Job Discussion Forums

[struelle]

The topic of motivation has always been a hot one, that is the best way to get the students to interact and participate well in a variety of classes. I remember my first teacher trainer had some excellent workshops on this.

In my case, it's easy to motivate students initially in the lessons, but the challenge is *sustaining* their motivation. Possible cases that make this difficult are as follows: A 6 hour lesson on one day with the same teacher, adult students who work 50-60 hour weeks and take English in the evenings, and high school students who study for the same time and are required to take English on the side.

I tend to rely on a 'bag of tricks' and a huge resource bank of classroom activities, as well as bringing out TEFL games during tired periods (for example, last 15 minutes of a long day). Rotating and mixing students is also key. Still, as the time goes on, the tendency for students to get bored increases. So I need to find ways to keep 'em motivated.

In China especially, fighting boredom feels like running up a mountain. But it must be done.

On the other hand, some students have been extremely motivated and eager to learn. Issues of boredom and absenteeism were rare. I recall university students both in Tianjin and Shanghai. The latter took classes in Spring Festival during the 'winter intensive' weeks at a conversation school. These students participated enthusiastically in every activity, and after the classes invited the teachers to KTV and cake parties.

Other extremely motivated students have been young children, i.e. those in grades 2 and 3. In my experience with the kids, they soaked up the new language like a sponge and eagerly tried it out.

Anyhow, the topic of EFL motivation is a fascinating one, and if anyone can recommend some websites and articles to read, I'd appreciate it.

Steve

[J-Pop]

Nice post Steve,
This is an area I too find very interesting. As far as reference materials, most of my best stuff (articles, books) are buried--somewhere--in boxes.

But, I just happened to have one still lying around, that may be helpful, if you can get your hands on a copy: Teaching By Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy, by H. Douglas Brown, 1994 (a more recent edition might be available).

Chpt. 3, specifically discusses motivation, how to define it, different types, its role in the classroom. etc. Then throughout the book he refers off & on to motivation.

It is written in easy to understand language, specifically directed at teachers new to language teaching. He tries to suggest practical ways to apply ideas from second language acquisition studies, within the classroom. Not a lot of theoretical mumbo-jumbo (some other "scholars" criticize his writing for not being more "sophisticated.")

Overall, the Brown book (one of several he's written) is a good basic resource, especially for those new to the field. Even seasoned pros can glean some nice information & practical advice from his writings, I predict.

He covers A LOT of ground in this work. One of my favorite sections, is his brief (yet nicely explained) history of the different methods used for teaching languages over the last 100 years--excellent, basic, info., IMHO.

Chapter 21, "Classroom Management," is also good. He discusses both basic principles & practical ideas for motivating students.

Each chapter has a section called, "For Further Reading." Also, "Topics for Discussion, Action, and Research," at the end of each chapter sometimes contains some great suggestions. At the end of Chpt 3 (on motivation) he lists these books & articles:

1. Rogers, Carl. 1983. Freedom to Learn in the Eighties. A collection of practical essays on motivation & education.

2. Deci, Edward L. 1975. Intrinsic Motivation. Brown makes a comment that though the book is somewhat dated, the basic concepts & information provided are still right on the money.

3. Crookes, Graham, and Schmidt, Richard W. 1991. "Motivation: Reopening the Research Agenda." in the journal Language Learning, 41 (4), pages 469-512. A comprehensive overview of motivation & its role in learning another language.

NOTE: I have not read any of these 3. The comments provided are from Brown. Too, I'm not sure how easy or difficult it will be to get your hands on any of these, but--ya just never know. Good luck.

Sounds like you have a good handle on the basics though! And I completely agree with your comments on young children. I discovered, almost completely by accident, the same thing you decribe, with the younger kids in Japanese public schools. Those are some of my fondest memories of that year.

My suggestion? Start keeping detailed notes on what you do, composition of the classes, materials, activities, what works what doesn't--the whole nine yards. You could, I predict, easily have the makings of a future published article, or two, on your hands.
Cheers,

[Dr.J]

Recently I've started using team building activities with classes as a warm up. These are entirely unrelated to English. They last about 10-15 minutes and the kids and me just have fun and laugh. Things like making houses out of playing cards and making spaghetti out of clay. I teach 12-15 year olds BTW.

Then, they work like demons (well, goblins) for the last 35-40 minutes because they know they've had some fun time. This works better than 50 minutes of boredom.

Motivation in general is very situation-specific. The only other advice I have is try to appeal to each type of learner; visual, aural, kinasthetic etc. and give as many good, different, reasons for learning English as possible, because each student has different motivational 'pressure points'.

The book I use is called "Team Building Activities" by Alanna Jones.

[Roger]

Yes, Steve's was a nice post. Something newbies should read before coming to China or anywhere else.
As for new ideas, it depends on your students, their levels: I used to find a lot on the Internet for my preschoolers
- bogglesworld.com
- eslkidstuff.com
and others. For adults and college students, it is more difficult as it is generally thought they could benefit from exposing themselves to genuine adult stuff such as the media. The proviso is that learning is an imposed activity, enforced as a duty in order to pass exams and to obtain degrees with a view of getting a well-paid job... Thus, people's interest in materials is narrow.
I think students today should make a greater effort at being interested in the first place rather than expecting the teacher to be responsible for finding something the students deem "interesting". This seems to me to be specially true in China.
I try to stimulate their interest by teaching them other subjects - where possible. If English is the medium of instruction in other subjects the lessons are a lot less prone to being judged subjectively.
And, there are subjects that have a near-universal appeal: middle-school pupils are difficult to motivate for language lessons, but they are far more likely to participate in activities such as PE if held in English. It can have a great disciplining effect too.

I can also recommend a small guide, "101 WORD GAMES" by George P. McCallum.
It has grouped the games as follows:
1) Vocab games
2) Number games
3) Structure Games
4) Spelling games
5) Conversation games
6) Writing games
7( Role play and dramatics

[shmooj]

for a quick fix for motivation honestly ask yourself the only question you need:

Are YOU really motivated?

An honest answer to that question will determine whether you will be succesful in motivating your students I believe.

9 times out of 10, the teacher is only faking it and hates the class at least as much and quite probably more than the students.

[Stephen]

shmooj

Sometimes the quick fix is unfortunately necessary, primarily in that you have to cover this class today which after travel time and/or normal teaching commitments you'll have 15 minutes to prepare for kind of situation. Sorry, but this is a periodic harsh reality for many teachers.

However, to all in general the quick and long fixes are primarily the same, interest and involve the students. I'm not going to get theoretical about this, instead I'll offer some practical suggestions.

Firstly, reading, a subject that is far to often taught by atrition (apologies for spelling). I would suggest using jigsaw readings. A concept where each group in the class reads different articles and then exchanges information. A good example of material available on this is Reading Games by J. Hadfield. In one of the readings students learn to play different games (via the readings); they are then regrouped so each member of the group teaches their new group a different game. In another students read the testomony of a witness to a murder in groups and search for clues. They are then re-grouped with each student having read a different witnesses' testimony and the groups then have to try to solve the murder. All readings in this book are for intermediate or above students. For Elementary and pre-intermediate learners there are some very good jigsaw readings in the New Headway series. The other advantage of jigsaw readings is that it gives the students something to talk about which is vital with Chinese learners. (Please do not even waste my time by asking me to read you criticising this statement if you have not taught adults in Taiwan or on the Mainland for at least 2 years!!)

Secondly, personalization making lessons that are directly related to the students lives or of personal interest. This can be anything from interviewing each other about interests, work and routines in a present simple class of students who don't know each other, to doing various personality tests and having students analysing each others results. (Another good idea on a similar vein is writing horoscopes for other class members) Basically, things that involve students personally will be self-motivating. (One of the most productive writing activities I had with senior High School students was having members of two different classes write to each other.)

Thirdly, allow students the opportunity to use their imagination. Things like story writing and co-operative writing are great for this.

I hope these ideas prove of some use, they are by no means exaustive.

Best wishes
Stephen

[struelle]

[shmooj]

[struelle]

[dmb]

I love using music in the class and the students have said they enjoyed those lessons. Last week we were doing comparatives and superlatives. The presentation originated from brainstorming of adjectives, 5 very differnt pieces of music and the intended grammar structure was produced and practiced

[FGT]

Music can also be used to provide the impetus for creative writing.
EG: talk students into dreamlike state, play music, students close their eyes and "dream", students take notes and then transfer their notes into a "story".
You need to prompt students (beforehand) to think about sounds, smells, feelings, time of day, etc etc. A piece of music that works well is Vaughan Williams' Lark Ascending. Try it and see. This IS language learning.

[lagger]

I'm constantly thinking of new ways to keep the class interesting so the students' motivation is high but it's exhausting being so creative all the time (but fun, I guess).

For example today my elementary class was studying clothing. I used a picture dictionary for the basic vocab, then I threw a bunch of carefully collected magazine pictures in the middle of the floor and told everyone to hurry up and choose one. They squabbled over them. After that, each student stuck their picture on the white board and wrote a brief description beside it (leather jacket, blue T-shirt, black pants, brown boots etc.).

Then I removed all the pictures and put them on the floor again and told the students to choose a different one. They then had to stick the new picture beside the correct description on the whiteboard.

Finally, I got the students to choose a classmate and describe their clothing. The rest of the classed listened and guessed who it was.

It was a fun lesson for me and the students and I hope they will retain the information. I just wish I could make every lesson this interesting.

Personally, I don't mind working from a textbook if I'm taking a foreign language class but I'm an adult and have my own language to fall back on. These are teenagers who can't ask me for translations etc.

I would love to observe some energetic teachers who are loved by their students. I want to know all their secrets and "bags of tricks".

Does anyone teach using a textbook such as Headway all the time? I really couldn't think of anything more dull. I prefer to get readings from the internet that I am interested in but it takes a lot of work/time which busy teachers don't have.

Also, I'm always sharing my ideas and lessons with other teachers but find that they are not very forthcoming in sharing materials and ideas with me. Does this happen to anyone else? Imagine how many resources we'd have if we all just shared with each other.

[dmb]

I used to do the same clothing activity. But when all 18 students are wearing red and whithe checked gutras and white thobes, it's kind of difficult

[Celeste]

[FGT]

The idea of a newbie teacher only using a textbook (written by an experienced professional) 50% of the time horrifies me. How can someone with zero + (a little) experience/knowledge possibly think that they can do better?

Of course textbooks can be adapted to the environment/culture/class etc but how can a newbie judge what to leave in and what to omit and how to change it? Thereby jeopardising the whole syllabus etc.

The school where I work uses New Headway at Elementary and Pre-intermediate levels (thereafter Cutting Edge and Language In Use) and they provide a sound basis to language learning. Of course they aren't perfect (ditto life), but they provide a well thought out progression of both grammar and vocabulary with a balance of skills thrown in.

There are always adaptations that can be made while still using the basic material, it is rare that the material need be thrown out altogether.

For example (and from memory - I'm at home without access to the book): New Headway Pre-Int; about unit 2; "My Uncle Is a Shopkeeper" (articles) - Retain original text but create a shouting dictation from it, students listen to and write what they might otherwise ignore, they then have the text in their hands when they turn to the back of the book to identify and match the various rules. 90% Headway and it works.

I fully expect to be shot down in flames for saying this. So, are you going to disappoint me?