Teach English in Shangxinzhuang Zhen - Xining Shi

Motivating Students By Aaron Osei Bonsu Motivation is defined as the process that initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented behaviors. Motivation results from the interaction of both conscious and unconscious factors such as, the intensity of desire or need, incentive or reward value of the goal, expectations of the individual, and of his or her peers. In most educational institution, one expects students to be highly motivated because of the different assignments and exams that they write. But this is not always the case.In fact, when it comes to classroom work or learning, most students lack motivation and there are many reasons for this. For example, if the topic discussed and the assignment given is difficult, it will not motivate the students to learn. Take the case of a student who after attending a lesson in English grammar, with assignment to submit, had to go for another lesson in mathematics. If the mathematics teacher also gives him assignment and the student has to submit both assignments on the same date, it will put pressure on him especially if there is no one to help him do it, and this will cause him to lose interest in the subjects. Another reason why students lack motivation to study is when they have problems at home. It is true that the school and students place of residence are two separate entities, but problems at home, can affect the student performance in the classroom. It can cause the student to have a divided attention and unable to focus on his studies. Furthermore, some students are not motivated because they lack confidence to stand up and speak in class, and if the lesson involves making presentation in front of the class, they will not feel comfortable to participate. Finally, students who do not relate well with their classmates may lack motivation to attend school. Nevertheless, in spite of the above mentioned reasons, the teacher can still use some strategies to motivate students in class to become more serious with their studies because if the students are motivated, it will show in their class assignment and exams. First, praise students when they do well in class. As a teacher, part of your job is to make sure that the lesson you teach has been understood well and one way to check this, is to give students assignment. If some of the students do very well in the assignment, call them by their names in class and praise them by saying things like, “well done”, “you did very well, keep it up”. What happens is that when you praise the students in class in front of their peers, their classmate who did not do well in the assignment but, at the same time feel shy to approach you to ask for explanation, will ask their colleagues to explain the homework or assignment to them. Also, to ensure that students take the lesson seriously, let them know that some of the questions in the assignment will be repeated in the end of term exams and this will motivate them to study that topic continuously and prepare very well for the exams. Secondly, give small awards on weekly basis to students who show good behavior in class and complete all assignment on time. The award could be chocolate, biscuit or even a very nice jotter. Use three indicators for the award such as good behavior in class, punctuality to school and completion of assignment on time. Give the award to student who obeys all the indicators set by you on weekly basis. You can also vary the awards so that they will be in the state of expectation for something new every week and this will motivate them to take their studies seriously. Thirdly, assign them classroom jobs. Create a list of light jobs and assign students responsibility on weekly basis. For instance, one student can be in charge of cleaning black board, another student can take up the duty of writing list of talkative, a different student can also be updating the calendar in the classroom, the last student can be in charge of collecting all assignment from the students when they complete it and hand it over to the teacher. These roles can be rotated on weekly basis so that each student gets the opportunity to participate, and this will motivate them to learn hard since they will become interested in the subject because of the roles assigned to them. The fourth way to motivate students is to hand over some form of control to them. Ask the students what they enjoy doing, for instance the kind of sports they like, the type of questions they want to see in an examination whether it is a multiple test questions or essay writing, what will help them to learn effectively and factor all this into the lesson plan so that you can make the teaching more fun. For instance if you are teaching a science class and the topic is on reproduction system, you can get a short video on reproduction and show it to the class before explaining the various stages of pregnancy to them. This will help them to understand the topic better and motivate them to learn hard. The fifth way to motivate students is to relate the lessons to their lives. At times, the reason why the students are not motivated is because they do not see the applications of what they learn in class to real life situations. Whereas some topics can easily be understood by students such as the causes of unemployment in economics lesson or how to manage a business in Management lesson, some subjects seem to be a little abstract to the student. Mostly, students find it difficult to relate mathematical topics to their every day. A student for instance, will not know the importance of studying a topic like bar chart or histogram in maths unless the teacher explains that, when conducting surveys, depending on how people respond, the information can be used to plot a bar chart or histogram and enable the research student to get a sample data which can be generalize instead of interviewing so many people. Once they understand the importance of the topic, they will become motivated to learn it. The final way to motivate students in class is to inform them that you are planning a field trip to an interesting place within the city and you would like them to decide on the places to visit. Let the students know the cost of the trip and tell them that the first 10 students who complete all assignments on time and perform well in all the exams for the term, they will not pay anything since you have decided to pay for them, and this will motivate them to study hard throughout the term.