Teach English in Linjian Zhen - Linyi Shi

As an educator, the success of your teaching can be dependent on the motivation of your students. This driving force behind a student’s learning is something powerful to be captured and taken advantage of, in order to ensure progress. Not everyone has the same motivations, in fact, this can often originate from very personal reasons and so is individualised. Further, methods used to motivate learners from a teacher’s perspective will change, according to factors such as their age. In the following summative piece, I aim to examine first what motivation is, in all of its forms and then how this can be applied to two different age groups. I have chosen very young learners and Business English learners as these are the two categories that I am currently teaching in most. I will use what I learnt throughout this thorough course to underpin my thoughts and ideas. Whereas intrinsic motivation is from within and is usually present when people wish to participate in an activity, extrinsic motivation normally comes from an external source, for example, achieving recognition for their work or winning a reward. Interestingly, using the same extrinsic reward structures for intrinsic motivation can lessen their own interest, impacting on their performance. Most people who join an ESL classroom have already proven they have some form of intrinsic motivation by signing up and taking the first step. Common goals include English for business, for academic achievement, for travel or for the love of learning a new language. Combined with excellent teaching, this should be enough to spark their long-term commitment and engagement to completing their goal! It is prudent however, to consider the effect of too much extrinsic motivation. Despite the fact that this can grow intrinsic motivation over time, too much leads a learner’s focus on the short-term goals and does not allow them to become independent in their drive to achieving their original aims and objectives. This is especially true of children, which I will now consider in greater depth. Children’s Motivations Children enjoy short, varied activities in class, with learning broken up into small sections and lots of opportunities to apply their learning, both independently and with their peers. Timed activities and an edge of competition will always motivate students who are younger and increase their engagement – using an interactive timer has always been a great success in my class! Practical resources such as jumbled sentences, word searches, Pictionary, hangman all save on students writing for long periods of time and activate higher critical thinking skills, such as problem solving and pattern recognition. Children also respond well to new vocabulary in different formats, for example, an audio recording of carefully-selected words in varied accents. Alternatively, hidden words around the room that they must find. These both develop intrinsic motivation because the child is fully engaged in how much ‘fun’ the activity is. This also allows them to get up and move around so they do not become bored. Finally, reducing the amount of teacher talk time by ensuring you are integrating lots of pair work or small group work allows children to learn from each other and will help to build the confidence of more shy members of groups. This is also a super opportunity to reward those who try to avoid independently speaking in their own native language, which should develop a classroom culture where this naturally diminishes. In instances like this, I do like to give stickers, badges or even pencils as a form of extrinsic motivation, however, this is not anticipated and not often. It means that children start to understand that they will not be rewarded consistently but that you are always listening and hope that you will catch them doing the right thing! Business English Learners Motivations When teaching a group of adults, you would normally find they have more independent reasons for wishing to progress their English skills. It is your responsibility as a teacher to find out what these are and to incorporate them into your lesson. For example, one of your students wishes to travel for a year in America and Canada – if you are completing a travel or tourism lesson, why not pick these countries and use as many authentic materials as possible? This will increase their motivation because you are making it relevant to someone in the class. Some business people will be more reluctant to participate as their English lessons may be obligatory. With these students, it is important to try and change their attitude as soon as possible. Ensuring that your lessons are communicative through the use of role-play, communication games and lots of student talk time centred around real-life business situations should increase their motivation to learn. In order to find out what to base your communicative activities on, use a needs analysis at the beginning of your course so that you can ascertain different areas of weaknesses and strength. Also, focus more on abilities that are valuable to employers such as presentation skills, using these as assignments throughout your teaching so that participants feel they can apply their learning to their own business environment. Praise, although important from a teaching perspective should always be sincere, personal to the person you are talking to and should make the student leave the lesson with a positive impression of you as the teacher and the lesson. It can be communicated very simply through a smile, a nod of the head, use of their name or even a small gesture like a thumbs up. Ensure that you are culturally sensitive when giving out praise – some students may feel uncomfortable if this is in front of the class. Constantly reflecting on how my students feel about the way I motivate them will be monitored in evaluation reports at the end of course units. With these guidelines in place, I feel confident that I can build learners motivations in my classroom.