"Motivation is as
much an effect as a cause of learning." Ausubel
In this article I will discuss how
teachers can aim to improve the motivation levels of teenage students. I will
link three practical classroom activities to the ideas of American Psychologist
Carl Rogers.
- Types of
motivation and teenagers
- Ways to improve
motivation
- Journals -
empathy
- Using photos -
authenticity
- Music -
acceptance
The ideas of Carl Rogers
Rogers (1957) outlined 3 attitudinal qualities that a teacher, or in his words,
a facilitator, should have to assist the learning process. They are empathy
(seeing things from the students' viewpoint), authenticity (being yourself) and
acceptance (of students' ideas and opinions).
Types of motivation and teenagers
It is widely agreed that motivation has a great effect on a student's capacity
to learn. Motivation can be broken down into extrinsic and intrinsic forms.
Intrinsic motivation comes from within the learner, who wants to learn for the
sake of learning. Although not impossible to find an intrinsically motivated
teenage student, five years of experience working with Young Learners in Spain
leads me to believe that they are few and far between! It is much more likely
that our teenage students will be extrinsically motivated, meaning that their
motivation comes from external sources such as wanting to pass an exam or
please their parents. The good news for teachers of teenagers is that there are
many things we can do in the classroom to increase the levels of extrinsic
motivation.
Ways to improve motivation
- Journals - Empathy
Journal writing can create wonderful opportunities to find out more about
your students' lives. When introducing the idea of writing journals it is
important to make the aims and general rules clear to students.
Students should each have their own notebook to use as their journal.
These should be kept by the teacher and it should be made clear that the
teacher will not read anyone's writing out in the class. It will be
strictly a two-way 'conversation' between the individual student and the
teacher. At the end of the course I always give the students their
journals to keep.
It should be made clear that the idea is to communicate effectively in
English and not to worry too much about mistakes. The teacher will not
correct mistakes and will focus solely on the meaning. I always keep a
list of common mistakes that are made in the journals and deal with them as
and when it is appropriate as an integrative part of the course. I would
never use a sentence lifted directly from a journal to focus on an error.
Class time should be set aside for journal writing. At the start of a
course, I ask students to begin their journals by telling me about
themselves and their reasons for studying English. The teacher collects
all the journals in and replies individually to each one and asks a
question or two, which will be the prompts for the next class's journal
writing.
Although replying to the writing in the journals can be time consuming it
really does help the teacher to empathise with the students. Discovering,
for example, that the reason one of my students didn't like to sing in
class was because his voice was breaking, or that one of the students was
having problems with a group of friends at school really helps to remind
us of what it is like to be a teenager! I am sure these students would not
have seen it as appropriate to come and talk to me about these issues but
they did feel comfortable to write about them. Many students have really
enjoyed the process of journal writing and have felt motivated to write in
English on a regular basis.
- Using photos - Authenticity
Teenage students can be very curious and
inquisitive. Given half the chance they want to know more about you and
your life outside the classroom. It is a personal decision how much of
yourself you want to give away and share with your students. I have always
found that personalising really helps to increase students' interest
levels. Carl Rogers claimed that learning would be much more effective
when the facilitator does not hide behind a façade.
Using photos can really help to spark genuine interest and generate a lot
of language. Topics that lend themselves to the use of photos are
describing people, family, holidays or describing places. How much more
interesting to describe a photo of the teacher's friend or sister than to describe a photo of a random
unknown man in a book? How much more engaging to see holiday photos from
the teacher's summer break rather than the typical desert island shots
used in course books? Grammar lessons can also be supported with photos.
To give a simple example, teaching 'used to' becomes much more memorable
when sentences with a visual image can be formed. Eg. "my teacher
used to have long hair and a moustache"
Of course there can be drawbacks with letting the students into your
personal life, and you should think carefully about who to 'introduce'
your class to! Teenagers have excellent memories, so questions about the
people in the photos will last for the whole course, sometimes the
relationships may not last quite as long!
- Music - Acceptance
Teenagers love listening to music! A sweeping generalisation, but on the
whole I have found it to be
true. Due to the fact that so much popular music is in English it can be a
source for highly motivating activities.
Although it can be tempting to only use music in the class that you enjoy
listening to, teenagers really appreciate it if you make the effort to
find out what they like listening to. To get this information students can
write surveys to do with the class to find out the top five favourite
bands. When you know what they like to listen to encourage students to
lend you the CDs or tapes. I often record music videos from a local TV
channel.
Most teachers have a variety of activities to use with songs. Lyrics can
be easily found on the internet and there are many opportunities to
exploit language in songs. Students themselves can be involved in creating
activities to use with their favourite songs.
Having music on in the background can really change the atmosphere of a
classroom. When students are working in groups I sometimes like to have
music playing softly in the class. Rather than always play my own tastes I
allow students to bring in their own tapes. A class vote decides what we
listen to when we work. By accepting their music tastes and 'tuning in' to
them, the motivation levels of a class can be improved. Teenagers know a
lot about music and will be willing to tell you all about it. Rather than
ignoring the differences in taste between them and you, exploit them and
use them as a real information gap!
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