Teacher Discussion Forums

Hi. I'm a college student taking Education. Reinforcements will encourage the students to participate more in the class discussion. One example of this is giving prizes. My question is, will these kind of reinforcement make the students participate in the class discussion not because they want to, but because they want the prize only? Will this reinforcement work in pre-school?

There is a lot written on motivation. Gardener is one name you might like to look up in Goggle. There is external motivation and internal. As teachers, we want the internal probably so people learn English because they want to but it is difficult at the beginning and external sometimes helps them get to internal.

If you, as a teacher, love to teach English and like English itself, that will come over to the students. Not everyone needs English in the long run, so some people will never internalize the love of learning English, but at least they will remember that you liked it.

Usually the big prize of learning English in a foreign country is that you get to go to a good college or are accepted in a certain discipline. That is external motivation. Marks are external motivation. Candy is external motivation. It all will go only so far but I imagine in pre-school, it goes pretty far to have the teacher interested in your learning English with stickers, encouragement, excitement, enthusiasm, etc. Most kids really love to learn anything if you present it in an interesting way in a supportive atmosphere.