3477. On Motivating Free Students


Who is the learner who succeeds? I’d say the one who really, really wants to learn. 

So we can try our students would really wish to learn. However, they should be free. So we can tell them things that make them wish to freely learn. 

In that way our students would reckon they do want to learn. That kind of learner – the one who actually wishes to learn – would not put all the burden upon the teacher’s back to carry it, but otherwise he will put the means to progress at his learning process, also on his own, without the teacher. 

It’s what we call autonomous learners: they are practical and pragmatic, and invest a nice effort on learning. 

And how can we achieve to get that kind of willing students? Well, you may know that a teacher with enthusiasm can accomplish to pass on that enthusiasm to his learners. Over time. It’s not something you get on a single day. 

As well some teachers encourage their students to keep a diary of their learning processes: What they feel it’s going okay, their frustrations, excitement and disillusions, positive points and negative ones, gray days and bright ones, also regular days – not gray and not too brilliant either... 

And from time to time they can go back to revise what they wrote, and thus get an interesting view of their learning process. It’s not essential they write every single day. 

With THEIR permission you can pick their diaries or journals, and have a look at them: you’ll learn a lot about your kids. You’ll have told them you were going to pick their journals, before they actually start them. 

All this post is based on the ideas explained by H. D. Brown. Plus some movie seen by me about a teacher that had problems with her students but ultimately accomplished some nice teaching. Have a nice day. / Photo from: Reading Rockets

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

3678. What to Do to Have Nice Discussions in Class

  I’m an English language teacher. And I consider that my dear students would speak in that language is the main goal, don’t you think so?  They often say sentences in class, if they are at a low level of mastering English. My higher-level ones intervene for longer and we hold nice discussions in class. Definitely I have to have them all of my students would contribute to the class for longer than mere sentences. I must have them speak for rather long.  Some years they have prepared oral presentations to speak for some minutes … or the whole lesson sometimes.  Definitely also it’s not the same to say just sentences than to have some conversations or some discussions.  Lately more than before this current school year I can observe that the textbooks we’re utilizing help out a lot.  By the way, I teach adults and when I ask them, well, I try and ask tactfully, because obviously they have their privacy.  Moreover if we wish we would have discussions in cl...
Read more

3679. If You Still Have Disruptive Problems in Class with Your Students. Some Ideas

  One issue every teacher thinks of from time to time, or perhaps often because that teacher may have that kind of problem, above all if he or she is beginning their career as a teacher, is how to manage classroom behavior.  Today I’m trying to say something, apart from what I’ve written so far on quite many posts. You may find more under the tag or label management of the class .  The main point I think is important is to have the clear idea that both the teacher and his or her students are in the classroom to work, as said in plain English. They come to the schoolroom to work. The students to learn, to learn by working, and their dear teacher to teach them and help them become full and honorable persons.  So the main concern of their teacher ought not to be classroom management, but how to have those dear people to work and learn.  Nevertheless if some problem comes up in class, some behavior problem I mean, that teacher might say or show something, depending ...
Read more

840. Are you eager to learn a language?

Image
One day teacher of English A said to teacher of English B, “One difference in favor of good language learners? I believe a good learner does wish to learn, for example English or Hindi or... This is a remarkable and clear trait of that person. He or she makes good use of any situation where they can speak, or practice in general. He offers himself to some South Korean gang in an ice-cream parlor to help them with their poor English, so as to order some ice-creams of this or that flavor... albeit in the end the assistant-girl also did speak English – this happened here in Granada, near Alhambra palaces. This learner takes notes in his diary or smartphone in English. And he likes to do so. He takes advantage of being on a British Airlines plane to talk to a flight-attendant in English. He listens to something recorded in his iPode, while traveling by bus. He’s not lazy and speaks only in his L1. He does use English, and not only in the cases where it’s totally necessary...
Read more

1454. Bullying

Image
Teacher B said to teacher A, “Bullying. In a school of the south of Spain where I worked for some unforgettable years we used to cut off any nuance among the students, when a few of them for example started on and teased one specific kid.  We on one side called the victim kid to talk with him and also called his parents – his tutor did this latter thing. The idea was to have the kid relax and retrieve information from him about the bullying actions he had suffered.  On the other side we summoned the suspected authors of the bullying, also to talk with them. We asked them some questions to learn about what could have disturbed the kid victim.  We then, on following days, invigilated the play ground in a more focused way.  Plus in those students’ classes we spoke about friendship and comradeship.  Close to all the other classmates did know about these actions of bullying. Even the authors could receive some kind of punishment (more hours...
Read more

839. Learning to learn

Image
One day teacher of English A said to teacher of English B, “A teacher of math, literature, English... cannot confine his work to pass on, to teach, information, knowledge, math operations, the theoretical part of English..., but he or she has to teach their students to learn; to learn what? That information, knowledge, linguistic competence for communication... Obviously it’s true that the teacher for example tells his students about historical deeds, their connection to our present history, etc. The English teacher’s mission is not just to teach English but also to teach how to learn English, and this latter thing in a practical way: aimed at communication. The point is not to teach information about the language but to teach to use English for communication between, among people. Within this context, moreover the teacher’s role is to better his students, and he himself too. The first showing or sign of this bettering of the student is the learning itself, the fact ...
Read more