It is widely agreed that motivation has a great effect on a student’s capacity to learn. Keeping students motivated during classes represents one of the greatest challenges EFL teachers encounter due to different levels of motivation, abilities to deal with the abstract and expectations depending on their age.
Here’s a list of tips for boosting our students’ motivation and for raising their interest in studying:
- Create a supportive learning environment. (Promote emotional well-being and encourage learners to explore, learn and develop at their own pace; keep in mind that self-esteem is a crucial aspect for all age groups and some learners of any age may need or want individual attention from the teacher; approval from their peers is also an important issue for them, since many students are searching for an identity and need to feel valued; they may already have experienced criticism and failure when learning a language but still have the potential to be motivated);
- Think about learners’ future needs in terms of English language skills. (Learners all want to achieve something. Find out why learners need English and if/why they feel it is important; don’t just rely on games to motivate learners);
- Identify relevant learning goals and make them clear to the learners. (Learners need to see a purpose and goal and the point of what they are doing; the teacher should be explicit and talk about long-term objectives and long-term success; a clear purpose is important for learners intellectually and emotionally);
- Avoid activities that only practice language. (Young learners tend to have a limited attention span and can get easily bored; they find abstract concepts and grammar rules difficult and need practical activities to help them practice the language; teenagers also tend to have a limited attention span; they are developing skills in managing abstract concepts but still need a balance of practical and less practical skills; adult learners can work with abstract concepts and grammar rules but may worry that as they age they will become less intelligent; they may also have very clear (and sometimes unrealistic) expectations about how and what they will learn);
- Adapt existing materials. (Look for materials that interest the learners’ age group);
- Adapt the outcome. (Make the activity more game-like);
- Give learners a choice of tasks, topics and materials. (Ask learners to choose materials; for example, learners research a subject they like on the internet and present it to the class or they make games and activities to try out on their friends);
- Develop cooperation and interaction. (A variety of interaction patterns is generally motivating for learners; provide fun team games that suit learners and require everyone to say something that is not too challenging; encourage peer support by using team activities that allow learners to support each other);
- Establish rules and boundaries;
- Give learners opportunities for independent thinking and self-study. (Use activities that are less teacher-led, such as planning a day out for the group);
- Make things personal. (Encourage students to talk about their own personal experience or their own ideas; the more we personalise materials and activities, the more likely they are to be motivating; there are many simple, resource-free ways we can make activities more personalized, for example, it is much more interesting for learners to describe a photo of a teacher’s friend than to describe a random picture in a book);
- Show relevance and value of study to their lives and/or exams. (Young learners, at secondary school for example, will have a wide range of ambitions (these may not always be practical). While nobody would suggest vocational English at these levels, it can be useful to think about the future careers of secondary school learners and include activities from time to time to make learners aware of how they might use English in the future).
Keeping these factors in mind can help support our choice of approaches, methodology, classroom management – in fact everything we do to keep our learners motivated in class.
Bibliography
www.teachingenglish.org.uk/professional-development/teachers/knowing-subject/teacher-talk-motivating-students
www.teachingenglish.org.uk/professional-development/teachers/understanding-learners/motivating-teenagers