As we know, both students and teachers, ‘Motivation’ is the learning fuel. Thus the main question is;
How to get and keep going "Motivation" learning a new language
From my experience as a second language student, we can keep up "Motivation" in the following situations...
- when we are perceiving that we are improving.
- when we are having a fun and useful learning.
- when we feel that teacher is close by us.
Taking account the above items in mind, as a teacher point of view, we must become conscious on:
Conveying self-confidence.
We must periodically recall topics studied in the recent past time (among 2 or 3 weeks). In this manner the students will be able to remember that contents much better, practicing them fluently increasing their confidence, what will raise the positive emotion, therefore “Motivation”
Making learning fun.
Starting the lesson through an image that be fun, with or without text, it is a good first step. The goal is get a smile from the student, “breaking the ice” to start talking about the picture. If you don't lose sight of keeping humor, attention and interest of the students will be guaranteed. The students must to really fancy for a new one class.
Another very important aspect is to use learning contents, as authentic as possible, including many examples related to the objectives of the lesson.
Staying closer.
The student has to feel that the teacher is close by, understands its difficulties, helping to overcome frustrations, and most important issue, the student is convinced that the teacher has a real commitment with its learning to achieve its goals.
Do not worry, if in some occasion you do not have the best explanation or can´t clarify a doubt, be honest and recognize it. Pledge yourself to find out a good explanation with examples as soon as possible. The student will appreciate and value it. As I said before, the most important issue, it is the student feels accompanied in its learning process.
If we are able to manage well these three items, we will make the students look forward to improving their language level, which is our main objective.
Let me tell you a success story,
About two years ago, I started teaching Spanish language to a very, very shy student. She had a lot of communication issues, in my opinion, from self-confidence and fear of making mistakes. Besides I neither could see its gestures, since she did not use its camera. I was desperate because the lessons do not run well. One day I found out she really loved guinea pigs. From then on all the classes started with a funny image of these animals. I looked for a guinea pig picture and added some texts that she had to read. I also looked for all sort of information about these animals. Since then she started feeling more confident speaking Spanish and on my way of teaching. Currently she is an advanced speaker of Spanish language among other skills. By the way, I have two guinea pigs :)
I wish you every of success.
Cheer up!
Antonio
From Antonio Alegret (https://www.italki.com/teacher/3020133)
Comments
6 comments
I totally agree on the fact that we as teachers must pay attention to every detail from the students so we can come up with different ideas that will help them to improve the target language.
I loved your article. Thanks for sharing Antonio!
Thanks for the advice, I have a student and we can't connect yet, I'm going to find what he loves and I'll make special classes for him.
Its kind of interesting what you say, I had also an experience with a teenager, he was 15 and he would turn on his camera but point it to the sealing and I was feeling a little rejected, I also talked to his parents about what was happening during the classes but at the end, one day I started talking about food, because I was trying to do an activity about our daily routines, and what we have in common. so it was interesting because since that day he just got super engaged! We were having the classes , obviously grammar and pronunciation activities, but with having the food topic. I had to do some researching about it, but then, we had a connection and he was telling me other things that he was interested on, and now I can tell that he's one of my best students, and also we have been working for a year now.
in conclusion I just think that its important not to give up, and trying to have different topics for conversations.
I hope my success Story gives you a little more ideas for your classes :)
Siempre he creído que la motivación es nuestro combustible y siii tiene un efecto muy positivo en los estudiantes y hasta en uno mismo. He tenido recientemente a un estudiante que no enciende su cámara y me preguntaba que poder hacer ya que desde un principio me indico que no la usaría. Me ha servido de orientación tu experiencia y las ideas compartidas. Muchísimas gracias Antonio! :)
i don't know yet because I don't know how to do it yet but whish me luck because I am 10 years old.
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