Two years ago we opened our English in Mind Tip Exchange competition, asking teachers everywhere to share their tips on motivating teenage learners. Entries came flooding in from across the world: from Belgium to Brazil, from Ecuador to Kazakhstan, and from India to Japan.
We were impressed both by the inventiveness of your suggestions and the enthusiasm and inventiveness of many of your videos. The standard of entries was very high indeed, and it was a hard job to decide who would win our star prizes: ten one-year subscriptions to our teacher development community, Cambridge English Teacher; 5 iPad minis; and one two-week teacher development course in Cambridge, with flights and accommodation included.
It was fascinating to see how many different ideas you came up with to engage your students. Many of you stressed the importance of immersing yourself in students’ own culture, taking an interest in the films, music, and technology that fill their lives. Some of the best tips took this idea a little further.
We loved Anna Erekhinskaya’s use of origami ‘Angry Birds’ to encourage students not to use L1 in class, and Paulina Cruz Sanchez’s idea of building a reward system around the Harry Potter books, and felt both suggestions deserved to win an iPad mini.
A number of you also came up with creative and humorous ways of dissuading students from behaving badly in class. We particularly liked Daria Raskina’s idea of getting learners to agree harmless but fun forfeits for students who break the rules, such as singing a Justin Bieber song in front of the class: she’s our third iPad mini winner.
Many of you emphasised the need to keep your classes varied to keep students’ attention – for example, by taking classes outside occasionally, or wearing a costume related to the topic you’ll be discussing in class. We really 
liked Cleide Oliveira’s use of these ideas, and her emphasis on personalising education, and thought she was another worthy winner of an iPad mini.
Our final iPad Mini winner combined very positively a number of ideas we saw in a number of entries. Kateryna Kvasova suggested developing students’ interest in other cultures by getting them to speak with native English speakers, and building on their creativity and keenness to perform by getting them to record video projects. We also liked her idea of fun summer camps. Congratulations, Kateryna!
Congratulations, too, to our ten winners of a year’s subscription to our professional development community for English Language Teachers: Megan Yoda, Daniel Silva, Jan Willem Baars, Kate Chikhareva, Donna Levantakis, Alexandra Guzik, Drew Gregory, Petr Marak, Carmen Virginia Pérez Cervantes, and Sonya Mladenova. We hope you’ll enjoy being part of the Cambridge English Teacher community, and attending the fortnightly webinars from some of the biggest names in ELT.
The biggest congratulations of all, though, must go to our overall winner. We loved how she shook up two quite popular ideas for motivating learners – personalisation and competition – by placing the teacher at the heart of both, encouraging teachers to make use of their own interests alongside students’, and encouraging teenage learners to compete not only with each other but also with the teacher. Elena Tarasenko, we felt, was the worthy winner of our two-week teacher development course here in Cambridge.
Congratulations to all our winners, and thank you for your tips!
Teacher development course winner:
- Elena Tarasenko
iPad Mini winners:
- Cleide Oliveira
- Paulina Cruz Sánchez
- Kateryna Kvasova
- Daria Raskina
- Anna Erekhinskaya
Cambridge English Teacher subscription winners:
- Megan Yoda
- Daniel Silva
- Jan Willem Baars
- Kate Chikhareva
- Donna Levantakis
- Alexandra Guzik
- Drew Gregory
- Petr Marak
- Carmen Virginia Pérez Cervantes
- Sonya Mladenova
Find more tips from teachers around the world in our Insights.