In the second of three posts, Karen Saxby, co-author of the course Fun for Starters, Movers and Flyers and author of the Storyfun for Starters, Movers and Flyers series, offers some more advice on motivating young learners, including how to deal with multi-level groups.
You recommended praising losers during your webinar. How can we do this?
My instinct is to find something positive (and sincere and reassuring) to say to ‘losers’ of games. So to losers I might say (as appropriate):
- That (particular) answer was great!
- Wow! You worked really quickly!
- What lovely handwriting!
- I didn’t know you knew that word. Well done!
- You used lots of difficult words!
- Well done for trying!
- Don’t worry! It was quite hard, wasn’t it?
Our school follows a system where praise is a no-no. So instead of praising the children, we have to make a statement. Obviously the children don’t understand why we are not clapping etc. Any suggestions as to what I can do?
I found it really hard to answer that question as not praising goes against what I feel instinctively to be so important. We even list praise phrases at Starters in YLE to encourage their use (e.g. Well done! Wow! Great! Very good!) I sense that if we aren’t given encouragement, we lose the motivation to proceed.
We constantly seek approval and feedback of some sort. We look at our faces in mirrors to gauge how we look. We ask people what they think of our work. We feel good if someone says, ‘That’s wonderful!”
If learners feel their teacher sincerely cares about them, they usually want to please the teacher by working harder. Relationship is central in teaching/learning. So, interestingly, I still feel a bit ill-equipped to answer this one. However, I’m going to make a point of researching this approach and hope to respond more fully later.
Can you give some examples of personalised tasks?
By this I mean taking the topic of any text (heard or read) and then relating it to the children in your class by giving them an opportunity to say something about themselves. (See this part of the webinar recording.) Learners know lots about themselves! If, for example, you’ve been reading about a famous mountain climber, you might ask the following questions: (A2 – Flyers) Have you ever climbed a mountain? Who did you go with? What other sports do you like? What’s your favourite sport?
Personalisation tasks can be done in pairs, groups or open class.
We use personalisation tasks in the YLE speaking test. Children might be asked for example: What do you have for breakfast? Where do eat your breakfast? Who makes your breakfast? Tell me about your favourite food.
How can we make this work with multi-level groups?
In addition to the points I made during the webinar, make sure to use instructions that might challenge advanced learners but are also accessible to everyone. Expose less able learners to the more advanced phrasing but reinforce the instruction with a follow-on they will understand with ease, for example:
Right! We’re going to do some interesting work today! Are you ready? Good! Open your books. Find page 34 now.
Catch up on Karen’s webinar Keeping Young Learners Motivated in the Classroom and discover the other posts in this series on motivating young learners:
Building a supportive environment
Spelling and visualisations