Teach English in Linjiacun Zhen - Weifang Shi

Throughout their careers, teachers come across a variety of students that will differ in interests, skill level, and motivation level. Although teachers can typically use common strategies to adjust the classroom learning style for different levels of learners, it can be difficult to motivate students to work hard and take accountability for their own learning. However, empowering students can encourage motivation and help students get excited to learn and grow in their abilities. One way teachers can motivate their students is by developing curriculum based around students’ interests. This has two great effects: it shows students that you care about them and are invested in them, and it usually increases the amount of attention students are willing to pay to the lesson. For example, if you are teaching a group of girls who are all interested in softball, making every lesson about cooking might cause them to lose interest and motivation in the course. However, if you structure your lessons to tie in themes of softball, the girls will in most likelihood get excited to take part in the lesson. This can be especially important in Activate activities, as students have the flexibility during this time to explore their fluency and challenge themselves to improve their language skills to engage with the theme and content of the material. Another way that teachers can empower students is by including activities and projects in the lesson plan that give the students room to be creative. When students are faced with worksheet after worksheet, they often lose motivation and are willing to do only the bare minimum to get by. However, when students are given the freedom to express themselves and dream and think bigger, they often surprise both their teacher and themselves with the quality of work they are able to produce. I think in particular of a project a Spanish teacher once gave me. We were to work in a group to create a play script entirely in Spanish based off of a specific set of vocabulary words all to do with mysteries. While it was slightly ambiguous and difficult in the beginning, my group got more and more excited about the possibilities of our script and plot, which led us to actively seek out the definitions and understanding of new vocabulary and concepts that we could incorporate. Empowering students can be as simple as letting their creativity run wild in loosely structured activities. A final way to empower students is through the right responses to student statements and questions. Instead of giving students the right answer immediately when they ask a question, a good teacher instead helps a student work through their question and problem by asking thought-provoking questions or referring them back to specific parts of the lesson. By guiding students through the process of finding the solution, the student feels as they have ownership over the learning process, instead of simply practicing learned helplessness every time they encounter a challenge. Similarly, when students do this process on their own and self-correct, take accountability for their learning, or push through a problem, teachers should provide that student with positive affirmation so the student can recognize the progress they have made and feel proud of their work. Often, this feeling of pride is enough for students to increase their motivation to work harder. They crave this feeling and are willing to actively seek it. Teachers have the ability to empower students and increase motivation levels, even if the students arrive in the classroom utterly despondent and unwilling to try. Three main ways that a teacher can focus on doing so are by fitting lessons around students’ interests, allowing students to be creative, and affirming students when they have worked through a difficult problem. Motivation and empowerment go hand and hand, and when teachers care enough to empower students, the results in the classroom can be overwhelming as students begin investing in their own development and growth.