Student Motivation

It’s hardly surprising to note that students who are motivated learn more. How can you capitalize on this to maximize learning?

What you can do

• Get to know your students and make an effort to choose topics or activities that seem to fit their interests and needs. People are motivated by things they find interesting and useful and it doesn’t hurt to realize that their teacher takes an interest in them and tries to make lessons worthwhile.
• Make them aware of their progress.
• Motivate them by challenging them; show them that you trust that they can do the more challenging tasks. This doesn’t mean always choosing the most difficult activity possible – just don’t make a habit of choosing the easiest.
• Give them opportunities to show what they know and what they have learned.

What you can’t do

• You can’t re-arrange the lives of your adult students so that your English class is the priority for everyone.
• You can’t please everyone all the time; if you try to you will sometimes end up pleasing no one.

Ultimately, people need to take responsibility for their own learning and motivation; you can help but you can’t do it for them. Something about leading a horse to water..?