How to bring about “Learning Motivation”?

[Rain]

I really appreciate all your suggestions and response!! Recently, I try a way to teach students that is GROUP DISCUSSION. I guess it's a good way for students to learn. I don't know whether it is fitting to them or not till now but I find that students are more active in learning process. And through group discussion, I figure out that students ask questions more than before...Probably it can also develop their critical thinking!!
As for grammar, thanks for your experiences, Larry Latham and serendipity. You know what, I'm still a college students in Taiwan and major in English now. English teacher is as my part-time job. I admit that I need to learn more about teaching!! Your experience is really meaningful for me. Thank you!

[serendipity]

Thanks Larry,

I enjoyed your story, and I can see better now where you're coming from.

My story is somewhat different - I'm a non-native speaker who acquired the language the hard way in order to reach beyond the boundaries that were keeping me in. I was exposed to six years of Latin at school, four years of Italian, 10 years of English, and all my teachers ever seemed to get excited about were these darn Present Perfect Tenses and Plusquamperfects and Consecutio Temporums - when there was so much *else* out there.

When I was in my twenties, I mostly travelled - no doubt my knowledge came in handy, but what mattered most was something completely different: Communication styles, for example, ingrained cultural habits that made me appear rude irrespective of how hard I was trying, lack of intonation patterns that made me appear boring and cold, no matter how interesting the tale was I was telling, a habit of using direct questions exclusively that made me appear blunt and tactless - not to mention all the trials and tribulations that come from being madly in love with a person of a different cultural background, and from trying to keep a relationship going.

It didn't work out, though. I returned to live a more settled life with a man from my native village, a man whose parents had gone to school with mine, and who'd never travelled beyond the borders of his own country - yo, and I make my living teaching boys like him, boys who'll probably never travel beyond the borders of their own country either.

What I can do though, is to give them an idea of cultural life beyond "Present Perfect Tense" and all the rest - share my experiences, my enthusiasm, and maybe even awaken a yearning for what lies beyond the mountains, and a new intellectual openness when one encounters people and ideas from over there.

That would be grand, if I could do that!

[serendipity]

Yea, group discussion is good when the mood is right, and when the group dynamics work out so that people aren't put down or ridiculed for what they have got to say.

You might want to complement a group discussion lesson with a follow-up exercise though, that enables them to keep track of the arguments presented and the vocabulary used - otherwise you could end up with a discussion where talking for the sake of talking is the norm and where little is remembered afterwards.

I think a lot of know-how about teaching comes from actually doing it, and if you aren't terribly experienced, you can still charm the students into liking you if you're fair and friendly and enthusiastic about what you're doing. I was amazed how sweet they were when I started. I'd expected them to be right brats, but they weren't.