Motivation

Today I will share with you some information that is very important for us as teachers or future ones!

It is about motivation!

Williams and Burden said:

Motivation is a state of  cognitive and emotional arousal, which lives to consciuos decision to act, and which gives grace to a period of sustain intelectual and physical effort in order to attained a previously set goal.

There are 3 different types of motivation that I'll deal with:

Integrative Motivation:

When students want to learn a language to become part of a speech community (integrate). People who immigrate to new countries are some examples of people who may want to identify with the community around them. An important aspect of this form of language learning is using language for social interaction. This form of motivation is thought to produce success in language learners. This is often compared to instrumental motivation.

Instrumental Motivation:

Wanting to learn a language for the purpose of obtaining some concrete goals such as a job, graduation, or the ability to read academic materials. This form of motivation is thought to be less likely to lead to success than integrative motivation.

Intrinsic Motivation:

Motivation in learning that comes from a sense of empowerment in being able to do something. Doing something for the sake of doing it without thought of rewards such as praise, grades,  candy, or money.  Intrinsic motivation can be contrasted with extrinsic motivation where the learner performs a task in order to receive some kind of reward.

Intrinsic motivation is thought to have far greater benefits in the long run. This in turn suggests that ESL teachers should try to foster intrinsic motivation instead of providing rewards for doing well. However, because ESL teacher rarely have long term contact with students, they opt for the quick fix solutions to make their classes run smoothly now - something to think about next time you want to bribe a class of hyperactive grade 4s with candy and a quiz.

Extrinsic Motivation:

Motivation through rewards such as points, candies, compliments, money, test scores, or grades. These rewards are externally administered and may inhibit learning in the long run, although seeming to be effective in the short run. One problem is that they are addictive. Researchers generally agree that intrinsic motivation is better for longterm learning.

In order to have motivated students I'll will give you some teaching strategies for unmotivated students...

1. Deal with disruptions first.

2. Compliment unmotivated students.

3. Involve unmotivated students in classroom discussions.

4. Present your lessons in creative ways.

5. Keep the atmosphere lighthearted.

6. Create a strong mental link between education and life fulfillment.

I hope this information could be of great importance to you!

It is for me!

I would like to finish today's post with this Chinese Proverb:

“Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.”

 

Blessings!

Towards Reflective Teaching

How are guys!? I hope you're doing oqek, I haven't write for some days but I'm back haha! With music's help in this cloudy day!

Today I want to share with you some experiencies and comments about my teaching practicum I've been developing since some weeks ago and at the end I'll talk how we can do reflective teaching.

Working with teenagers is not as easy as someone could think and  additionally if you have 48 students (in my case) or more!

There's a big variety of humors, behaviors, different thinking types between them and not counting the teenager's problem they're dealing with.

We as educators have to know how to deal with this kind of problems and the way we can give our students an answer because it can affects a lot to one of our students' stages they're going through. Remember it's a stage of changes in life.


 

Sometimes it's pretty difficult to get their attention in class, playing with them some times is not a good idea because at this age their interests are different from a child game. So we have to think a lot about a game that could get their interest in order to have a good teaching. In my case I tried to play a game with them but it didn't work, first of all because the classroom is kind of small and they are 48 students so, get their attention and the challenge of getting all of them involved in the activity was so difficult.(not all of them wanted to participate)

One thing we don't have to forget is we have to be one of them and think how would like them to receive the class.

Always have the lesson plan with you, this tool will always help you to have a good class management. At the time of doing it don't forget, it could be changed in any moment of the class and that's an advantage for us.

To know if we are having a good class we can reflect about it!

*What is a reflection?

Is the recalling of an event that has happened in the past.

*We can do it asking "What and Why"

*How does reflection take place?

When you see that there's a problem.

To do a good reflection you have to go through 3 stages:

Stage 1:

To think about the event itself.

Stage 2:

Recollection of the event.

Stage 3:

Review and response to the event.

Also to this you can add:

*Peer observation: Each participant would both observe and be observed.

*Written account of experiences: If you don't have a peer to reflect with, buy a notebook.

*Self-reports: Only for ourself.

Since we have written accounts and self-reports we can make:

*Autobiographies: This is share with everybody.

*Journal writing: This is only by ourself.

*Recording lesson: We can record a class taught by ourself and then we can analyze it.

and finally we have

*Conclusions: They are made by ourself.