miss t said:
I am teaching at a very large primary school in the Middle East. I am looking to introduce a whole school reward system to encourage the children to use as much spoken English as much as they can. Anyone got any ideas?
Well, first of all, it's a good idea to find out what reward systems exist already within the culture. Ask the teachers. Second, since it's a 'large' school, you may want to consider setting up class reward systems. This is done by posting colorful boards in each classroom. The boards list the students names, and beside each name there are squares (for stamps or stickers or even a pencil mark) which the students self-score. Stickers can be given to individual students within the class or outside the class (keep stickers in your pockets) or to each member of a team if the team wins the activity game. At the end of the term, the class with the most stickers, wins an award, which could simply be the knowledge of knowing that they did the best, tried their best at speaking English within their school.
One great thing about this type of motivational activity is that you'll find students coming up to you in the halls and even in the teachers room. If you live in the same community as your students, they'll be approaching you in the supermarket!
You can also add to the activity by handing out one sticker to each student at the end of the week or month. The object here is to get the students to give the sticker to another student.
