How to motivate students to learn english
How to motivate students to learn english
5 Ways to Promote Your Students’ Intrinsic Motivation to Learn English
While vinegar may be a good dressing for a fresh garden salad, it’s not the way to attract bees.
They say honey does the job, but I’m pretty sure brightly colored flowers would produce the same results, because bees like them too.
And even though gardening may not be my forte, I do know that honey and flowers are important in the ESL classroom, too.
You know as well as I do that honey, flowers and vinegar aren’t just about the bees. They’re about motivation.
One of the toughest tasks a teacher can have on their plate is to motivate their students the right way—that is, motivating them from the inside rather than from the outside.
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Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation for Learning English
Motivation can be categorized into two types: intrinsic and extrinsic.
Intrinsic motivation is a drive that comes from within a person. People are intrinsically motivated when they enjoy doing an activity.
Extrinsic motivation is a drive that comes from outside of a person. People are extrinsically motivated when they want to gain a reward (like a prize or a good grade) or avoid a punishment.
Generally, when someone already has intrinsic motivation, rewarding them can actually decrease their intrinsic motivation, making them less interested in the activity and therefore decreasing their performance.
However, when someone isn’t interested in a subject—meaning they have no intrinsic motivation to learn about it—giving rewards can get them to participate in the activity, which might then spark some intrinsic motivation within them. Extrinsic motivation can lead to intrinsic motivation.
Though this isn’t always the case, most ESL students already have intrinsic motivation to learn English. They have a goal in mind, whether it’s related to business, academics or something else, and English is necessary for them to reach their goal. So they want to engage in learning the language.
With that in mind, too much praise or extrinsic motivation can actually hinder their learning. That’s why your students will perform best when you focus on motivating them intrinsically rather than extrinsically. In other words, encourage their already present desire to learn rather than tempting them to learn with external rewards.
Motivating Students to Learn English with 5 Smart Tactics
1. Make Class Communicative
One way to encourage your students’ intrinsic motivation is to make class communicative.
Part of the joy of language is using it to communicate. Language learners get a rush when they can successfully translate their thoughts into words and get their points across.
Aside from the fun of communicating, it’s also what most students want to get out of learning English. In other words, that’s where their intrinsic motivation lies—they’re already eager to be able to communicate in English for their own reasons.
For some students, their goal is communication in business. For others, their goal is to communicate during their advanced studies at an English-language university or college. Still others want to explore the world and will use English to travel and connect with people all over the globe.
The more we encourage our students to communicate in class, the more motivated they’ll be. They’ll see that they’re accomplishing their goals even as they’re learning, and the success and achievement will make them readier to learn.
How can you make your class more communicative?
2. Make English Practical
People don’t like doing things that are pointless. They want to know that there’s a purpose behind what they do even if the activity is as simple as digging a hole. You can stress purpose in your activities when you keep them practical.
One way to keep things practical in class is to use realia whenever possible. Realia is just another way to say materials that are created with native speakers in mind.
Bringing realia into your classroom will make your students more prepared for what they’ll find outside your classroom walls. ESL-targeted materials tend to have simpler grammar and vocabulary, which is great when you’re just learning English, but not great when everything encountered outside the ESL classroom isn’t adjusted for people who are still learning.
Project-based learning is a great way to keep things focused on reality, since it starts with a true-to-life problem and asks students to solve it. In project-based learning, students work through a series of steps to come to a solution to that problem. This series of steps may include: listing the information necessary for coming to a solution, breaking down the different steps they’ll have to take to solve the problem, gathering the necessary information, coming to a conclusion and presenting their solution.
The process is more important than the final product, since that’s where students are really putting their language knowledge to use. Focusing on the process also helps to motivate students the right way because you’re not focusing on the extrinsic motivation of a grade at the end of the project. Rather, you’re stressing successful communication throughout the process.
Role playing is another way to stay focused on the practical. Giving students real-life situations they’re likely to encounter in the outside world will give them a chance to practice for the future in a safe environment.
3. Make Class Fun
Making class fun is a surefire way to up intrinsic motivation levels.
When students are having a good time, they’ll be more engaged in learning. Their motivation will come from them rather than from you. You just have to find the best ways to help your students have a good time while they learn.
Here are some strategies you can try:
FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language lessons.
4. Forge Relationships
Generally speaking, people don’t care what you know until they know that you care. That’s why forging relationships with your students is so important. Particularly if you’re teaching international students, you may be the only English speaker they see or speak with on a regular basis. Supporting your students is something you need to do before you can motivate them.
You can let your students know that you care about them and where they come from by encouraging expressions of culture in class. Be on the lookout for any opportunities to have students share their values, beliefs and traditions.
Also, take some time every day to relate to your students on a personal level. Ask them how their weekends went. Encourage them if they seem down. Let them know that you’re there for them in any way.
Though it may seem like you’re “wasting” valuable classtime with chit-chat, the bonds you form during those minutes are the foundations of successful relationships with your students.
5. Give Feedback
Always consider feedback carefully. The right quantity and quality of feedback is important for forging the right relationships with your students.
If you spend too much time correcting every error they make, you’ll end up estranging your students. They may respect your knowledge, but they won’t feel connected to you personally.
It’s important to give positive feedback, like compliments and encouragement, as well as criticism. When you have criticism to give, it’s better to deliver it along with some positive feedback. Something difficult is a lot easier to hear when it’s preceded and followed by something positive. That way no student will feel like you’re picking on them.
You don’t have to be the only source of feedback for your students, either. Encourage peer feedback and self-evaluation, and make time for all this in your lesson plans each day. Your students have valuable things to share with their classmates. Be sure to make it possible.
It’s also great to celebrate achievements on a regular basis. This doesn’t mean rewarding every action your students perform. That type of extrinsic motivation will only serve to demotivate them, or it will feel disingenuous. No, I mean taking time out to talk about the things your students have accomplished and giving them the space to brag on themselves a little. Go around in a circle and have everyone share something they believe they did well that day, that week or that semester. Have their peers give them a round of applause, compliments or “snaps” to celebrate!
Motivating students is a part of every teacher’s job.
And while honey and vinegar may be great in the kitchen, the best kind of motivation comes from within your students themselves.
When we encourage intrinsic motivation in the members of our classes, we set them up for success even after they leave our classrooms.
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How to Work with Students to Motivate Them to Learn English?
Дата публикации: 22.04.2019 2019-04-22
Статья просмотрена: 150 раз
Библиографическое описание:
Назарова, Ёркиной. How to Work with Students to Motivate Them to Learn English? / Ёркиной Назарова. — Текст : непосредственный // Молодой ученый. — 2019. — № 16 (254). — С. 282-283. — URL: https://moluch.ru/archive/254/58233/ (дата обращения: 15.08.2022).
This article is about working with students to motivate them to learn English. Many ways of motivation are given. In this article, it is spoken about the basic principles of learning English and learn to practice the language in everyday life. Student’s motivation is a full-fledged part of the teacher’s work, along with the presentation of the rules and homework check.
Keywords: methods of teaching, communicative competence, memorizing, to move, motivation.
Эта статья рассматривает способы мотивации студентов при изучении ими иностранного (английского) языка. Говорится об основных принципах изучения английского языка для улучшения языковой практики в повседневной жизни. Мотивация студента является полноценной частью работы учителя, наряду с презентацией правил и проверкой домашней работы.
Ключевые слова: методика обучения, коммуникативная компетентность, запоминание, движение, мотивация.
Motivation plays a huge role in the study of any subject, especially foreign languages. Success largely depends on what motives students pursue in the process of learning any foreign language. Recently, the opinion has often emerged that, they say, if the student himself is not motivated, the teacher is not able to fix it. And we completely disagree with this opinion. Student’s motivation is a full-fledged part of the teacher’s work, along with the presentation of the rules and homework check. We do not offer you instant methods of student motivation. These are rather strategies that allow you to initially start and build the learning process so that the student is always interested in learning the language and working with you. Teach your students to learn English. Students have no idea how to learn English (which is why they came to you). Often, their ideas about learning the language are limited to cramming rules and new words, which very quickly get boring and lead to a loss of motivation.
What to do? Tell the student about the basic principles of learning English and learn to practice the language in everyday life. Explain that learning should not end at the end of the classroom and the results largely depend on independent work. Do not be unfounded. Offer the student resources to train knowledge and skills outside the classroom. Be sure to consider the student’s learning style. Always give feedback. If a student has a problem, he should not be left alone with her. If an error occurred, together disassemble the reasons for its occurrence. Offer the student non-standard ways of memorizing complex rules or simply repeat the topic again — this is often not enough, especially in large groups. Form realistic expectations: Students may have high expectations from classes. Such a problem arises when a student sets unrealistic goals for himself, cannot achieve them and, as a result, loses motivation due to unjustified expectations.
What can be done? Play ahead of the curve. From the first lesson, set learning goals with your students. Take this time and tell what they can achieve at their level (this is especially important for beginners) if they move in the right direction. Start with the content of the textbook: read it together with the students and speak the topics that will be covered during the course (“At the end of the course you will be able to: introduce yourself and tell about yourself, speak in the present and past tense”, etc.) This approach especially inspires beginners!
− Goal-setting can be distinguished even as a separate type of activities. To do this, use simple tables where students can enter their goals and achievements. Forming a goal, remember: it must be high, but achievable.
− Let the students talk more: Speaking in English, even if it is still simple phrases, the student understands that he can have an active role in a conversation in a foreign language, and this in turn motivates not only to learn the language, but also to use it outside the classroom as often as possible.
− Use technology: Modern technology is a great way to interest students of almost any age groups to learn English. Use in the lessons not only audio, but also video clips, recordings of English-language shows, films, etc. A good teacher can give a student much more than just knowledge. One of the best things you can do for your student is to help him find inner motivation to learn a language. At the initial level, you can use pieces of video (useful resource with short videos in Levels), at higher levels — full training or entertainment videos (for example, on TED Ed). As a practice, invite students to write tweets or just short messages no more than 150 characters that could be published on the page on social networks (this type of activity will especially interest children and teenagers). Give the student the opportunity to realize their capabilities and always be involved in the learning process, and of course — do not forget to talk about success! Help the student find internal motivation: A good teacher can give a student much more than just knowledge. One of the best things you can do for your student is to help him find inner motivation to learn a language.
− Imagine that a student loses his motivation (or never finds it). What is he doing? With the best scenario, he completes the level and throws his studies. You lose a student, and the student does not receive the best learning experience. A simple question will help to get the ball rolling: “Why do you learn English?” You can set it as a homework assignment or even take it as a topic for a conversation at the beginning of the course. Help the student understand why he should learn English, and the student will never leave you! The best motivation for a student is a personal example. A teacher who is passionate about English and the very process of teaching can not but inspire!
Why should I motivate a student? Imagine that a student loses his motivation (or never finds it). What is he doing? With the best scenario, he completes the level and throws his studies. You lose a student, and the student does not receive the best learning experience. But every teacher can change that! Spend time motivating students and you will become the best teacher for them, who inspires you by example and leads them to success in learning English! Become a teacher with whom the student will pass his first test perfectly, watch the first film in the original and read his first book in English. He will precisely remember such teacher for all life!
All the above listed skills are the results of independent work done by students. These skills contribute to enhancing the motivation to master the language and allow it to quickly navigate in a huge stream of foreign language information, as well as apply their already formed knowledge and skills, both in oral and in written language, which in our opinion is an integral part for becoming highly qualified, competitive personality.
Do You Know How to Really Motivate ESL Students to Learn English?
Imagine the following scenarios.
You’re trying to completely give up drinking soda. You used to drink three bottles every day. Now, you only drink one bottle a day. That’s pretty good, right? Or maybe it’s still kind of bad?
You’re driving down the highway and see a sign stating that the speed limit is 65 miles per hour. You look down, you’re going 70. You’re speeding. That could be bad. It’s really only five miles over the limit, though, so maybe it’s okay?
You’ve made a resolution to eat more veggies. You have three helpings of cheesy-bacon broccoli for dinner. That’s a lot of broccoli—great job! That’s a lot of cheese and bacon, too. Perhaps it wasn’t such a great job…
Sometimes it can be difficult to determine the good from the bad.
A few miles over the speed limit is one thing, but when it comes to motivating our students to learn English? That’s a completely different story.
We don’t want to take chances with what might be good or what might be bad. We must take very opportunity to deliver absolutely the best, most engaging lessons that will leave students wanting more!
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
How to Motivate Students to Learn: The Good, the Bad and the Super Engaging
Like most things, classroom instruction of all kinds can fall anywhere on a spectrum from “bad” to “amazing.”
It can sometimes be pretty easy to see the difference between the two. However, it’s not always as easy to plan and execute that amazing instruction strategy that will keep your students motivated.
Oftentimes, it’s simpler to fall back on those old lessons that you’ve been delivering for years. They’re already planned out, you’ve got all the materials, you’ve done them a million times. However, your methods and your lessons might be outdated, irrelevant and—worst of all—boring!
Think about it from the perspective of your ESL students. They may already need to put in a lot of effort to understand the words you’re speaking, so if the methods and materials are bad, it’s the perfect excuse to tune out. They aren’t interested in what you’re saying, so what’s the point of trying to understand?
We ask our students to do a lot of things in our classrooms on a daily basis. Of course, our main expectation is that our students learn to understand and speak English. This is a huge ambition! To meet this expectation we ask that they listen, speak, read and create their own work—all in a foreign language. This can be a pretty daunting task, one that would be easy to give up on.
As teachers, the most beneficial thing we can do is keep our students motivated by ditching those stale methods and embracing those amazing and super engaging activities that will push them to the next level.
We’ll go through tips for getting students motivation to listen, speak, read and create in class—and for each skill area we’ll discuss the bad, the good and the super engaging strategies you should consider.
Motivating Students to Listen
One of the most important aspects of learning a new language is listening to that language being spoken. Not only is it vital to expose students to the vocabulary being use by native speakers in context, but we also want them to hear (and pick up) the inflections, tone and syntax.
The Bad
Even before a student begins to engage, verbally or otherwise, with the teacher or other students, their impressions of the classroom are determined by the physical environment.
Harsh, fluorescent lights, minimal furnishings, no décor and a general lack of charm in your classroom can lead students to feel uncomfortable. Who wants to listen when they don’t feel welcome?
One easy way to add charm through décor is by decking out your classroom with some multilingual or bilingual posters. Language Lizard has plenty of these in a variety of languages, along with other language products you may find useful.
More important than the words that we speak is the way in which we speak them. Voices that are too loud, tones that are too sharp or too bland, and faces that are too grim are horrible invitations to listen and interact.
If you’re bored teaching your lesson, imagine how those trying to learn it must feel. Repetitive lessons, dull interactions and predictable conversations can lead your students to quickly disengage. Providing little variety in the topics presented (AKA “same old, same old”) presents the perfect opportunity for students to zone out.
Sometimes the only lifeline for an ESL student is to utilize something understood universally, like a visual. Endlessly droning on—sentence after sentence after sentence—without accompanying pictures, objects or examples can dissuade students from listening.
The Good
Adding just a few personal touches to your classroom can really warm it up, making it an environment where students feel comfortable and ready to listen, interact and learn. Soft light from lamps, a few pictures, some posters and maybe even an old garage sale couch can work wonders in your classroom.
Remember to represent the cultures and interests of your students, as well as your own, when bedecking your classroom.
Your students might not understand all the words you’re saying, but they’ll understand the way in which you say them. Warm and positive tones, smiles and open body language will put your students at ease, opening them up to truly listening and learning.
The best way to get students to listen is to give them something exciting to listen to. Allow students to steer the conversation. Talk about things they’re interested in. This may take a bit more work on the part of the teacher (actually determining their interests and researching them), but it’ll be worth it when you have a classroom full of engaged students.
Provide those lifelines! If you’re learning about oceans and beaches, have a handful of seashells to share with your students. If you’re teaching about the life cycle of a pumpkin, have the seeds, blossoms and pumpkins available as you explain the cycle.
Even just having a photograph or drawing of new vocabulary words will increase understanding, motivating your students to keep on keeping on.
The Super Engaging
Allow students to help set up the classroom environment. This will create ownership, motivating them to really become active participants.
Create an interest survey to distribute to your students. The surveys should help let you know what really excites them, then plan around those interests.
Provide students with a blank “dictionary” and have them add visual representations (like cut-out pictures or drawings of their own) of vocabulary, especially when it comes to rare words and phrases. It’s kind of fun to add to this and review it throughout the year.
Motivating Students to Speak
Actually speaking a new language can be the most intimidating process of learning the language. A student might be confident in verbally understanding or reading English, but the thought of speaking it aloud, where others can hear and judge them, can be a little terrifying.
It’s key that we have motivation high in this area to aide in growing confidence as well as improving fluency.
The Bad
One of the best ways to shut down an ESL student is to put them on the spot. Asking a student to respond or speak on demand, especially solo, can create some major anxiety.
Remember when you were a kid and had to read “round-robin”? That could shake even the most confident of native speakers. Imagine how you’d feel if you were just getting a handle on the language.
You would never expect an infant to walk before they crawl, and the same courtesy should be extended to your ESL students. When a student is just beginning to speak, you can’t expect that they’ll instantly be confident and communicative.
A “blanket” expectation for all of your ESL students is also unreasonable. You can’t surmise that all of your students will develop their language at the same rate, face the same struggles, or excel in the same areas.
Oftentimes when our ESL students first begin to speak they’re really just “feeling out” the English language. Pointing out every mispronunciation, every adjective-noun reversal and every pronoun error can be extremely detrimental to your students’ progress.
How annoyed (and possibly embarrassed) would you be if someone was constantly stopping you while you talked? This will almost certainly result in a complete lack of verbal communication on the part of the student—and can you really blame them?
The Good
Providing relaxed situations for your students to try out English will really allow students to open up. Starting off with classroom or small group conversations doesn’t put anyone on the spot. If a student feels like they can communicate at their own speed, they’ll be more likely to eventually participate in the conversation.
Speaking of participation, games are always a great idea! Classroom games can be played in smaller groups and provide a stress-free and fun way to practice language and motivate students to keep speaking.
One of the first things we learn as educators is that every student learns at a different rate and in different ways. Of course, the same is true for our ESL students. You may have one student who’s practically fluent after a few months and another who may be stuck in the silent phase. That’s okay—adjust your expectations to meet the student where they’re at.
Always be cognizant that your students are learning an entirely new language and culture, oftentimes after leaving their home country, family, friends and traditions to do so. That’s huge! How might you respond in that situation? Would you feel like chatting the afternoon away? Expect the same response from your students.
Please, please don’t correct every little thing. Ask yourself two questions: Is it causing a major breakdown in communication? If not, maybe just let it go. Will this embarrass the student? If so, definitely let it go.
If you must correct, it’s best to do it in a natural and positive way. For example, your student makes the following statement when speaking about his father: “She liking ice cream pink.” Instead of pointing out each of the errors in the sentence, it would be more beneficial to say “Cool—he likes pink ice cream. Me too!”. Your student will pick up on that. Next time they might not make the same error—or they might. The important thing is, they tried again.
The Super Engaging
Start class everyday with a low-key chat. Allow students to talk amongst themselves. Some days you might give a topic, other days they can steer the conversation. Try to make your way around the room and into parts of every conversation. This creates a level of comfort between one another and with you.
Know your students’ strengths, weaknesses and needs! This doesn’t need to mean adding yet another assessment. Just informally gauge where they might be. This can be done through those low-key chats, engaging in games or even by talking with students one on one.
You can only begin to reach your students after you know the level at which they need to be reached.
Try to go a whole day without making any corrections. This will let your students know that you aren’t looking to catch them screwing up.
Should you always let errors go? Absolutely not, but don’t make it the focus of your teaching.
Motivating Students to Read
A huge part of being fluent in a language is having the ability to not only read the language, but also fully comprehend the meaning of what you’re reading. It’s easy enough to sound out words, even in a different language, but understanding what those words mean can be a little tougher.
It’s our job to keep students motivated, reading and comprehending.
The Bad
Have you seen some of the stuff out there? My grandma is the only person I know who might possibly be interested in the quilting rituals of colonial women (only possibly interested, not definitely).
Well-meaning curriculum companies have been churning out this sort of reading sample for years. As educators only doing what has been requested of us, we’ve probably all been guilty of utilizing some form of this boring material in the past. What’s the motivation to read about this stuff, especially in a newly-acquired, challenging language?
Not only are those old lady quilters boring, but they probably have very little to do with your students and their culture(s). Some of those tried and true texts you’ve used year after year could be culturally biased (only about American things with images of only white Anglo-Saxons).
This devalues your students and their culture(s)—a surefire way to put a damper on their reading.
You might have 500 hundred books in your classroom library, but if they’re all similar in substance and/or reading level, you may as well have 5.
Would you read a book that was uninteresting to you? No. Would you read a book that was well under your skill level? No. Would you read a book that was too advanced for you to understand? No.
The Good
Really want to grab your students’ attention? Give them something to read that will end in a reward of sorts. Recipes, movie reviews, lyrics to music; these are all highly-motivating pieces of text that your students will want to read. Such materials can be classified as authentic materials.
Authentic materials are different types of texts that are created for natives speakers to be used for a specific purpose (directions, newspapers, magazines, instruction manuals, greeting cards). They’re a far cry from the manufactured paragraphs of nonsense we may have used in the past—and they’re so much more engaging!
How validating for your students to open up a book from your classroom library and see a reflection of themselves. That reflection might manifest itself in a book about their home country, their culture or even images of people with whom they may share similar physical characteristics.
After all, your students will end up being some of the most interesting people you’ll ever meet. How could books representing them be anything but intriguing?
All of your students have differences; different interests, different backgrounds and different skill levels. These differences should be emulated in your classroom library.
And your students should have the freedom to choose. Maybe you’ll see a kid who’s at an intermediate reading level choose a beginner book. Great! That’s were she feels comfortable, and she’s reading!
The Super Engaging
This first one is a no-brainer, really. Read a recipe. Learn how to make cake. Make cake. Eat cake.
There’s no greater motivator than cake. This one works with all sorts of recipes, or really anything with a tangible end product.
It may take a trip to the library or perusing online book sources, but having multicultural books available at all times will draw your students to your book center. Remember those interest surveys? Take another look at those before you stock your library, too.
Nobody wants to read the same book over and over again. Change them out to correspond with your classroom themes, activities, seasonal events, holidays (those being celebrated in the country in which you teach and those of your students) and the ever-changing interests of your students.
Motivating Students to Create
Digging in and actually creating something is one of the more exciting aspects of teaching and learning. “Something” might be an art project, a piece of written work or a multimedia project, like a video presentation or computer application.
The Bad
Have you ever tried to complete something, maybe an activity or project, and had all your enthusiasm squelched by someone telling you exactly how to do it? Providing mountains of instructions, either verbal or written, has two negative effects.
First, understanding all of that language might be too overwhelming. If you can’t understand what you’re supposed to do, why even try? Second, it can be discouraging to have someone micromanage every little detail you should or shouldn’t be doing.
Those overly-explicit instructions usually mean there’s little creative liberty for your students. They might have a fantastic idea, but it has been shut down by all the “dos and do nots.” In this situation you may end up with a poor quality project that shows only a fraction of their capabilities.
Assigning only one, prescribed course to get to the finished project can be a major turn-off. This doesn’t allow students to use any of their own creativity. Worse yet, what if the way you’ve picked doesn’t fit with the learning style of a particular student? All their motivation goes out the window.
The Good
When we’re talking about directions, less is more. Just a couple of guidelines may be all you need to provide. You’ll always have those students who feel more comfortable with a million parameters, but if you can get them out of their comfort zone, you might open them up to their best work.
If there truly is a very specific way things must be done, explain it the simplest terms that you can. Providing a visual example might be more beneficial, though be careful that your example doesn’t end up being the standard.
Give your students room to explore. Just as the explicit directions lead to stifled creativity, the open-ended approach provides the opportunity for massive creativity. Allow students to get to the end product in a way that make sense for them.
The Super Engaging
Give students a one-word topic like “earth” or “fear” or “acceptance” and see what they come up with. The topic can relate to your classroom theme or whatever you’re currently exploring in the classroom.
Give them several options of ways in which to create (photo collages, poetry, journaling, etc. ) and just let them go. You’ll be amazed at what they come up with.
For low-key creating, use social media. Facebook posts, tweets, hashtags… these all require students to come up with something and type it out. This can really be a great place to start, because it doesn’t seem like an insurmountable task.
Most students will be familiar with and eager to use this sort of technology. It’s also a very brief form of expression, which beginning students will love. Their social media post can be anywhere from just one word to a few sentences—or a whole essay. An uncomplicated task can be a motivating task.
As far as motivating our students goes, we’ve seen the good, we’ve seen the bad.
Now it’s your turn to make it super engaging!
Jackie Hostetler has worked in the field of education for 15 years, earning her ESOL Masters in 2010. Her passions include early childhood education and language acquisition in our youngest learners. She is the director of an early learning center and the mother of two of her own little learners.
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Как работать с мотивацией «А вообще-то мне английский не нужен»
Ученики с мотивацией «Мне не нужен английский» обычно безучастны и равнодушны к занятиям: они опаздывают, пропускают уроки, игнорируют домашние задания. Для них учить английский — обязанность, ведь на дополнительных занятиях настаивали родители, а не они сами. Проводить такие уроки эмоционально сложно. Но стоит ли отказываться? Нет. Отрицательная мотивация — тоже мотивация, и с ней можно и нужно работать.
Шаг 1. Выясняем настоящую мотивацию ученика
Если ученик пришел на занятие, это уже говорит о многом. Ребенок, которому действительно не нужен иностранный язык, не придет на урок.
Выяснить истинную мотивацию ученика помогут вопросы:
Если на первом занятии педагогу удается «растопить лед», ребенок ответит на эти вопросы честно и полно. Когда ученик демонстрирует внешнюю отрицательную мотивацию, как правило, он имеет определенные качественные ожидания от занятий, если в итоге на них пришел.
Например, он может сказать:
Если отвечая на эти вопросы, ученик продолжает проявлять отрицательную мотивацию, не отчаивайтесь. Педагог в силах помочь ребенку определить или сформировать личный интерес к изучению английского. В этой ситуации будет полезно вернуться к предложенным вопросам через 2-4 урока. Тогда пройдет напряжение, и ученик перестанет чувствовать нервозность от того, что его кто-то изначально заставлял ходить на занятия.
Интересное по теме:
Шаг 2. Узнаем интересы ученика
Дальше стоит выяснить интересы ученика и скорректировать материалы уроков так, чтобы они были связаны с увлечениями ребенка. Сделать это можно на первом или втором занятии, например, на этапе Warm up.
Поиграйте в Tic-Tac-Toe:
Здесь ученик отвечает на вопрос What is/are your favourite…? и ставит крестик или нолик в желаемую клетку. Это упражнение полезно комбинировать с How often do you…? Его можно представить в виде колеса с сайта Wordwall со случайным выбором вопроса:
Шаг 3. Подбираем интересный и полезный материал
Я заранее уточняю у ученика или его родителей, какой материал он сейчас изучает в школе. Затем выбираю урок либо корректирую текущий так, чтобы он соответствовал школьной программе. После это добавляю материал, который интересен ученику. Рекомендую это делать так:
Индивидуальное расписание, интерактивная платформа и мотивированные ученики. У нас есть все — преподавайте от 12 часов в неделю. Подробности по ссылке: Skyeng
Key Ways to Motivate Students from Young Learners to Adults
As we all know, motivation is a core aspect of teaching and learning a language. Lack of motivation is perhaps the biggest obstacle that we face as students and teachers. If a student lacks motivation, he/she will not pay attention in the class or will simply find it boring. At the same time if a teacher lacks motivation to teach he/she will be unable to attract students’ attention and give them all they need. Let us be honest and say that intelligent students are those, who always eagerly attend class and enjoy the process. Here we need a highly motivated teacher who is willing help them. In this article I divide students into several categories because different situations require different approaches.
This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Andrii M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.
How to motivate young learners
First, we should be patient, have a lot of energy, and be positive all the time! They should feel relaxed, so that they can trust the teacher. Being friendly and sensitive to them is important. Let them experiment with language; do not over-correct. We should use more activities and useful games because they help students to get away from daily problems and direct their energy in the right direction. Be creative and encourage students with small prizes. It really motivates them to compete and focus on self-development. Make them want to study and come to class by providing satisfaction. Make lessons challenging, but within reach fun at the same time.
At this age, students could lack of motivation for lots of reasons: parents push them to study, they are bored, the teacher is boring, they have problems out of the classroom and come to class in a bad mood, they are afraid, they have a lot of pressure etc. Our job, as good teachers, is to provide them with a good atmosphere and let them feel comfortable to learn in your class. If the class is big, they can make friends with the other kids and help each other to make the process much interesting.
Helping teenagers to get engaged in classes
The hardest age to motivate as they are going through many changes. To motivate teenage students you should become their good friend. Ask them about their life, give them suggestions if they ask you to, listen to them. Let them open their hearts to you. Lessons should contain topics that are interesting to them: favorite singers/actors, interests in sport, future career, etc. Show them that you are interested in their interests and they will study hard.
They could lack motivation at this age, because parents/society do not understand them, so they need a friend, which could be you. We should try to persuade them that studying language is cool, and they will have many opportunities, if they are able to speak English such as travel, study abroad, make new friends and find a good job in the future.
Understanding the motivations of adult students
The most motivated category is adults. Mostly because they choose to study and they pay for their classes. However, their reasons for learning English can be different: business, job, migration, language itself.
To motivate them, we should be careful, sometimes adults are afraid to do something new, because they think it could make them lose face. We should try to persuade them that there is nothing scary in making mistakes, for this is the way we learn. Mostly such learners come to class after work; they are tired and have low energy. We need to cheer them up, make more conversations in English and show them how they can make progress. Attract their interest with worksheets, pair work, group work, activities, etc. In class, they should feel relaxed, not like they are sitting in a cubicle.
To sum up, we can see that motivation is extremely important because it helps our students to believe in their own strength and enjoy the studying process. Good teachers will be able to find an approach suitable to every student.
Learn how to motivate your students with a TEFL course today!
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