I once had a student that was 75 years old. She would come to the class and really wanted to be there. She didn't need to know the language for anything other than she wanted to know it. She also always did her homework and was the most talkative in the class. She loved discussing crime novels and how they related to each of the lessons.



There is a reason that teachers ask students to do their homework and the reason is to practice the skills that were learned in class that day. If you don't practice, then you are not going to really grasp the concepts and therefore it will take longer for you to learn.

Some students often get frustrated in class because they can't speak in their native language to communicate to the teacher or other students. This is natural, but by not being allowed to speak in your native language it forces you to grasp the concepts quicker and not rely on your native language for help.

Often students are afraid of making mistakes in class. The student must realize that mistakes are an integral and important part of language learning and by correcting them you are bringing them closer to the target language. The teacher should tell them at the beginning that only by trying to use the language and committing the mistakes do you gain a better knowledge of the language and remember it.

One reason the students often get bored in class is because the way the content is presented. If you try as a teacher to vary up the ways you teach the class and change the structure of every class, so they don't expect the same things always then the students will be more into the classes. Also if you let the students practice real life examples of what is being taught, then the students will likely put in more effort. Try to add music into your classes, along with fun games, surveys, and anything else you can think of. Another good thing to do is to take a song and take out some of the words and get the students to listen and fill in the gaps. It will often take a couple of times to complete while listening.

Often teachers forget to plan lessons or don't have the time. Teachers should try to create lessons that go together with each class. The teachers should also spend 15 minutes trying to create a lesson before the class.

To build interest while teaching English may seem difficult but here are some general things to follow. You always need to have clear goals. The students should be aware of content and learning task objectives. For example, a guessing-game may have the language-learning goal of practicing question, and the content goal of guessing answers.

If you are going to teach a lesson on crime, then you need to make it as real as possible. Maybe you would like to set up a jail in the classroom or a crime scene. When the students walk in they will be curious as to why it is there or why the objects are put in certain places. You also might have an interview on a tape with a criminal, so the students can see one and try to figure out what they are saying and the mentality of the person. Then maybe you would like to get the students to create a crime or plan for a crime and then write it down using the vocabulary you learned from the lesson. After this maybe the students can act out the crime and the other students guess what the crime is. These are just a few ways to vary what might be a simple lesson and make it more interesting for the students.

I think now you can see how the teacher can change the motivation of the students by incorporating certain things into their classes by having clear goals, varied topics and tasks, visuals, tension games, entertainment, play-acting, and personalization. If you can keep the class interested the whole amount of time you are teaching, then the motivation will stay high into the next lessons.