Student Motivation in the EFL Classroom
Basic Concepts:
Sparking
student motivation is an important part of any teacher's
function. Effective teachers will make sure that
students know WHY they need to learn the language that
is the target of the day's lesson.
There are several things that the instructor can do to
drive student motivation. First, at the beginning of
the lesson, build a context where the target language
might be used. Then - when building a dialog or
structure chart on the marker board - attempt to elicit
as much of that language as possible from the students.
The more the language actually comes from the students -
the more they will be interested in it.
During the "production" or "Activation" component of the
lesson be sure that students are using the target
language to talk about their lives, feeling, and
interests. This makes the lesson more personal and thus
more interesting - building motivation. Most
people enjoy talking about themselves.
Relevance - is an another important factor in building
student motivation. Adults need to talk about adult
things, kids need to talk about kid things - teenagers
need to talk about teenager things - to build their
interest in the lesson. You will sometimes have to step
away from coursebooks to make this work. One popular
coursebook for young learners actually has dialogs about
buying cars and airplane tickets - things that that
students would never do at that age. Buying a stuffed
toy or video game would be much more interesting and
motivating to them.
Realia, the use of authentic items in lessons, also
builds interest. When teaching about fruit bring some
fruit. In a work environment use documents from their
daily work as a base for lessons.
Expanded
Concepts:
Understanding and Increasing Student Motivation -
downloads a Power Point file
Motivation: Some General Theories and Classroom
Strategies - some excellent articles about student
motivation
