How to Motivate Children to Want to Learn
II. Make your students Active Learners
Think back to when you were in school. Did you like to sit at a desk and listen to the teacher drone on and on? This type of passive learning is BORING and demotivating. Active learning doesn’t mean the children need to by physically active throughout the class period, it just means that you design your class period around having them actively participate in the learning process. There are lots of things you can do:
Play Games
Implement games that have the same outcome that you might have them reach by doing a worksheet. For example, if you might normally give them a worksheet to write the correct verb next to the picture illustrating the action, have them instead practice their verbs by doing the action for the word you say or the word on a card that you hold up. Likewise, you could do the action and have them write down the word.
Get Them Moving
Many games involve movement without the children needing to leave their seats, such as mining, moving certain body parts and passing things around as part of a game or race.
Movement is a vital component in motivating children. The best way to prevent children from zoning out is to get them up out of their seats at least once each class period. Even if you just require them to come up to you instead of you going to them for help, the movement can help get them out of the trance that they sometimes get from sitting in one spot too long. Grouping the children for study projects and activities helps as well. If you can, let them move the desks around or sit on the floor to change things up as well. Many games involve movement without the children needing to leave their seats, such as miming, moving certain body parts and passing things around as part of a game or race. Therefore even teachers with large classes and no space to move can use this technique, although to a more limited degree.
Get Their Hands “Dirty”
Well, not literally, but the more hands-on activities you can do the better they will learn and the more likely they will stay interested in the activity. If you’re talking about the words to describe fruit, have each student bring in a piece of fruit and use the fruits in games. It is much more motivating and effective to be handling real objects, or learning with pictures than copying down lists of words from the board. If you are discussing how to put a sentence together, have them construct their own sentences (alone or with a partner) and write them on the chalkboard. You can also intentionally make mistakes to encourage them to look for the “right” way. If you do this you should warn the children so that they are on the lookout for your deliberate errors, otherwise you could do more harm than good.
III. Stick to a Schedule
Creating a schedule for your students help them know what to expect in the class and will help them stay organized as well which will lower the frustration level for children who sometimes struggle in school. It is very difficult for frustrated children to stay motivated. If they know that every Friday is a vocabulary quiz, then they won’t have to wonder on Thursday if they were supposed to study last night. If they have weekly assignments due on every Wednesday, then you don’t have to spend the majority of the class time reminding them that the weekly assignment is due. This schedule should be clearly explained to the children as well as posted in the classroom.
Creating a scheduled for your students help them know what to expect in the class and will help them stay organized as well which will lower the frustration level for children who sometimes struggle in school
You can also have a mini-schedule that outlines how each class period will go. For example, each class period you might do vocabulary exercises and games for 15 minutes and then move on to the main activity of the day. It also helps children if you post a daily “plan” on the chalkboard so they know what will be expected of them each day when they walk into the classroom.
To be continued…
Source: https://www.teachingenglishgames.com/Articles/Motivating_Children.htm
Editor: Michael R. Clarke
