When Teens Hate English

“I hate English” can land like a slap, especially when you know your teen is bright, capable, and doing fine in other subjects. 

I’m Francesca, a former high school English teacher, and I want to slow that moment down and translate what those three words usually mean beneath the surface: exposure, uncertainty, and the fear of being judged for their thoughts, not just their answers. 

English is the subject where thinking is visible, and that visibility can feel painfully personal for teenagers. 

We dig into why English often feels harder than math or science, even for high achievers. The issue is rarely novels or poetry. It’s more often the invisible workload: decoding the question, choosing evidence, organizing ideas, writing analytical paragraphs, managing the clock, and coping with anxiety all at once. 

If the process hasn’t been taught clearly, the brain protects itself through avoidance, and avoidance sounds like “I hate this.” We also talk executive functioning and why deep thinkers and great verbal explainers can still struggle to initiate tasks, sequence ideas, and write under pressure. 

Then we get practical. I share how scaffolding changes everything: clear paragraph formulas, step-by-step frameworks, and concrete examples of what analysis actually looks like. 

For parents, I offer supportive scripts you can use at home to move from emotion to clarity, so the conversation becomes “which part is hard right now?” instead of an argument about effort.

 I also mention tools like The Fast Draft Toolkit, Read and Respond, Essay Clinic, and Essay Booster that build structure fast. 

If you want your teen to stop dreading English and start finding it doable, listen, share this with a parent who needs it, and subscribe so you don’t miss next week. If it helped, leave a review and tell me: what part of English creates the biggest stress at your house?

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For more free resources, check out my guide to the 5 secret habits of teens who succeed. Jam packed with advice, tips and strategies. Yours free!

 
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Transcript

Why English Feels So Personal

The Hidden Skills Students Miss

Translating “I Hate English”

Scaffolds That Lower The Panic

What Parents Can Say Instead

Writing Is A Process Not Identity

Toolkits, Links, And Closing

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Welcome back to the podcast. Hello, Francesca here, the classic high school teacher. Today we are looking at a sentence that I hear constantly. I used to hear it all the time in class when I was teaching, and I hear it all the time from parents at home who tell me lovingly about their teenagers' study habits and the subjects they love at school. But there are three little words that cause so much tension at home. Those three little words are I hate English. And if you're a parent, those words can feel frustrating, they can feel confusing. Why? Why do you hate English so much? Sometimes even alarming. Because you know your child is capable, you know they're intelligent. So why this strong reaction to English class? Because English is a core subject. Let's face it, there's no getting around it. And so what I really want to do in today's episode is gently unpack what that sentence actually means and how we can get around it and how we can support our teenagers, both in class and at home. Now, when a teenager says I hate English, they're almost never talking about novels or poems or plays. They're actually talking about one of these things. They might be feeling exposed. They might be feeling that they don't know what the teacher wants. English can be a very vague subject at times for literal thinkers, remember. They might be thinking, I don't know how to start. They might feel stupid because they don't know how to start, or they might feel like they can't organise their thoughts, or maybe they freeze under pressure, or maybe they work really, really, really hard, but they still lose marks. And that is so frustrating. English is the subject where thinking is visible, right? And so that visibility can feel really vulnerable to an age group like teenagers. So the reason why English feels so personal is let's take maths, for example. Maths has right answers. You're either right or you're wrong. And science has procedures. But English, on the other hand, is totally different. English asks students to interpret, to analyze, to infer, to explain their thinking and to defend an opinion. Now, all of these things feel really personal. We're really asking students to lift up the lid and tell us their inner thoughts on the subject. And why? And when students don't know how to structure those thoughts clearly, it doesn't just feel difficult, that feels exposing. Because students are not just getting it wrong, they feel like they are wrong. There can be such a personal reaction. So here's what I see constantly. Teens are taught content, quotes, literary devices, definitions, these are all things that we teach as English teachers in class. But where it gets tricky is students may or may not be explicitly taught how to decode a question, how to build an analytical paragraph, how to move from explanation to analysis, how to structure an essay step by step. And if you are an English teacher listening to this and you are doing these things, then that is amazing. I bet your students love you. I bet you get amazing results because it is such a nuanced part of English class as to whether or not these skills are explicitly taught. And if they are explicitly taught, which ones are, which ones are given more focus. Because remember, as teachers, we are all mindful of exams and teaching towards the curriculum. So things can go in and out. So when a teenager sits down to write, their brain is juggling the text, the question, their ideas on the question, the structure, the clock, their anxiety, and that's a really heavy load. And when the load feels too big, the brain starts to protect itself. It avoids. And avoidance sounds like I hate this. So you can see there's a lot going on under the surface with a subject like English. So when you hear I hate English, let's translate it. I hate English often means I don't know where to begin. I can't get my thoughts into sentences. I overthink and then I freeze as a result of that overthinking. I compare myself to others, what they're doing, the results that they're getting, how much they're writing on the page. I feel judged. I don't understand what analysis actually is. I revise, but nothing changes. And if your teen is bright, this can feel even worse because they know they're capable. They're doing really well on other subjects. They just can't consistently show it on paper. And this isn't just struggling students. High achieving teens say this too. Some of the teens who say they hate English the most are deep thinkers. They're big picture processes. They are really good at explaining things verbally. They're really good verbal explainers. They're highly creative. They are very, very capable, but they struggle with task initiation, getting started, knowing how to start. They struggle with planning under pressure, those the time frames involved, or working memory overload, or maybe being able to sequence ideas logically. English demands a term called executive functioning. And executive functioning is still developing through adolescence. So sometimes it's not about ability, it's about scaffolding. So here's what changes everything. How do we make English feel safer? When teens are given clear paragraph formulas, step-by-step frameworks, explicit examples of what analysis actually looks like, and predictable structure, see all the scaffolding that we're giving them, then suddenly the panic drops. Because now your teenager's not guessing, they're building. And confidence grows when they know what to do next, not when they're told to try harder. What can we say instead as parents at home? What can we say to support our children and our teens? Well, if you hear your teen say, I hate English, instead of saying something like, don't hate it, you just need to work harder. Maybe we could try instead something like, what part feels hardest right now? Or is it starting, structuring, or understanding what the teacher wants? Or maybe would it help to break it into smaller steps? So you're moving from emotion to clarity. We're taking out the heat of that phrase, I hate English, and we're taking it out of the whole sense of identity, I hate English, to skill. Okay, well, which part of it is hard at the moment? What is it? A paragraph that you're struggling with, the structure of an essay, understanding what the question means. Let's start to really break it down. So we really want to take away that sense of identity of I hate English. And this is the part that matters the most. When teens struggle in English, they often internalize, I'm not analytical, I'm not good at writing, I'm just not an English person. But writing is not a personality trait, it's a process. Just like any other subject, science, maths, you name it. And processes can be taught. When we shift the narrative from I'm bad at English to I haven't been shown a system yet, or I haven't been shown the right system for my way of thinking yet, then everything softens, becomes easier. We start to take away the identity of I'm not analytical, I'm not an English person. English is not about being naturally gifted, it's about clear thinking, being able to understand different points of opinion, for example, it's about logical structure, how do we structure an argument so that it flows and it's convincing, and it's expressing ideas step by step. And these are learnable skills. Once a teen experiences success using structure like this, the I hate English narrative often disappears really surprisingly quickly, not because the subject changed, but because the overwhelm reduced. So next time you hear I hate English, pause for a moment. Let's pause and translate it. And remember that sentence usually means I don't feel confident doing this yet. And confidence doesn't come from pressure, it comes from clarity. We have a whole range of toolkits to help with building this structure, building these processes, putting in place the scaffold for teenagers of a range of different thinking. We have neurodiverse toolkits like the Fast Drive Toolkit or Read and Respond, or we have essay writing toolkits like the essay clinic or the essay booster. So really there is something for everybody, there is something for every type of student to put in place that structure to really start to soften that sense of identity of I hate English. Now I will link some of them in the show notes below so you can go check them out if you like. And if this episode resonated, share it with another parent who might be hearing those same three words at home. And remember, if you're looking for practical systems that make English feel manageable and structured, that's exactly what I teach. You don't need to convince your team to love English overnight. You just need to make it feel doable. I'll see you next week. Bye for now.