The Kind of Motivation Important for an ESL Classroom

When starting any class, if you expect that your students will be motivated to learn a new language, at first, you have to be primarily motivated and enthusiastic. We have seen that we can have self-motivated students and also reluctant students, it’s the teacher’s role to make the best to involve providing an interesting and pleasant class when you show passion to the subject that you are teaching, it can be contagious for most students, who will model your positive behavior.

This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Thamiris M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.

Teacher’s Part

Your approach and your attitude in class will reflect on the students’ responses, therefore, remember to keep your good mood and be inviting with the students, you should give them confidence and let them feel comfortable to make mistakes and keep trying to hit.

With time, we get to experience and consequently it is going to be easier to identify the students’ profiles and interests, at that time you will be able to select activities that will aloud the class to learn and assimilate the content besides they are having fun and enjoying. Students often are unmotivated because they are bored. Grab their attention with stimulating activities, you can make group discussions, surveys where they can answer about their favorite bands, songs, movies, hobbies, etc.

When you create healthy competitions where the winner will receive a prize, it will provide an interesting time in class, students will show interest and increase participation in everyday classroom duties and responsibilities.

Also Read: Classroom Management for Young Learners in Japan

Daily Routine

During the class, you should often do compliments at your students, when they hear from the teacher that they are doing a good job, that they are improving their speaking or listening skills, it will surely motivate them to be engaged and open to keep learning and achieving goals.

Successful students are happy students and to have a classroom of happy students, teachers may encourage students to be productive in learning both at home and in school.

Rewarding students can be a way to have them focused and motivated even when they are at home, they will have more motivation to do the homework and study for the tests as well.

Show them how the English language can be useful to them, show the countries where they can use it, the jobs that fluency in English will be a differential.

Also Read: Where do schools provide free housing for English teachers abroad?

Outer Motivation

Even I believe that motivation is something that comes from inside each person, I believe as well that it’s possible to influence others' motivation, and this one is essential to have a productive class. Building a good relationship with your students will also lead you to success, allow the students to work together, most of them will find it fun to try to find the solution, make experiments, and work on projects with other students, the social interaction can get them excited about things in the classroom and students can motivate one another to reach a goal.

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