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If students are NOT interested ...Help! | ||
Tags: Language Teaching | Motivation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Aquedita Triglot Senior Member Poland myspace.com/aqueda_v Joined 6016 days ago 154 posts - 164 votes  Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 9 of 16 21 May 2009 at 12:58pm | IP Logged | ||
I come from Poland had to take compulsory English classes since the 4th grade of elementary school. Trust me, even with North Atlantic Pact accession and European accession coming up - kids were just kids and they still didn't give a damn. Except for me and my best friend that is ;) The situation was different in high school. The teacher holds only the partial blame, but I don't really wanna get into discussing the disadvantages of the educational system right now in this thread. Going back to the main topic of the discussion... I think those little contests mentioned above and reading to the group out loud would be awesome ideas and very beneficial for their vocab. Maybe the kids would like to act out some scenes, they don't have to be long or very complex. Maybe they would be interested in doing a "show and tell" presentations - again, nothing too complicated. Hope this helps somehow. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| GoingGoingGone Newbie United States Joined 5670 days ago 28 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Swedish, Mandarin | Message 10 of 16 21 May 2009 at 4:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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I find that a glimpse of the culture is very inspiring. One of the reasons that I love the language programs I am using are the photos throughout the lesson of people and places in that culture. I have tried other programs before that used the same generic photos for every language and it took all of the meaning out of it.
If internet is not possible maybe photos of English speaking countries are - in a book of photos or loose photos of London and other places in England, New York, Washington and other places in the U.S., Toronto and other places in Canada... if the student is interested in the CULTURE, which can be inspired by photos, they will be more interested in the language. And some may even decide they want to go there some day and have an even better reason to learn. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TheBiscuit Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5925 days ago 532 posts - 619 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Italian Studies: German, Croatian | Message 11 of 16 21 May 2009 at 5:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Reasons why students get bored in English class that I've noticed from observing teachers:
The material is too hard. The material is too easy. The material is not interesting. (Believe it or not, the most common reasons) There is no variation or dynamics. Students don't feel as though they are progressing. They have no confidence in the teacher. Lack of visual material. Lack of opportunities to practice the language. The teacher inhibits them (usually without realising). The teacher talks for 90% of the lesson. The pace of the lesson is slow. The objective of the lesson isn't clear to the students. The teacher just uses handouts. The teacher doesn't clear up doubts. The teacher spoonfeeds the students and this annoys them. The teacher doesn't spoonfeed the students and this annoys them. The teacher doesn't say good morning. (a little thing but it goes a long way and sets the tone for the class) The teacher doesn't treat all students equally. No incentive to learn - students only have to pass an exam. and so on... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TheBiscuit Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5925 days ago 532 posts - 619 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Italian Studies: German, Croatian | Message 12 of 16 22 May 2009 at 8:54pm | IP Logged | ||
This is it, in a nutshell. The material must arouse the students' interest. Do this and the rest is much easier. In a disruptive class you can usually trace the disruption to one or two students. By arousing the interest of those students, the rest of the class will follow suit. As long as there is information the students really want to know about and they have to use English to understand it, you're on your way. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 13 of 16 22 May 2009 at 9:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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I had a very inspiration English teacher once, who was English.
She organised the "English corner" which the top students could join. It was in a small separate room and she set up a little library with books that the students could choose from. You had to read the books, write a report on it and then make a presentation to the rest of the class. I liked being able to choose a book that interested me. This teacher also did some nice extracurricular things, like making tea and scones for the small class (typically English, lol) and organised viewings of English films followed by a discussion afterwards. She bought English papers and magazines which we read and discussed. Her husband (also English and a teacher in a different subject) took the boys in the group to the England-Sweden football game and also came to the class to explain the rules of cricket (incomprehensible...) Very inspirational. Students who were in this group were guaranteed the highest mark as long as they didn't slack. I got suspended from the group once because I slacked. This group became very popular many made a real effort to be able to join. She really stood out as an excellent teacher. HOWEVER this was a private school and I think such incredibly committed teachers are hard to come by in state schools, plus there are less funds, time and other resources available for ambitious projects like this. This was before the internet really took off, so there was no opportunity for self-study like there is now. The other reservation could be that this teacher was much more committed and interested in those pupils who really made an effort. She was not very interested in the "hopeless cases" and those who lacked motivation. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zerothinking Senior Member Australia Joined 6374 days ago 528 posts - 772 votes Speaks: English* | Message 14 of 16 22 May 2009 at 10:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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There is nothing you can do.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5911 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 15 of 16 23 May 2009 at 2:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Has she tried music? I used to listen to a lot of English-language music while growing up, music I truly loved, and it made a huge difference in my motivation and also taught me a lot just because I was hearing English so much of the time. I also watched some American tv shows that I liked (rubbish, all of it - but pre-teens are allowed to have crappy taste in whatever it may be), not because I wanted to learn English, but because, well, soaps get you hooked don't they :-) When I was 16 I got accepted to the international school in my city, already essentially fluent. I wouldn't have learned as much if I didn't have materials that I liked. Same thing with other languages I've studied.
At this point I still need to have music in the language I'm learning as an essential part of my learning materials. I think if students had music that they liked, that they wanted to learn from - not necessarily thinking 'I want to understand the lyrics' but as a supplement to their learning to reinforce what they're doing and teach them stuff in a sneaky way, then there could be progress. Some people learn languages with the purpose of understanding their favourite music, or pick something up 'by accident' while listening, and imho this is one of the best ways to learn - because it's enjoyable throughout and never gets boring as long as you still love your material. Whenever I've taken language classes, yeah we've had books to read, movies to watch, music to listen to, but if it wasn't the sort of thing that I would seek out in my own time, music I'd listen to outside of class, then it was just as boring to me as any other form of input. What's interesting to one person, and what the teacher thinks will be interesting for the students, can sometimes be galaxies apart. I guess the point I'm making is that if you can find materials that are interesting to the individual student, even if it doesn't seem particularly educational - sometimes, especially if it doesn't seem particularly educational - then natural interest might arise. Then the person will approach the language in a completely different way, sometimes without them even really knowing it's happened. But honestly, if they have no reason to learn, none at all - not going to watch TV in English, not going to read or watch anything online, not going to listen to music in English, never going to travel to an English-speaking country, then, like zerothinking said... There is nothing you can do. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LanguageSponge Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5768 days ago 1197 posts - 1487 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Welsh, Russian, Japanese, Slovenian, Greek, Italian | Message 16 of 16 23 May 2009 at 9:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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As many of the people above have already stated, it is essential that the students enjoy their method of studying. It's a slight inconvenience that they do not have access to the internet, but there are still many things they can do.
1. Music --- I am finding music to be a really great way to learn my main target language, which is Russian. I find that listening to the words, and being able to repeat them or listen over and over again if I don't catch the words first time around, is a really good way to learn words without really making a huge conscious effort. 2. Television --- As someone above has said, TV is great, too, whatever the content is. Whether it's a documentary about something or other, or a rubbishy cartoon, they'll be hearing English and subconsciously absorbing its sound patterns. Eventually, especially if they find some rubbishy cartoon or other they decide they like, like the Simpsons or whatever (I have no idea how old these kids are), they'll eventually decide that English isn't the mountain they thought it would be, and all because of the rubbish they found on TV :) 3. Technical (or otherwise) reading --- These kids must have interests other than language (by the sounds of it, anything but English at the moment!). Taking my situation outside languages as an example, I love ancient history. Now, I know that there is tons of stuff about Ancient Rome written in the original Latin or Attic Greek, but my knowledge of Latin is not nearly good enough to just pick up The Illiad or De Bello Gallico and just read it in the original. So I read the translations in English, for the timebeing. Why? Because if you want to read anything technical, and a lot of the time other stuff as well, then most significant publications in any field are most commonly published in English, I would have thought. If these kids have any interest in anything at all then why not use English to read about it?? 4. When I first started learning German, I really didn't like it at all until I forced myself to go to Germany for two weeks during the Easter holidays with school. Like with maths and science, I just could not see the relevance of the meaningless things I was learning. Then we got to Germany, and, even though it was fairly obvious I'd have to speak some German when I got there - Ja, Nein, Danke, Auf Wiedersehen - it didn't really occur to me just how much I'd have to speak, and certainly not how wonderful the country's culture would be. Maybe a trip to the country would be good, if means allow. It certainly did the trick for me. Jack 1 person has voted this message useful |
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