How Can
Teachers Generate Motivation in Young Learners to Study English at the Beginning
of the Year?
It’s important to welcome students
and make them feel comfortable as soon as they step foot into the classroom.
School is a place where students spend the majority of their day so it should
feel like their second home. Here are some ideas to welcome students back to
school after a long summer break.
Create an Inviting Classroom
One of the easiest ways to welcome
students is to create an inviting
classroom. This is a place where students are going to spend six hours a
day, five days a week. So, our classrooms should feel warm and inviting from
the first second they enter the door. A great way for students to feel like
their classroom is "theirs" is to have them help you decorate it and
add their own personal touch. During the first weeks back to school, teachers
should encourage students to create drawings and projects that can be displayed
in the classroom.
“A Special Bunch”
During the first couple days of school, a
teacher can take each child's photo, cut the child's face out in the shape of a
circle and then stimulate students make flower patterns out of color papers.
They can also write their names in the petals. Students will then glue their
photo in the center of their flower. Finally, a teacher uses green paper to
create the stems, and a color of your choice to create the ribbon.
“I Am Special”
This is a great activity and display for the
beginning of the year, or any other time that you would like to focus on unique
qualities of individual students. It's a fun activity that allows you to
introduce and/or practice quotation marks with your students. Make a class set
of a basic person shape. Students then decorate and cut out their shape.
Students write their own sentence explaining why they are special. For example,
"I am special because I can ride my bike and climb a tree." Having a
parent volunteer available to type the statements would be great. After
printing, students cut out their statement and glue it to a piece of
construction paper that resembles speech bubble.
“What Is Your Name?”
In order to help students to remember their
names it’s good to make a project “What is your name?” Make a class set of a
basic students’ hands shape. Then ask your students to write their names on the
shapes. After that glue each hand on a yellow circle and create your class
hand-name sun.
Back-to-School
"Recipe for a Great School Year"
A teacher
cuts out a giant recipe card and put the title "Recipe for a Great School
Year" in the upper top of the poster. Then write "ingredients"
and list the kid's names. After that write "directions" and add your
part about one cup cooperation etc...
“A Tree of Our Dreams”
A teacher paints a tree and prepares stickers
in the shape of flowers, leaves or apples. In the lesson ask your students
write their wishes and dreams for the following year. Then create a kind of “A
Tree of Our Dreams”
A positive "psychological
environment" strongly influences student motivation too. School teachers
can create this type of environment by establishing policies and programs that:
- stress goal setting and
self-regulation/management
- offer students choices in
instructional settings
- reward students for attaining
"personal best" goals
- foster teamwork through group
learning and problem-solving experiences
- replace social comparisons of
achievement with self-assessment and evaluation techniques
- teach time management skills
and offer self-paced instruction when possible
Individual goal-setting structures
allow students to define their own criteria for success.
Outcome-based instruction and evaluation make
it possible for slower students to experience success without having to compete
with faster students. Attribution
retraining can help apathetic students view failure as a lack of effort rather
than a lack of ability. Cooperative learning activities help students realize
that personal effort can contribute to group as well as individual goals.
Teachers use a variety of methods to
teach English as a second language. Each student is unique and will respond
well to a particular method. ... Adapting your style to your class can be an
effective teaching method.
Games can increase English knowledge
while keeping students interested in the class. With young students, you may
want to try games that are active, such as throwing an object to hit a
vocabulary card and having them use that word in a sentence. You can also use
quieter games, such as Bingo or word puzzles.
A
Warm-up Game
Games such as charades are good in developing
your class's interest and talent in drama. You could have your class play it in
a substitute period. Divide the class into teams. Each team, usually after a
collective discussion, gives one member of the other team who has volunteered
to mime (some action, Christmas items). Only one member of the team is shown
the name and he or she has to mime it without mouthing any of the words for his own team members who have to guess
it. If they guess it correctly within the stipulated time period (three to five
minutes) they win a point. This game is going to tell you a lot about your
students. It will also loosen up the atmosphere of your class and prepare you
and your students for doing drama.
Visual Aids
Visual aids such as flash cards can
help quickly build vocabulary. For example, you may go through a stack of flash
cards to teach new words, then use those words in a game. Without the cards,
students may not know what you are talking about. You can also use visual aids
such as English movies or TV shows to teach the students about American
culture.
Role-playing
Conversational practice is key to
improving students' English abilities. Set the students up in different
scenarios, such as meeting a new friend, describing a new toy of a student to his/her friends, and have the students
role-play the conversation. You could have students practice with you or with
one another.
