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The art to motivating students is a skill every teacher who wants to be successful needs to master. As not all students will be interested in learning a different language and may be fully aware of how hard it can be sometimes, keeping a student motivated in your classes comes essentially down to practice, trial and error. As a new teacher, it can be difficult to know where to start. Personally for myself, I have often reflected on my own studies and journey of learning a other language, not English-based. As of now, I am currently still learning to grow my intermediate Japanese skills in order to become more useful in business scenarios, so I can understand how daunting, embarrassing and how a lot of pressure can exist for a student, both adult and younger. When you first start lessons with your student, it is important to gauge their skill level, in order to not pace them too fast, or if they're more advanced, to keep them challenged, as bored students will indeed lack motivation, and go seeking amusement elsewhere. For the younger students, you are often a adult figure to respond to, for in their world view, that's all they know. However, younger students are often reluctant learners due to influences by exterior forces, such as parents. This can often result in short attention spans, where a student would rather act up, or disengage from a classroom's activities. A good example of how we can re=motivate them would be the introduction of games as part of your lesson plan. Games are often a useful way to get a class initially engaged, and learn through passive systems. With their use of positive and bright language, as well as bright colours, changing a game's purpose into a teaching experience makes it fun for a student to figure out. Much as electronic games keep children engaged, the use of games within a classroom holds much benefit, as when paired into groupwork or teams, students can motivate each other, as well as promote interactions between one another, and growing stronger social ties. Accountability is also a strong tool to use for unmotivated students. I have seen previously, charts, challenges and quick tests, as a way of measuring results. They do also hold a side effect of comparison. While too much comparison can effect a weaker sense of being in nervous students, when growth happens, it can also be a effective way of motivating them to keep going step by step, as they will see their results over time. On the other hand, with adult learners, you may find that due to a company requiring their English levels to be at a certain level, a adult's motivation might be dampened by embarrassment and a lack of willingness to try, as the student might feel like they will fail regardless. In these cases, empathy and getting to know your students a bit more may help with finding out a way to change their outlook, and encourage them that your classroom is a safe environment to practice and learn. Using interests that are important to your students is also a good way of getting students engaged. When a topic comes up that a child / adult is a expert in, they will naturally feel like they have an advantage over the learning process. By gently encouraging them to share that wealth of knowledge or use it to make links to their learnings in the class, they will benefit from a more whole view of a language. Personally, I really enjoy this myself, as the act of new facts about words often makes me open my eyes to a new way of thinking. Lastly, I believe that at the end of the day, a teacher should try their best to help out and keep a classroom engaging with a variety of lesson plans and bringing a bright smile and attitude into a lesson. We often forget how much we are influenced non-verbally to others that by routinely creating a positive habit when entering, we ourselves as teachers, can help illustrate to students that we love language learning and are curious and excited to see what it holds. In that way, I believe a student's curiousity can be pricked, and from there, you can find way to keep their motivations engaged.
