TEACHER’S TECHNIQUES IN MOTIVATI
NG COLLEGE
STUDENTS IN THE INTEGRATED COURSE
THESIS
Submitted as a Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan
Febri Dhany Triwibowo
112012028
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS
UNIVERSITAS KRISTEN SATYA WACANA
SALATIGA
ii
TEACHER’S TECHNIQUES IN MOTIVATI
NG COLLEGE
STUDENTS IN THE INTEGRATED COURSE
THESIS
Submitted as a Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan
Febri Dhany Triwibowo
112012028
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS
UNIVERSITAS KRISTEN SATYA WACANA
SALATIGA
vii COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any course or accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, this contains no material previously published or written by any other person except where due reference is made in the text.
Copyright @2017: Febri Dhany Triwibowo and Gita Hastuti, M.A.
All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without the prior written permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the English Language Education Program of Universitas Kristen SatyaWacana, Salatiga.
viii
TEACHER’S TECHNIQUES IN MOTIVATING COLLEGE STUDENTS IN THE INTEGRATED COURSE ... 1
Creating Comfortable Atmosphere to Motivate Students ... 11
Giving Encouraging Feedback to Motivate Students ... 13
Giving Appraisal to Motivate the Students ... 14
Reflecting on Personal Experiences to Motivate the Students ... 16
CONCLUSION ... 17
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ... 17
REFERENCES ... 20
1
TEACHER’S TECHNIQUES IN MOTIVATING COLLEGE STUDENTS IN
THE INTEGRATED COURSE
Febri Dhany Triwibowo
Abstract
English has become universal language and become compulsory language for someone who wants to enter the international community to broaden their chance for better career or social life. However, for someone whose first language is not English, to learn it is not a simple task. One of the important keys in learning something is motivation. To make the language learning effective; one must have motivation within or outside them. This study narrows the perspective of learning English of fresh year students who learn English at the Faculty of Language and Arts (FLA) at Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana. This study concerns about students who failed in their basic course in the English Literature Program (ELP) and have to repeat the same course. The data were collected through observation and interviews to answer the question “What are IC
Teacher’s techniques to motivate her students to learn the materials and pass the course?” The
findings from the study show that the student’s motivation was raised during the lecture when
the teacher used several techniques to motivate the students such as ‘creating comfortable atmosphere’, ‘giving encouraging or direct feedback’, ‘giving appraisal’, and ‘giving solutions to
problem based on teacher’s personal experiences’. It is expected that this paper could provide new insights on how to motivate students in Integrated Course for Repeaters.
Keywords: learning English as a foreign language, motivation, techniques
INTRODUCTION
English is the most commonly used language throughout the world. People with different first languages commonly use English to communicate. Having the ability to use English may
widen one’s opportunity to get a job, friendship, experience, culture, and knowledge. In
Indonesia the number of people who learn English to get a better job is increasing. Recently,
many companies require their employees to be able to use English well. This current requirement is necessary if the company wants to compete with foreign competitors. Especially nowadays Indonesia is facing ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), which will open ways for foreigners
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essential to compete in this time. However, learning English is not an easy task to do, since it is
different from the Indonesian language in the first place. People who are having difficulties in
learning English need motivation as the ‘fuel’ for them to keep their eagerness, patience, and
persistence to learn English well.
When discussing about motivation, people usually do something because of some reasons, which may come from within themselves or from outside of them. These reasons
motivate them to do something and/or keep them doing something. That is also the case if someone decides to learn English. Harmer (1991) proposed six basic reasons why people learn
English: school curriculum, advancement, target language community, specific purposes, culture, and miscellaneous. Those are the possible motivations people might have for learning English. As some experts stated motivation itself can be defined as an internal and external factor that
stimulates people to be continually interested in and committed to a job, role or subject, or achieve the goal.
Repeating a course is quite a tough task to do, let alone if the materials are the same as in the regular course. In such a situation, students tend to get bored easily. To be able to go through the process well, students need to have and maintain their motivations. This phenomenon
happens in the English Literature Program (ELP) of the Faculty of Language and Arts (FLA) in Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana (UKSW). Some students need to repeat the Integrated Course
(IC) because they did not meet the passing grade when they took the regular Integrated Course. In this course offered to the repeaters, the students are given the exact same materials as in the
regular course. Therefore, teacher’s role is essential to help motivate the students to go through
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This study was conducted to investigate the Integrated Course teacher’s techniques in motivating the students in her class, so that they could have and maintain the fighting spirit to learn the provided materials and pass the course. This study was guided by a research question:
“What are IC Teacher’s techniques to motivate her students to learn the materials and pass the
course?”
The findings of this study might give guidance and references for the next teachers of
IC for Repeaters to consider the right techniques to be used in their class, which will create actions that result in high motivation rather than low motivation. Teachers of other courses with
similar conditions to the IC for Repeaters in this study may also take the benefits of the results of this study.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Motivation, as described by Guay (2010), is ”reasons underlying behavior” (p.712). In
line with it, Cherry (2010) viewed motivation more specifically as “the process that initiates,
guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviours”. A number of research studies have been conducted and many of them have proved that motivation is essential in learning a new language, in this case English. Martins (2008) stated that whatever the case may be, a basic truth is that students who are not motivated to learn do not learn. This strengthens Dornyei’s (1994) idea that motivation is one of the main determinants of second/foreign language learning achievement. It means that high motivation makes positive achievement, while low motivation makes negative
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To be more detailed there are two kinds of motivation, Internal and External motivation.
As Ryan and Deci (2000) stated, both internal and external motivations direct a person to do something, and also to maintain a person to keep doing something. Internal motivation, on one
hand, comes from individual desire. Brennen (2006) believed that internal motivation is “… the level of effort an individual is willing to expend toward the achievement of a certain goal. In other words, internal motivation is effort that a person has to take in order to attain the goal and
to be satisfied and for the external motivation, on the other hand, is sourced from the external
‘force’ that affects someone to achieve their goals and desire”. Based on Ryan and Deci’s (2000)
study, when intrinsically motivated a person is moved to act for the fun or challenge entailed, the externally motivated ones will act to achieve separable rewards.
Talking about motivation involves not only having the motivation at the beginning but
also maintaining the motivation. Xiao (2013) stated that one can plan an effective learning sequence, but that does not mean the learners will be motivated while learning. She explained
that a teacher could have prepared some plans to start motivating the students but to maintain the motivation needs different plans. She then added that every course always has a beginning, middle, and an end phase of learning process and there are effective things that can be done
during each phase to enhance learner motivation. Each phase is related one to another in forming a dynamic whole, that when proper motivational strategies are applied according to their
particular phase, they will enhance the overall learning experience and catalyze the learner’s positive outcome to the learning situation.
Crookes and Schmidt (1991) postulated four major motivational factors to describe L2
5
main focus for the teacher in addressing students’ motivational problems. First, interest, came
from individual curiosity to know more about something. Second is relevance, which refers to the individual feelings that the things being learned have connection with the person’s needs and goals. Then expectancy, which refers to individual expectation, that in learning situation the results, should be worth both the difficulty and the effort. Last, satisfaction, which is related with the outcome of the learning, such as rewards, joy, and achieving goals. Those factors could be
effectively used by teacher to get a starting point to create strategies or techniques to motivate students.
Regarding teacher’s role, Cherry (2010) stated that teacher is a tool of motivation, which then can be a tool to create motivational factors. Diakou (2015) proposed that learners need to be in a classroom that does not make them feel under pressure and uncomfortable. This idea is
strengthened by Veronica (2008), who mentioned that creating a relaxed atmosphere in the language classroom is essential to create a positive attitude among the learner. After the desired
classroom situation is created both the interest and relevance factors can be created. With
student’s positive attitude towards the learning, the interest towards the course will show, and
then teacher can explain the relevance of the course to the students. In regard to this,
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among the students such as giving verbal rewards in order to show students that their effort to get
the reward will be worth the difficulties on how to get it. Thus, by giving rewards teacher create students satisfaction among the students because they will get whether the rewards, joy, or the
achievement. As in the use of rewards to motivate or to maintain students’ motivation, Deci (1991) warned that external rewards are very limited in their ‘boosting’ of intrinsic motivation. Therefore, teachers should make sure that the use of rewards to motivate the students is just on
the right portion and situation. They should not let giving rewards to students become the main tool to motivate the students in having/maintaining motivation to learn.
There are several techniques that a teacher can use to create good phases in learning, which then could maintain students’ motivation. MacNaughton and Williams (1997, pp. 4-225) suggested the following techniques for teaching students:
1. Demonstrating - to show how something is done.
2.Describing - to point a word picture of how something or someone feels, looks,
sounds, tasks, or movies.
3.Encouraging - to inspire someone with the courage or confidence to do use something,
praising, express commendation, and helping to assist someone to do something.
4.Facilitating - to make the children’s learning easier.
5.Giving feedback - to provide information before, during and after experience.
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7.Reading - to comprehend the meaning of something written or printed by looking at
and interpreting the written or printed character.
8.Problem Solving - to help children learn how to find answer to questions, issues, and
predicament they face in their daily world.
Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana. The participants were 10 lecturers at the Faculty of Language and Arts which were purposely selected to participate in the study. The study is qualitative
research; the data were gathered by using recorder, then the researcher read the transcribed data several times to later classify it into the responses according to the questions given. The result of the study the researcher found several techniques which are used by the participants: ‘the use of
presentation assignment’ ‘the use of personal approach’ ‘the use of oral and written feedback’
‘the use of personal experience’ ‘giving rewards’ The study concluded that teacher’s teaching
techniques should be appropriate for student’s level because if not it will have brought negative effects for the students.
Apriliana (2013) conducted a study that aimed to find out how the intrinsic and extrinsic
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Wacana. The study found that both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation was important in achieving
academic success. Rewards gave good influence to students’ achievement but in order to get
higher achievement, students had to desire, think and consider it by themselves.
Based on some experts and research the correlation between motivation and student’s
achievement were clearly connected to each other. High motivation leads to high achievement and low motivation leads to low achievement. A teacher as a tool to not only create but also
maintain student’s motivation in learning was an important matter. Despite student’s internal
motivation, which is various for each individual, it was a teacher’s job to motivate their students through their techniques in teaching. This study focuses on investigating the techniques the teacher used to motivate IC for Repeaters students.
THE STUDY
Context of the Study
The study took place in Fakultas Bahasa danSeni at Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana, Salatiga, Indonesia. The study is a descriptive study, conducted to investigate “What are IC teacher’s techniques to motivate the students to learn the materials and pass the course?”
The class IC for Repeaters is offered for those who failed the regular Integrated Course. Therefore, they need to take it in order to continue to take another course that requires the
students to pass the IC course. The IC course is the basic before taking more advanced courses; in this course the students would learn the basic for English and improve it as to be foundation for the next course which requires good basics of English. If a student don’t pass the basic then he/she will face difficulties in dealing with further courses. There are some reasons why some students fail the IC course, which could be lack of capability, exceeding the class absent,
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are exactly the same as those in the regular IC course; which may affect the students’ motivation.
Therefore, the teacher’s role to motivate the students is necessary.
The Participants
The participant in this study was a class of IC for Repeaters course of English Literature
Program of Faculty of Language and Arts, UKSW, Salatiga in Semester 2 of the 2016/2017 academic year. It involves the teacher, the students and their interactions in the classroom. Only one class of IC for Repeaters course was offered, and only one teacher was assigned to teach the
course when this study was conducted.
The Instruments
This research used class observations and interviews to collect the required data. The class observations were conducted four times and the interview with the teacher was conducted
one time after all the observations were done. Meanwhile, there were also interviews with four voluntary students.
To fulfill the observation protocol, the researcher gave the teacher an agreement form
which informs the teacher about when to do the observation, what would be observed, what data would be collected, how the data would be collected, and the data collection instrument. The
observation was essential to directly observe the classroom interactions of the teacher and the students, especially when the teacher motivated her students.
The interviews with the teacher and students were necessary to confirm the observation
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1. How long have you been teaching Integrated Course?
2. Did you teach both the regular IC and the IC for Repeaters?
3. For the repeaters, are there any differences with their behavior towards this course?
4. Does this course use the same material from the regular course? 5. Do you have any problem teaching this course?
6. In your perception, how’s the student’s motivation towards this course?
Whereas the interview question for the students are as follows:
1. Did you get different teachers from the previous course?
2. What do you think about this course?
3. As a student who repeats the IC course, how do you feel?
Data Collection Procedure
The study began with observation. The observation was conducted on 2, 4, 9, and 14
March, 2017. Each observation began as the class started until it ended, observing one full
meeting. In order to help gathering the data, a questionnaire of teachers’ motivational techniques
adapted from Cheng and Dornyei (2007) was used as the observation protocol. On the technique list on the questionnaire, the researcher marked and tallied the techniques used by the teacher in order to note down which techniques were used and how often she used them in one meeting.
The researcher also took some notes and videotaped the observation in case he missed anything.
The interview with the teacher was conducted after the end of the last day of observation, and after the class ended. The interview with the students was conducted later by asking some of
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started with short introduction and explanation of the purpose of the interview. The interviews
were audio-taped for further analysis.
Data Analysis Procedure
The data gathered were analyzed qualitatively. First, the data was transcribed, and then
the researcher analyzed the similarities, differences, or even new information. Then the data from the observation and interview were analyzed and interpreted, and then the results were classified in order to help answer the research question.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
In this findings and discussion section, the researcher would classify the findings into several parts and discuss each part of the findings. The main basis of the classification was the observation results. However, the interview results were used to support the discussion of the
findings. Four themes were formed, which were ‘Creating comfortable atmosphere to motivate
the students’, ‘Giving encouraging feedback to motivate the students’, ‘Giving appraisal to
motivate the students’, ‘Reflecting on personal experiences to motivate the students’. In the discussion, some excerpts taken from the interview results were displayed in their English translation for the convenience of the research.
Creating Comfortable Atmosphere to Motivate Students
In this IC for Repeater’s class, most of the students were already stressed. By taking the IC class for the second time it means that they had failed the previous IC class, which was offered regularly. From two of the students expressed their feelings when they knew they had to
repeat the IC course as follows:
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When I knew that I didn’t pass the IC course I felt shocked and ashamed of my friends and myself. It’s sad to have to repeat the class, and because it is the basic class, I couldn’t take some of the next courses. (Student 4, March 24th, 2017)
From the excerpts above, it could be said that the students felt anxious as they had to
class that day. Rather than getting angry or punishing the students because of their absence, the teacher reminded them of the importance of this course and encouraged them to motivate
themselves for their own success. This can be interpreted that the teacher cared for the students, and was afraid if they were not feeling comfortable in the class because of the method the teacher used. From what the teacher did to the students, it could be seen that the students then
became open to the teacher, meaning that they were not afraid to tell the truth because they knew they would not get punished for being honest. Thus, the teacher-student’s relationship was created, and communication among them would be pleasant for the entire meeting, which would affect the student’s behavior and encouraged them to be active in class rather than being quiet.
Another finding was that the teacher let their students talk and make jokes in class.
Regarding this, the teacher said:
I still keep the situation where they may talk, joke in the class, just to keep them feel comfortable with the class, so that they will not even be less motivated in class. (Teacher, March 14th, 2017)
13 according to Veronica (2008), the importance of creating a relaxed atmosphere in the language
classroom create positive attitude for the learner towards the teacher and the course. Creating pleasant and comfortable situation gave not only positive effect in teacher-student communication but also positive attitude towards the whole course.
Giving Encouraging Feedback to Motivate Students
This course was divided into two parts: grammar on Thursdays and reading and writing on Tuesdays. The teacher provided feedback depending on the focus of discussion. In grammar
class the teacher directly gave feedback to students orally. Based on the observation, when the students made mistakes the teacher gave explanation again to the students. For example, the teacher asked the students what pattern they used in the task, then asked them again to correct the
mistakes using the pattern given. This technique made the students recall what have been learned and encouraged them to work harder. Refer to MacNaughton and Williams teacher motivation
technique this is called Encouraging towards the students. The teacher asked them to recall the correct pattern and then guided them to identify and correct their mistakes by using the correct pattern said by the students ;the teacher encouraged the students to do the task harder than
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harder. Furthermore, this technique is supported by MacNaughton and Williams teaching
motivation techniques which demonstrated on how the problem should be done and facilitated to make the way to solve the problem easier for the students.
In the reading and writing class, the feedback was given differently. The teacher gave signs such as a circle on the wrong words or phrases, and some short notes to give them details on what they should do to correct the mistakes. The signs or marks on students’ paper work functions as a guide for students to find where they made mistakes and what to do to correct the mistakes. This technique was in line with teaching motivation technique from MacNaughton and
Williams which is giving feedback before and after the given task. Based on the observations, in this class the teacher always gave the students detailed instructions on what they should do, and gave students positive feedback, to encourage students to work harder and do better. In regard to
feedback, Williams and Burden (1997) mentioned that “feedback actually provides information to learners that enable them to identify specific aspects of their performance it should prove both
motivating and helpful to them to move into the zone of next development”. In short, what the
teacher did mirrors Williams and Burden’s (1997) concern about feedback and how feedback
could motivate students to improve their performance.
Giving Appraisal to Motivate the Students
Giving appraisal for the students could boost student’s motivation(Stipek, 1988). Based on the observations, after the teacher gave such appraisals as: ‘Good work’ ‘Good’ ‘Correct’
‘Nicely Done’ ‘Great’ to the students who answered correctly, those students would smile and
look happy. Furthermore, the students who have been given appraisal tended to have higher interest in trying to accomplish the tasks given and sometimes help their friends in doing the
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supported by Veronica (2015), who argued that external motivation in the form of rewards, good
marks or simple praise, are often considered to be excellent ways of motivating underachieving or reluctant learners. In other words, it had a chain-reaction towards the students who didn’t get the reward or appraisal yet. It means that the students who were less active were somehow triggered when they saw their friends getting appraisals from the teacher, and they wanted to get the same rewards as their friends.
The teacher believed that it is necessary to take time to celebrate the student success and accomplishment after finishing a certain task. In the observations, the teacher applied this
technique from 3 to for 4 times in each meeting. By doing so, the teacher created satisfaction
among the students, which refer to Crooks and Schmidt (1991) motivation factors. It means that the students would get rewards in the form of praise from the teacher. Also, this finding was in
line with MacNaughton and Williams’s (1997) teaching motivation technique to encourage the students by giving them praise or express commendation towards the students which then could
lead to increasing confidence among the students.
In this course for repeaters, where the students were already stressed the teacher avoided punishment as long as they could stop when the teacher said so, and give homework only if it’s
needed to catch the materials that couldn’t be done in a meeting, as Veronica (2015) stated that
extra homework, punishment or other sanctions, proved not only ineffective in bringing about
positive change, but also having exactly the opposite effect. This finding is similar to Apriliana’s (2013) that reward whether it is tangible or intangible, gives good and big influence to students’ performance and achievement in class. It means that giving rewards to students could boost their
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Reflecting on Personal Experiences to Motivate the Students
Based on the observations, in every meeting the teacher reminded the students the
importance to pass this course in order to be able to get into the more advanced classes. Also, the teacher gave students advice on how to get better in English. For example, she told them to read
anything as long as it’s in English to improve their grammar, writing and reading skill. Referring
to MacNaughton and Williams’s study (1997), this finding in was called Solving Problem which the teacher gave advice and reminded the students in order to help them solve their problems that
they had in learning English. Through the interview with the teacher, she believed that this technique had a positive impact:
I think they can follow the material better. The proof is from the IC test, they always improved in each test, and I hope the 3rd test will be as good as the first previous test. (Teacher, March 14th, 2017)
It could be said that the teacher technique which gave students advice and reminder create higher
student’s motivation which leads to positive effect on their learning process, proved by their test
17 CONCLUSION
Based on the analysis and interpretation from the observation, it hasshown kinds of
techniques the teacher under investigation used in this IC for Repeaters course. The techniques used are creating comfortable atmosphere through personal approach so as to minimize the gap
between teacher – students in their relation in communication; providing encouraging feedback; giving appraisal to encourage the students and attract the students to be more active instead of feeling anxious and being passive; and reflecting on personal experiences to give students advice
and reasons on the task and lesson they faced.
Referring to MacNaughton and Williams (1997, pp. 4-225)’s motivational teaching techniques, this study found that the techniques that the teacher used include describing, encouraging, giving feedback, facilitating, and problem solving. In conclusion, teacher techniques should be appropriate with student’s psychological state because it will have negative impact to students if teacher uses the wrong techniques that didn’t fit their psychological state.
For the next Integrated Course for Repeaters, this research can be used as a guideline for
the teacher who has the responsibility to handle IC for Repeaters to get a better understanding on what techniques to use to motivate students to learn in the Integrated Course for Repeaters next semester.
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teacher and more participants were interviewed in the process in order to get wider perspective
19 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I am using this opportunity to express my gratitude to Jesus Christ, for His blessing
during the work. I give my warm grateful to Ms. Gita Hastuti, M.A. as my supervisor and Mrs. Martha Nandari, M.A. as my second reader for their comments and guidance in finishing this thesis. I am thankful for my parents and family for their support for me throughout my life. I am
also indebted to all lecturers in Faculty of Language and Arts in Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana, for their knowledge that they share to me.
I also like to thanks to all 2013ers and FLA family who have become the part of my exciting college life. Finally, I express my special thanks to Reza Azka, Alif Septian, Adrian Christandhi, Timothy Ananda, Hieronimus Adi, and Kristian Nugraha, my best friends, for
20 REFERENCES
Alam, B. P. (2013). Teachers’ Teaching Technique in Motivating Students, Universitas Kristen SatyaWacana, Salatiga, Indonesia.
Apriliana, F. (2013).Investigation into Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation of Faculty of Language and Arts.High Grade Point Average (GPA) Students, Universitas Kristen SatyaWacana, Salatiga, Indonesia.
Brennen, A. M. (2006). Enhancing students’ motivation, Retrieved February 7, 2017, fromhttp://www.soencouragement.org/enhancing-students-motivation.html
Cheng, H.-f., and Dörnyei, Z. (2007). The use of motivational strategies in language instruction: The case of EFL teaching in Taiwan. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching,1, 153-174.
Cherry, K. (2010).What is Motivation? About.com. Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com
Crookes, G. & Richard, W. S. (1991). Motivation: Reopening the Research Agenda. Language Learning, 41, 469-512.
Deci, E. L., Vallerand, R. J., Pelletier, L. G., & Ryan, R. M. (1991). Motivation and Education: The self-Determination Perspective, Educational Psychologist, 26 (3&4), 325-346.
Dornyei, Z. (1994). Understanding second language motivation on with challenge.Modern language journal, 78 (1), 515-523.
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Harmer, Jeremy. (1991). The Practice of English Language Teaching New Edition. New York and London: Longman Publishing.
Martins, J. G. (2008).Motivating Students to Learn English :Intrinsic and Extrinsic Strategies to Meet the Needs of First Time Learners.
Ryan, R. M. &Deci, E. L. (2000). Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations: Classic Definitions and New Directions, Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25, 54-67.
Stipek, D. Motivation to Learn: From Theory to Practice. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1988.
Thanasoulas, D. (2002). “Motivation and Motivating in the Foreign Language Classroom”.The Internet TESL Journal.VIII(11).
Veronica, A. C. S. (2008). Motivation in Language Learning.Economic Science Series,17(1), 557.
Williams, M., and Burden, R. (1997).Psychology for Language Teachers, Cambridge University Press.
22 Appendix
Questionnaire of Teachers’ Motivational Techniques
Techniques
1. Bring in and encourage humour and laughter frequently in the class. 2. Show students that they respect, accept and care about each of them
3. Create opportunities so that students can mix and get to know each other better (e.g. group work, game-like competition).
4. Familiarize the learners with the cultural background of the English language.
5. Explain the importance of the ‘class rules’ that they regard as important (e.g. let’ s not make fun of
each other’s mistakes, listen to others when they talk) and how these rules enhance learning, and then ask for the students’ agreement.
6. Give clear instructions about how to carry out a task by modelling every step that students will need to do.
7. Invite senior students who are enthusiastic about learning English to talk to the class about their positive English learning experiences/successes.
8. Monitor students’ accomplishments, and take time to celebrate any success or victory.
9. Regularly remind students that the successful mastery of English is beneficial to their future (e.g. getting a better job or pursuing further studies abroad).
10. Encourage students to select specific, realistic and short-term learning goals for themselves (e.g. learning 5 words every day).
11. Design tasks that are within the learners’
ability so that they get to experience success regularly.
12. Introduce their lessons in various interesting content and topics which students are likely to find interesting (e.g. about TV programmes, pop stars or travelling).
13. Make tasks challenging by including some activities that require students to solve problems or discover something (e.g. projects, cases to analyze, puzzles, etc).
14. Teach the students self-motivating strategies (e.g. self-encouragement) so as to keep them motivated when they encounter distractions.
15. Make sure grades reflect not only the students’ achievement but also the effort they have put into in
the task.
16. Ask learners to think of any classroom rules that they would like to recommend because they think those will be useful for their learning.
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Techniques
17. Show their enthusiasm for teaching English by being committed and motivating themselves.
18. Break the routine of the lessons by varying presentation format (e.g. a grammar task can be followed by one focusing on pronunciation; a whole-class lecture can be followed by group work, etc).
19. Invite some English-speaking foreigners as guest speakers to the class.
20. Help the students develop realistic beliefs about their learning (e.g. explain to them realistically the amount of time needed for making real progress in English, explain about how important the active interaction/participation in the class for their learning).
21. Use short and interesting opening activities to start each class (e.g. using videos, pictures, anecdotes, cases, fun games, etc).
22. Involve students as much as possible in designing and running the language course (e.g. provide them with opportunities to select the textbooks; make real choices about the activities and topics they are going to cover; decide whom they would like to work with).
23. Establish a good relationship with the students.
24. Encourage student participation by assigning activities that require active involvement from each participant (e.g. group presentation or peer teaching).
25. Give good reasons to students as to why a particular activity is meaningful or important.
26. Try and find out about their students’ needs, goals and interests, and then build these into their teaching as much as possible.
27. Allow students to create products that they can display or perform (e.g. a poster, presentation materials, an information brochure or a radio programme, etc).
28. Encourage learners to try harder by making it clear that they believe that the students can do the tasks.
29. Give students choices in deciding how and when they will be assessed/evaluated.
30. Create a supportive and pleasant classroom climate where students are free from embarrassment and ridicule.
31. Display the ‘class goals’ on the wall and review them regularly in terms of the progress made towards them.
32. Bring various authentic cultural products (e.g. examples from real life, magazines, newspapers or song lyrics, etc) to class as supplementary materials.
33. Make clear to students that the important thing in learning a foreign language is to communicate meaning effectively rather than worrying about grammar mistakes.
34. Notice students’ contributions and progress, and provide them with positive feedback.
35. Include activities that require students to work in groups towards the same goal (e.g. group presentation, pair work, plan a performance) in order to promote cooperation.
