Motivation

[darkeyezangel]

Hi!!! I'm a young teacher from Cuba and I just began giving english classes, which means that I just graduated and have little or no experience at all... I find it hard to motivate my students and I was wondering if anyone could provide some tips to do so... I really enjoy giving classes and my students are pretty good, but I seem to be going trhough some trouble finding good material that motivates them not to study but to participate in class...Hope to get some reply...Peace!!!!!!Yami

[richmel1234]

Hi

I definately know where you're coming form.. Teenagers.. ugh. Anyhow, in my experience there have been a couple of activities that have helped.
It takes a bit of time for students to open up and speak freely - as they need to get to know each other, and you.
Make it personal - as a rule people love speaking about themselves and they love speaking to each other - so setting up information exchanges could get them going.
Games - simple vocab games like - 2 teams, one person of each team with their backs to the whiteboard, teachers writes a word and the team members facing the w/b has to give a definition that the ss with their back to it has to guess.
Not using the book all the time has also helped.
Hope this helps a bit.