motivating young learners

TEYL | Dawn Grant-Skiba | June 6th, 2005

Hello everyone!

I've just had this urge to write and let u all know how much I'm enjoying the TEYL course. Am I the only one who has enjoyed it so much? I'm also doing CMD, which is a great complement. I'm excited about finishing these two modules so I can start writing my DISS, although I haven't decided what it will be on yet.

By the way, I am very upbeat today despite one week of frustration at not being able to get enough ideas to start writing my CMD assignment (the TEYL is still untouched). I'm glad to report that after two consecutive nights of going to bed in the wee hours of the morning, I'm getting ahead. :-)

Encouragement to all who can understand what I'm going through and may be experiencing the same at this time.

Bye!

Dawn
Poland

Re: TEYL | Martin Lovatt | June 7th, 2005

Well done, Dawn. Good to know your enthusiasm is on the up!

Mine, too! It's taken me a week to write a questionnaire for the first part of my CSD assignment- and I haven't even piloted it yet...

But there is a lot of satisfaction to be had just by moving one step forward. Like you, I'm doing two modules at the same time now (having just started EMT), and then- with a bit of luck - it'll be on to Diss. A long way to go before then, but I'm enjoying the smell of the roses along the track. 

Just wanted to let you know we're battling right there along with you!

Best,

Martin
Fukuoka, Japan

Re: TEYL | Jerry Talandis Jr. | June 7th, 2005       

Hi Dawn,

Yeah, good for you to get back on track. It's nice to see an encouraging message about making progress. Any sort of movement in a positive direction seems to do wonders.

You mentioned that your TYL assignment was "still untouched." Do you have a rough idea of what you want to do? How does TYL connect with the work you're doing in CMD? That does seem like a good combo. I took the TYL module long ago and currently teach a lot of kids. I'd be interested in hearing your ideas.

Jerry
Japan

Re: TEYL | Dawn Grant-Skiba | June 8th, 2005

Well, I haven't really sorted out my outline yet although Paula has passed my topic, which is how to motivate the very young learner (0-5). I have been reading quite a bit so I hope I'll be able to sit down and finish it. I have 2 weeks exactly because I'm going to the Caribbean on holiday with my family for 5 whole weeks!! When I return, I'd like to sit down and start my DISS and finish that in time to graduate in March. It's a very tall order I know but I really want to do it. With Martin running the same race, we'll see!!! Oh, for my CMD, I did it on building a syllabus on informal interaction - greeeeaaaaaaaaaat stuff!! At least for me, I don't know what Nur thinks yet :-) I haven't quite finished it, but the bulk is out of the way. I've sent it off to Nur and I'm waiting on her response. Either way, I've enjoyed these two courses so much that I don't even care about the grades. Still, I need a good transcript to get on my PhD course, which I want to start next year.  

I'm off...I've been writing too much lately.

Regards

Dawn
Poland

Motivating young kids | Jerry Talandis Jr. | June 8th, 2005

Hi Dawn,

You're going to do an assignment in two weeks? Wow... I envy you. Wish I could work that fast. I'm too much of a perfectionist, and it slows me down...

Anyway, your topic is how to motivate kids younger than 5. So, how do you do it? I'm all ears. I teach several children in that age range. They barely know their own language, let alone another one. Most of the time, the mother comes along to help their kids. Sometimes this is good, and sometimes it's not great. But, I try to make the most of it. In those situations I try to create simple dialog exchanges that the mothers can practice with their kids. We use a workbook where each child progresses at their own pace, so the mothers are usually working with their kids, and I go around and facilitate things. Songs and games help as well, but if you play too much, then kids don't like to study. So, if we play a game, it has to be time well spent. I find music motivating most of the time, except if there are too many boys!

What do you do with kids that young to motivate them? Anyone else out there that teaches children have any ideas?

Jerry

Re: Motivating young kids | Dawn Grant-Skiba | June 8th, 2005

Hi Jerry!

I've just come in so I don't have time to answer your questions now. By the way, I was at the British Council, Warsaw today looking for support material but could hardly find a thing.

However, an interesting concept of motivation came to me there and now I think I'll change my topic to: Using the teacher's personality as a means of motivation or something like that. Haven't fine-tuned it yet but probably will tonight. I have a fairly good idea of what I want but getting started is always the problem. I know 2 weeks is ambitious but I did give my reasons. Actually, the prep usually takes me ages but the actual writing is usually shorter (except for my EMT assignment which took me longer and I got a worse grade!!!) because I just spend night after night on it. Everyone has his/her own style, I suppose.

Thanks 4 d interest.

Dawn
Poland

P.S. Any links to this topic would be greatly appreciated :-)

Re: Motivating young kids | Kevin McLeod | June 8th, 2005

Jerry and fellow teachers of very young learners,

I teach children from 5 years and upwards, although some are still four when they enter class as we start in October and it goes by their age at the end of the year. Obviously their attention span is very short, so a lot of change of activities and pace are important. Also having routines set up so they know what they will be doing at different times or in different activities. For example, at the end of class they all have to put up their hand and say a word in English to leave the class or at the start of class we always begin with a song, often the same song or chant.

**Super Songs by Oxford University Press is a great cassette.** I'm not sure what you mean by study as at their age they normally can't read or write so our classes work on listening and speaking. As you said a lot of different games (especially those with movement) and songs plus story telling (use big books if available) also use puppets for telling stories or introducing/practicing vocabulary. As I'm sure you will have noticed, some children like some activities more than others, so changing frequently helps reduce disciple problems. They normally all love to draw, so use that to your advantage. Also, although it may take time for them to get the idea of some of these, playing games like snap, bingo, battleships, I spy, Simon says are excellent as they can be adapted for so many vocab. areas.

Good luck with your classes, although they can be hard work I find them the most rewarding and the students I talk about most.

Kevin McLeod
Madrid

Re: Motivating young kids | Jerry Talandis Jr. | June 9, 2005

Howdy. 

Regarding your change of topic, Dawn, it seems that you're in the stage of getting your focus into shape. You mentioned that you'd be interested in any links about anything related to how a teacher's personality can help motivate students. I entered "teacher's personality" into Google and came up with this article. It might give you some background info for your lit review section. Here is the first two paragraphs:

CREATIVITY AND THE TEACHER'S PERSONALITY
Rita Bebre, Dr. Psych.

When building a civic society in this country, attention should be paid not only to economic changes, but also to the main treasure of Latvia - its people, their intellectual potential, the development and enhancement of their creativity . It is important to establish what psychological features are characteristic of creative people who are already recognised in society -creative intellectuals in various spheres (artists, scientists, pedagogues etc.). What type of personality structure do they represent, what common traits and individual features do they possess? Whether and how do they differ from those who mainly carry out reproductive functions? Which are the features that make a person into a creative person, how do they arise and what factors stimulate or slacken their development? The issue of the diagnostics of creativity is also very significant.

Creativity (in Latvian called rado?ums ) can be viewed from three aspects: as a feature of personality (individuality), as a process and as a product . As a feature of personality it represents originality, innovation, anti-conformism, courage, etc. As a process it represents creative intuition, rich fantasy, divergent thinking, inspiration, plasticity of psyche, activities of subconsciousness and superego. A creative product in various spheres (art, science, technology, etc.) is characterised by novelty and public significance.

I don't know if this is what you're looking for; the definition of creativity seems usable... Just type stuff into Google and see what you get. You have to be a detective and hunt stuff down. Often articles can be only slightly related to your main topic, but you can still use them to back up some point you're making. I try to collect articles by copying them and making a note at the top of how I could use it in my assignment. Good luck with it! 

Oh, if you find good stuff, please post back to this list. Others looking in to the same topic will then benefit from your work.

Kevin,

Thanks for all your ideas about motivating kids. I've tried some of those, including puppets, which was hard for me! I agree that you have to offer variety and structure. A common pattern of your lesson seems to help. 

I'm not sure what you mean by study as at their age they normally can't read or write so our classes work on listening and speaking.

By this I meant that whatever activity they do in class, be it a game or what have you, it needs to have focus and help them make progress toward a goal of some sort. I don't like playing just for the sake of playing. Of course kids love to do that, but I don't think English class should be unfocused play-time. I've got a curriculum that I follow and goals I want students to meet, so when I play a game, I try to make sure that the activity helps them learn the language. My classes are only 45 minutes long, so time is short. In the end, when kids see and feel they are making progress towards a goal, then their motivation increases. Actually being able to use a new language with a bit of confidence is highly motivating. 

Don't you think so? 

Jerry
Japan

Re: Motivating young kids | Dawn Grant-Skiba | June 9th, 2005

Thanks Jerry for the article and the advice. I will post my links to the site. If anyone's doing an assignment on CMD as it concerns kids, I also have one or two great links so just ask.

Regards

Dawn

Motivation | Robert Haines | June 10th, 2005

Hello, Dawn, and anyone else interested in researching motivation,

I've found 'Teaching and Researching Motivation' by Zoltan Dörnyei (2001), Pearson Education Limited, to be a valuable resource. The book is part of the Applied Linguistics in Action Series.

Best,

Rob

Re: Motivation | Jerry Talandis Jr. | June 10th, 2005

Hi Rob,

Thanks for that book. I know you've recommended Dornyei's books before. For anyone that may be interested, I found a good review of the book here: 

Here are the first two paragraphs:

Teaching and Researching Motivation
Dörnyei, Zoltan, (2001) Applied Linguistics in Action Series. Essex, UK: Pearson. Pp. 304. $25.86 US, paper.
Reviewed by Ellen Cray, Carleton University

The importance of motivation in second language teaching and learning has been discussed for many years; teachers and researchers believe that motivation plays an important part in the process of acquiring an additional language but often do not agree on what motivation is or how it can be developed and maintained. Motivation is a vexed concept, difficult to define, problematic to measure, and nearly impossible to link to success in second language learning. Zoltan Dörnyei's book, Teaching and Research Motivation , helps to clarify the issue though he cannot, of course, make transparent what is inherently unclear.

The book is divided into four sections: 'What is motivation?'; 'Motivation and Language Teaching'; Researching Motivation'; and Resources and Further Information.' The first part, 'What is motivation?', begins with a comprehensive review of the what Dörnyei refers to as the 'challenges' facing motivation research. In this section he outlines the concepts, such as consciousness and unconsciousness, which have been central in research on motivation. This analysis helps the reader to locate the foundational concepts in the areas.

Dawn, this seems like it would make a good background tome for your assignment. If you're interested in getting it, here is a link to the book at Amazon.com.

Cheers,

Jerry
Japan

A word of thanks | Francesca | June 15th, 2005

To Jerry and those interested in young learners:

I probably haven't got much new to say here, you are all excellent, critically aware of what you are doing in the classroom and ready to back up your work, observations and experiences with references.   I work with teenagers, children and play with very young learners aged 4 to 6 in nursery schools. Teaching sessions for the young learners are limited to only 2 hours weekly so I have to adopt a spiral approach in my teaching. Presenting and representing familiar notions can get boring so I have to invent different contexts to transfer them into. Obviously all of this is done through play. One of the best games is "pretending" and they all love being teachers. So we invert our roles and I sit on one of their little chairs and wait for instructions. It's amazing to see how they organize themselves, they choose a game, get themselves in teams and draw out a sort of result chart. They imitate me to the perfection: mannerisms, intonations and colloquialisms are all there. Weaker learner will start by asking, "maestra, come si dice" I pretend I don't understand and he or she will ask a friend and the expression "what's the English for......" comes out. Spontaneous interaction develops and you've got them communicating in L2. Stronger learners will tell you a story, it's a game by which you can evaluate learning- teaching processes and evaluate what small children can do on their own and what they need your help with. I don't use a text, I programme a brief syllabus, the content of which is taken from the notions children have already acquired or are learning with their Italian teacher. For example if they are working on the theme "feelings" I extend it to L2. Unfortunately I'm not very good at sustaining my work with references, I haven't done this for years, anyway, for whoever is interested you can look at some of the works of: 

Prof. Ferre Laevers, Research Centre for Experimental Education at Leuven University, Belgium.

Prof. Bert Van Oers at the faculty of and Education at Vrije University Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Let me know how it goes if any of you try the pretending game. It works with 7 and 8 year olds too.

Have nice weekend and hope I haven't bored you all,

Francesca

 

 

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