety of electronic texts that
teacher’s personality will increase interest in the exist on the Internet have become comparable
subject he or she teaches. with traditional printed texts. Literary works that
exist on the Internet have become extremely
Thirdly, it is crucial to consider the general trend diverse. However, one of the most notable places
towards gamification – the process of adding among them is taken by a special phenomenon
games or game like elements to something (such commonly referred to as ‘fanfiction’.
as a task) so as to encourage participation. It is
possible to create an interesting interactive The emergence of fanfiction is primarily associated
educational game where, as a key to passing to a with the growing popularity of the genre of fantasy,
new level, it will be necessary to upload the with J.R.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling as its most
completed homework or use different grammatical prominent representatives. Since the publication of

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The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Harry Potter ‘The emergence of fanfiction is
series, their popularity has been steadily growing
primarily associated with the
to attract a vast number of fans among readers of
different ages. The books were translated into
growing popularity of the genre
various world languages and several films were
of fantasy, with J.R.R. Tolkien
made based on the plot of the books tp contribute and J.K. Rowling as its most
to an even greater growth of the writers’ prominent representatives’
popularity. Many children and teenagers not only
read these books, but also aspire to take up writing also in other areas of knowledge (particularly in
themselves. language studies and literary criticism).

By the start of the 21st century, a number of The idea of a hypertextual information system is
communities of science fiction and fantasy fans that a user has an opportunity to view documents
had begun to appear. They arose as clubs (pages of text) in the desired order, rather than
providing a platform for the exchange of thoughts, lineally as is customary in reading books. Hence,
impressions and opinions. Via the Internet, fans of hypertext is often defined as ‘a non-linear text’.
the fantasy genre moved to a new level: visitors of This is achieved by creating a special mechanism
many specialised websites not only discussed their linking different pages of the text using
favourite books, but also made their first attempts hypertextual links, i.e. the plain text has links like
at writing. Literature created by fans was called ‘next-previous’, and hypertext can build as many
‘fanfiction’ and their texts were called ‘fanfics’ or other links as the programmer likes.
‘fics’. For now, this phenomenon is familiar to Computer hypertexts as a particular phenomenon
most of today’s youth. Teenagers either read have become widespread because of the special
fanfiction, or create it themselves. features offered by such data organisation. First of
all, modern users, to which the children of
Another phenomenon of interest to the study is Generation Z also belong, are attracted by an
hypertext which in the broadest sense refers to opportunity to choose the source that best meets
an electronic text with markup words (commands) their current needs, as well as by the presence of
inserted into it to link the reader to other parts of built-in and associated hypertextual links, built-in
the same text or related online documents, graphs and the ability to search by keywords. A
photographs, pictures, etc. Hypertext is a multi- potentially unlimited number of potential
level concept used not only in programming, but consumers of information and free access to it

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regardless of location is an added attraction. their own logic of thinking should help develop
the skill of seeing connections among documents,
Given the peculiarities of hypertextual perception pages, ideas, etc., and yet in practice this is often
of information by young people and their desire to not the case. Instead of setting thoughts in order, it
create their own works on the web, it will be blurs the logical ties and derails the process of
advisable to develop educational portals, and building associative links between different pieces
unite pupils/ students in communities according to of information. This ultimately results in less
the level of knowledge, the topic of the project / efficient performance in humanitarian subjects at
research or according to their interests. The main schools and universities, especially as concerns
form of presentation may be an essay, a reading, which is estimated as the most difficult,
composition or even a fanfic on a pre-arranged time-consuming and tiring task to fulfil. Students
topic, but teachers should try not to limit students lose concentration as they often aren’t able to
to the precise framework of the structure and ‘read between the lines’. They see an unknown
genre so that they could feel free to be creative word and very often skip it. If it’s not essential,
and build their own hypertextual algorithm while they’re lucky, otherwise they lose track of the plot
fulfilling the task. and make mistakes or try to look up every word in
the dictionary or even use Google Translate or
It is important to update the information on this similar services. Thus, another problem of modern
website regularly, add useful links and assignments students is that they can’t work with context.
such as a case study or a dilemma task that will While this is a difficult issue to resolve, it is far
provide freedom of choice and self-expression for from hopeless.
the Generation Z students.
First and foremost, students should be taught to
3.4 Reading the context use contextual clues. There are always phrases and
Even though Generation Z students are keen on expressions in the text that might help. Examples
computers, surf the net freely, don’t have any are synonyms, definitions, antonyms and
difficulties with expressing and supporting their background knowledge.
point of view and building their own hypertextual
reality, they often fail to follow the clues of the The task of a teacher here is not to give out the
context of a simple text when dealing with an translation of the word or the correct answer at
ordinary gap-filling task. It would seem that once but create a ‘problem solving’ situation, set a
‘jumping’ from one page to another and following challenge for the students to cope with, be able to

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intrigue the audience and motivate them to carry the box beyond the limits of a single context as
out small contextual research. It’s better to start well as motivate them to read more and to develop
introducing these types of tasks in the early stages their confidence.
in order to develop skills and confidence by the
time of exams which can influence students’ future 3.5 Psychological and demographic
life and career. characteristics of a Generation Z student
From the first minutes of life, modern children are
There is an example of a task that can help inundated with an incessant flow of information.
develop the skill of contextual reading, taken from TV, computers, laptops, tablets, mobile phones,
flo-joe.co.uk. game consoles – these gadgets are accessible to
most kids already in their early childhood. As a
Which one word fits all three sentences? rule, their moms and dads get tired of
communicating with children, who, in turn, are
1. If someone has a .... of cards I can show you a often restless and tend to quickly switch from one
trick. 2. During the cruise we spent our days on .... type of activity to another and lose interest in
soaking up the sun. 3. My parents got me a monotonous, longer-term tasks. This can lead to a
tape .... for my birthday. (The answer is ‘deck’.) growing lack of understanding between
adolescents and their parents. There are a number
What word best fits the blank space? of reasons for this.

1. Michael Chamberlain was a pastor with the 1. Difference in the speed of cognition (with the
Seventh-day Adventist ...., a protestant younger generation it considerably exceeds the
denomination. 2. I believe in America where the analogous indicators of their parents).
separation of .... and state is absolute. 3. Dr
William Estes, an Old Catholic .... Bishop, put a 2. Grandparents play a less significant part in the
finer point on this temptation. (The answer is education of their grandchildren.
‘church’.)
3. Due to demanding economic conditions,
This type of exercise is easy to compile using one parents spend ever more time at work, trying to
of the open corpuses of the English language earn more money.
available online. The task encourages students to
use their background knowledge and think out of 4. Increased consumerism contributes to the

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increase in the material needs of the society, ‘emojis’ and ‘memes’. In a most general
which also forces the current generation of interpretation, a meme is defined as ‘an idea,
mothers and fathers to work longer and spend less behaviour, or style that spreads from person to
time with their children. person within a culture’ (Dawkins, 1976, 44).

5. Statistics shows that parents of many Generation A new generation of children is not used to
Z youngsters are often divorced, therefore, in most correcting mistakes, remaking, repairing things,
cases, they are busy solving material problems redoing and rewriting. For them it’s always easier
rather than spending time with their children, to throw a thing out and buy a new one, abandon
sharing their life experience and views. the project and start from scratch. Children of
Generation Z change activities easily, looking for
6. The coming generation of future students are what exactly they are good at. Thanks to Internet
better at typing than at writing, since they were technologies, the world of Generation Z children
born in the age of computers, smartphones, fast is wider than that of their parents and teachers.
and cheap Internet and social networking. They are often called lazy and selfish, yet they are
very efficient and quick if motivated properly.
As a consequence, modern children are often left These people are talented and better oriented in
to themselves in matters of finding the right the world. They quickly analyse large amounts of
information and developing their own views, their information, find new original solutions, and easily
world outlook. Moreover, since today there are cope with several tasks simultaneously
fewer ‘filters’ of information flows, the child’s (multitaskers). Their handwriting is often
organism and brain learn to protect themselves, incomprehensible but they type fluently. One
developing a reaction of indifference and might think they have bad memory and cannot
abstraction from ‘information noise’ (Popova, concentrate, but they remember all the keyboard
2016). Therefore, modern educators should not be buttons combinations for text formatting and codes
surprised that children do not hear them, do not of immortality for computer games. These children
understand the instructions the first time round, may experience difficulty understanding text
and perceive information slowly. which is longer than 140 characters, the maximum
length of a Tweet. There seem to be even more
Children usually have hundreds of ‘online friends’ drawbacks and weak points we want them NOT to
they communicate with using short messages possess. But why not try and play the game by
replacing emotions and speech figures with their rules?

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‘A new generation of children is motivation to study a subject to an internal one is

to praise students for the things they’ve done well.
not used to correcting mistakes,
It’s difficult to explain this to some teachers today
remaking, repairing things, because there is a misconception that any
redoing and rewriting’ compliment will decrease the enthusiasm of
students, making them lazy and idle in the near
Networks and bloggers obviously keep them future. Research suggests that praise is underused
informed about current trends. They are a treasure in both general-education and special-education
for teachers and scientists. But to get this classrooms (Kern & Clemens, 2007).
‘treasure’, one needs to change the strategy of
giving and representing tasks. To make the praise effective and sincere for
Generation Z students, one simply needs to give a
The question of motivating Generation Z students short description of what they are praising them
is a highly relevant issue. The point is that external for. These children often perceive the teacher as
types of motivation that work well with the someone who is keen on the subject. A pure
representatives of other generations do not play emotional reaction to the performance, such as
out with modern teenagers. The main reason for ‘Good job!’, is likely to be considered inadequate
this is their unwillingness to follow instructions as it lacks behavioural description (Hawkins &
and conform to strict rules. They have got used to Heflin, 1997). If the teacher makes an effort to give
dealing with everything new in their life without a short description with a behavioural element,
instructions manuals. The quickest and the most such as, ‘You’ve found and located three strong
effective way of mastering the subject for such and topical facts in your essay. Good job!’, the
teenagers is to start with practice, introducing phrase achieves its goal and extends its triggering
theory in small portions before, after or during a effect onto further work and studies. Moreover, it
practical task. The teacher should be ready to has been suggested that praising the general ability
adapt quickly and to follow the hypertextual to be good at the subject can reduce the student’s
model of the lesson giving the students ’freedom desire to take risks and show effort. Instead, the
within limits’ that is very similar to the Montessori teacher should focus on specific examples of
approach to education, projected onto the modern students’ accomplishment. Thus, if the phrase ‘You
environment and background. are really good at English’ is transformed into ‘It’s
obvious from your grade that you worked hard to
The quickest way to convert the external type of prepare for the test. Well done!’, then such praise

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can help students see a connection between the ‘To make the praise effective and
invested effort and make them more interested in
sincere for the students of
academic performance.
Generation Z you simply need to
One more characteristic feature of modern
give a short description of what
children is that they are not used to solving you are praising them for’
complex problems on their own. They grew up in
a fairly safe environment. In their childhood, the characters available in a single message. They
loving parents decided which kindergarten, school will soon make it 280 instead of current 140. It is
or hobby group they would go to, the choice of already causing much fuss among the users. Some
the university and future profession was also made of them approve of the initiative as they believe
under parental control, only partially there are always many details left unexpressed
independently. These children are used to trusting when you are restricted to a short message. Others
adults making important decisions. disagree, saying that it will take more effort to read
In this regard, teachers should be flexible and and to grasp the main idea if there are more words
understanding. If the student loses interest to the in a single tweet. They claim that the whole spirit
project, they should ask him/her to look at the of ‘the brief and sharp’ messenger will be ruined.
problem from a new angle, for example, from the One writer who supports longer tweets is Kurt
position of competitors, not importers but Wagner who writes, ‘Twitter’s character limit is a
exporters. Students of Generation Z should be holdover from the app’s early days when tweets
enthusiastically motivated. At the same time, the were sent as texts, which were limited to 140
teacher fulfils the duties of a leader who should characters. It has since become one of the
consider interesting and prospective facets of a product’s defining characteristics’ (Wagner, 2017).
student’s personality, notice what they are keen on
and what areas or topics they are interested in. It is It is obvious that it will take time for the innovation
essential today, as Generation Z students will to be totally accepted. But Facebook hasn’t give up
successfully cope with the task only if the topic on the idea and keeps trying despite the negative
aligns with their personal interests. reaction of some of the users and a risk of losing
some customers. They continue implementing the
4. CONCLUSION initiative, claiming that in the end it will attract
A fact of modern reality is that one of the market more people who will tweet. ‘When people don’t
leaders, Twitter, is going to double the amount of have to cram their thoughts into 140 characters

Training, Language and Culture 37

Training, Language and Culture doi: 10.29366/2017tlc.1.4.2
Volume 1 Issue 4, 2017 rudn.tlcjournal.org

and actually have some to spare, we see more content and methodology to the coming
people tweeting’ (Wagner, 2017). The point is that generation of ‘education consumers’. But at the
at present the whole system of education, each same time, it should be done in a wise and
educational institution and each teacher in forward-looking manner – firstly, in order to attract
particular should follow the above-described more attention, effort and not to scare them away,
model. They need to find out what the students and secondly, not to lose the valuable component
expect from them, analyse their potential abilities of every subject by making it an item of goods but
in mastering a particular subject and adapt the perceive it more as an opportunity granted.

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38 Training, Language and Culture