Section 4: Student Feedback and Correction

Chapter 24: Student Motivation

As a teacher you should always be wondering and thinking of the best ways to keep your students motivated and to keep them constantly learning. However, when it comes to motivation each student and age group will be different for what keeps them interested and motivated from day to day in your classes. While you can offer kids incentives like candies and other things, this can become expensive if you are constantly buying snacks and food for your students out of your own pocket money. As a teacher you need to find what motivates your students and adjust as time goes on. For younger students layering games with educational lessons and educational games is the best way to keep the students interested and for them to want to continue coming to school and enjoying each day. Maybe your students really enjoy Disney movies or short videos or songs in English, you can offer these as rewards for your students to create a good classroom mood and to let them relax and not worry too much in the classroom. Establishing that the classroom is both a place for learning and enjoyment is very big for students, especially when they are children. Some students will try to negotiate or become despondent if they don’t get to constantly play games and have fun in class, and you just have to learn to ignore them at times and continue to push through lessons regardless of the actions or acting out of one student. Just remember that for each class you have to try to base your rewards for motivation on what the students will react the strongest to, if students like to end class with 5 minutes of free time as a reward you should try to give them a reason to work hard in the class in order to be rewarded. Every class is different and for every age group motivation will be different, you should always observe your classes and see what works best with your classes and students. Teaching at times is a give and take, to gain your students interest and trust you need to remember that students like to feel a sense of accomplishment and to feel rewarded and respected (even children!). Once you get into a rhythm and know what your classes like and prefer, you will easily be able to keep your students motivated and teaching will become simple and easy for each of your classes on a daily basis.