Teach English in Bianyuan Zhen - Tai'an Shi

INTRODUCTION I would like to suggest some motivation ideas for teachers teaching students ages 5 – 13 enrolling in EFL classes at a private English language school overseas. The lessons are typically one hour long. Parents enroll their children for up to 5 classes a week. Students are as young as 5 in Kindergarten level and as old as 13 in the 8th grade. They come to the private school after a full day at their public school where English may or may not be taught as one of many subjects. Classes are offered at the following levels: beginners, elementary, low intermediate, intermediate, high intermediate and advanced. There are more students at the kindergarten level and less at the advanced level. MOTIVATION--AN IMPORTANT FACTOR IN SUCCESSFUL LANGUAGE LEARNING To motivate is defined in The New American Webster Dictionary (4th edition) as “providing a mental force that induces an act.” Unmotivated students of EFL would not be paying attention in class. Instead, they will probably be day-dreaming or young students will be distracting other students. Motivated students, however, will pay attention to the class activities, participate in pair work or small group activities and work to improve their English. Although students will have different reasons for learning a foreign language, the teacher can make the lesson interesting and engaging so that even the unmotivated student will pay attention. Getting that attention would be the first step towards learning a foreign language. Choice of lesson topics is also important. At the beginning of the lesson, during the Engage phase of an ESA lesson, the teacher is trying to raise interest and elicit language related to the topic which may already be in the textbook lesson. The teacher’s job is to present the topic in an interesting and fun manner. There is room for some creativity. Teachers should feel free to use pictures and materials from realia to connect with the students. WAYS TO MOTIVATE AT DIFFERENT LANGUAGE LEVELS With a beginning class, the teacher should consider using many different kinds of communicative games and visual cues to teach new vocabulary related to a topic that interests most of the students. As basic vocabulary increases, students will be able to practice basic sentences in a simple conversation. Consideration should be given to the age and needs of the beginning students as the teacher uses games. Younger students will need more games in the lesson to stay engaged. Older students will not want to sing the same types of songs that younger children do. With elementary level students, they can be motivated to complete assignments if there is a reward system in place. For example, the teacher could set up a points system and periodically give small prizes (such as stickers) after a certain number of points are reached. Some younger students may like just receiving a sticker as a reward for work well done, without working towards points. Also, choosing topics of interest to discuss with the students in the Engage phase will keep the student’s attention. This will require the teacher to find ways to get better acquainted with his students. During the Engage phase, teachers can learn about what interests the students. If there are shy students who don’t speak up during the Engage phase, the teacher can ask a few Yes-No questions that require hand-raising in response. This technique can give the teacher some information about the interests of the quieter students. With intermediate to high intermediate level students who have more vocabulary and can communicate about more topics, the teacher should give them as much talk time as possible in the Engage and Activate phase of the ESA method; this will build up their confidence in using English which in turn will encourage them to practice using English outside of the classroom. Structured and creative dialogues related to typical daily interactions will interest and motivate older students to practice on their own. Even if the main culture primarily uses the student’s native language, the motivated student can find creative ways to expose himself to more English; for example, reading short stories in English, listening to English music on compact discs, watching short English DVDs, and perhaps for the advanced learner, finding a similar-age pen pal who is a native speaker of English. CONCLUSION Although several suggestions for increasing motivation have been made in this essay, i also acknowledge that it is not easy to motivate students learning a difficult task such as a foreign language in a classroom setting. Students have different reasons for taking an EFL class, which affect their interest level and motivation to improve their language ability. Therefore, the teacher should choose topics of interest to the students and plan for a variety of activities to hold the students’ attention. As students become interested they will usually put more effort into the learning activities. As confidence increases, so does personal motivation to attain greater fluency.