10 Ways to Remember Your Students' Names

Have you ever had difficulty remembering your students’ names? Perhaps not if you teach small classes, but if you teach large classes and only see them once a week, then you may have struggled with this. 

I teach classes of 30+ students and have taught classes of over 70, so finding ways to remember my students’ names has been important for me. And I know that some teachers have classes of over 100 students. 

You could just give up! But there are some very good reasons not to. 

First, classroom management becomes much easier when you know all your students’ names. 

Second, names are important to everybody, and for a teacher not to know a student’s name can be demotivating for that student. 

Third, it’s easier to remember the needs of individual students (and discuss them with other staff) if you know their names.

The principle for learning students’ names is straightforward and the same as for learning any vocabulary: repetition, usage, and an interest (in this case, in your students as individuals). 

In other words, you need to find ways to see, hear and use their names often. But how? Here are some ideas that work.

10 Ways to Remember Your Students’ Names

Name cards

Have your students place name cards on their desks. This could be a piece of paper folded into a tent with their name on one side, or they could stick the name card to their desk or shirt.

Plan of Names 

Draw a plan of the classroom layout on a sheet of paper and write the names of your students in the appropriate places. This works best with children who always sit at the same desks. If you teach at university or in a private language school where students choose their own seating, it’s harder, but can still be helpful because groups of friends usually sit together, and some students have a strong preference for a particular part of the classroom. 

Take Photos of Your Students

Do this at the beginning of term, preferably before class or during the break. Having pictures can be a great way to remember, but make sure you label them all.

Take an Interest in Your Students

Find out about your students (without being too intrusive). Discover their interests, abilities and experiences. The better you know someone, the easier remembering their names becomes. You can do this by chatting to your students before class and during the breaks, but there are also some specific classroom activities that can help…

Student Introductions

Have the students introduce themselves at the beginning of the term. Obviously, if you have seventy students you’ll have to do this in smaller batches, perhaps over the first month of the term.

Find Five Things in Common

Have your students find things in common (experiences, abilities, likes/dislikes) in pairs or small groups. They can then report back to the whole group (using each other's names). With larger classes reduce the number to three things in common, or just have the students report back one or two items.

Repetition of names also helps…

Name Chains

Good with children, but it can work with older students. “My names’s Bob.” “Bob. My name is Jane.” “Bob, Jane. My name is Tony.” And so on…

Name Chain + Adjective

The same as above but have the students choose an adjective with the same initial letter as their name. “I’m Brave Bob.” “Brave Bob, I’m Just Jane.” “Brave Bob, Just Jane, I’m Terrific Tony…”

Circle Games

Similar to the above two activities. Something like this: “Bob likes dogs, Jane likes lions, Tony likes monkeys, and I like dolphins.” Of course, the vocabulary can be whatever you (or your students) want, and the structures can be changed (has eaten insects, would like to go white water rafting, etc).

It’s helpful if your students repeat their names often. Here is a method for doing this (fairly) naturally.

Ask Students to Use Each Others Names

When students ask questions in open pair activities, have them preface the question with the other student’s name. “Jenny, have you ever swum in a river?” for example.

These are just some ideas to help you learn your students’ names more easily and rapidly, so helping you build a stronger relationship with your students and helping to motivate them more. 

If you have extremely large classes, you may never remember every name, especially if you only teach them once a week, but I hope some of these methods can at least help you learn more names than before.