<\/div>\n
MOTIV8: Eight Key Factors in Motivating Teenage Students<\/span><\/b><\/p>\nDavid Spencer<\/b><\/p>\n
Tbilisi, Georgia<\/i><\/p>\n
8th<\/sup> November 2014<\/i><\/p>\n\u00a01.)<\/strong> Personalisation<\/b><\/p>\nFor students to communicate comfortably in another language, it\u2019s important to create an atmosphere of personal trust in the classroom, where students feel at ease talking about their lives.<\/p>\n
Activities:<\/p>\n
\n- Talking T-shirts<\/span><\/b>: Ask students to bring to class (or simply describe) one, two or three T-shirts that have some personal significance to them. They give a short presentation to the class explaining the significance. This allows the students to learn about each other in a relaxed, interesting away.<\/li>\n
- Selfies<\/span><\/b>: After the holidays or weekend, draw two or three simple rectangles on the board. Ask students to imagine that this is the screen of their mobile phone. They should draw \u2018selfies\u2019 or photos of their holiday\/weekend. Then they show their \u2018photos\u2019 to a partner. Their partner asks them Yes\/No questions to find out about what they did.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
2.)<\/strong> <\/span>Challenge<\/b><\/p>\n\u00a0If you treat teenagers as if they know nothing, they\u2019ll act as if know nothing. Try to challenge students in terms of grammar, vocabulary, texts, and interesting content. Think also about having open-ended activities for fast finishers to avoid bored, potentially disruptive students.<\/p>\n
Activities for fast finishers:<\/p>\n
\n- Rose-Rise-Rice\u2026: <\/span><\/b>Students continue the list by changing one letter (any letter) at a time. E.g. Rose-rise-rice-nice-nine-fine-\u2026<\/b><\/li>\n
- The Three Letter Game:<\/span><\/b> Write three letters on the board. Students think of as many words as possible containing those three letters, in any order. Remind them that word formation can help them. Example answers for the letters RTN: train, north, natural, naturally, unnatural, presentation\u2026<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/p>\n
3.)<\/strong> \u2018Do-ability\u2019<\/b><\/p>\nGive teenage students structured activities that help to make difficult things easy, or do-able.<\/p>\n
Activity:<\/p>\n
\n- Madlib story:<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Ask students to write down:<\/p>\n
1. a country\u00a0\u00a0 2. a boy\u2019s name \u2013 famous, fictional, unusual\u2026\u00a0\u00a0 3. a girl\u2019s name\u2013 famous, fictional, unusual\u2026\u00a0\u00a0 4. a city\u00a0\u00a0 5. a verb in the past simple (+ object if necessary) \u00a0<\/i>6. an animal\u00a0\u00a0 7. a superhero\u00a0\u00a0 8. a place\u00a0\u00a0 9. a type of food\u00a0\u00a0 10. a number<\/i><\/p>\n
Then give them a skeleton text below to put their words into. Let them compare texts. Then analyse the linkers and use those linkers as a structure for the students\u2019 own text.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\tThis story took place in (1) _______. It all began when (2) _______ met (3) _______. They decided to go to (4) _______. Lots of things happened there. First they (5) _______. Then they saw a big (6) _______. The (6) _______ attacked them but just at that moment (7) _______ came and rescued them. (7) _______ took them to (8) _______ and they ate (9) _______. In the end, (2) _______ married (3) _______ and they had (10) _______ children.\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
4.)<\/strong> Engagement<\/b><\/p>\nThe main thing we need in any class is that the students are engaged and active in our activities. Enjoyment is an important factor.<\/p>\n
\n- Kim\u2019s Game<\/span><\/b>: Show the students 15 objects (on a tray\/in a photo). Give students time to memorise the objects, then take them away. Students, in pairs, try to remember what they saw. Then show the same objects again, but having taken away three or four. Can they identify the missing objects?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/p>\n
5.)<\/strong> Progress<\/b> \/ 6.)<\/strong> Success<\/b><\/p>\nHelp students to see the progress they\u2019re making. Do regular progress checks, guiding them to extra practice if they need it. Include cumulative practice and revision throughout the year.<\/p>\n
Activity:<\/p>\n
\n- Rewriting a low-level reader:<\/span><\/b> <\/b>Give B1+\/ B2\/B2+ students a simplified reader at A1\/A1+\/A2 level. Ask them to \u2018improve\u2019 short sentences by adding linkers, relative pronouns, and conjunctions.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/p>\n
7.)<\/strong> Variety<\/b><\/p>\nMake sure there is variety of skills and language work, interaction, task types, and media. Activities that are out of the ordinary will help to keep the students\u2019 interest.<\/p>\n
Activities:<\/p>\n
\n- Mime the picture:<\/span><\/b> Ask for a volunteer to come to the front of the class. Secretly show them a photo. The students should adopt the same position as the person in the photo. The rest of the class ask the student Yes\/No questions to discover what exactly is in the photo.<\/li>\n
- Alphabet Cards:<\/span><\/b> Distribute the cards to the class.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
(a)<\/strong> Spell words. Students who have a letter that appears in the word come to the front of the class and position themselves to spell the word correctly.<\/p>\n(b)<\/strong> Call out a category. Students have to think of a word beginning with their letter for the category. They hold up their card and say the word. If they can\u2019t, they lose a point.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
8.)<\/strong> Teacher Motivation<\/b><\/p>\nActivity:<\/p>\n
\n- Visit https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/macmillangateway<\/a> for teacher tips, videos, etc.!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Saturday the 8th of November, English Book in Georgia, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2197,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[202,528,182,656,199,252,660,531,683,684,1657,686,40,685,526],"class_list":["post-2196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-teachernews-trainingconferences-didyouknow-facts-interestingwords-interestingpeople-onthisday-interestingwordsandexpressions","tag-conference","tag-david-spencer","tag-english-book-in-georgia","tag-english-language-and-economic-development-in-the-globalized-world","tag-for-teachers","tag-macmillan-education","tag-ministry-of-education","tag-ministry-of-education-and-science","tag-motiv8","tag-motivate","tag-november-2014","tag-students","tag-teachers","tag-teenage","tag-teenagers","cat_34"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2196"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2203,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2196\/revisions\/2203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}