How can we motivate
our students to speak English?
It is widely known that in the English
classroom students usually use their native language most of the time instead
of trying to communicate in the second language that they are learning.
First of all, I want to clarify that from my
point of view it is fine to use the native language occasionally to clarify
unknown and difficult concepts or unfamiliar vocabulary if other methods do not
work. However, I think that using it all the time, it is just not acceptable in
order to learn the foreign language.
The question is: why does that happen? Some
students, not to say most students, prefer not to use the foreign language
because they are afraid of making mistakes and failing to find the correct
words to express themselves. They are afraid of being criticized or embarrassed
in front of the whole classroom.
The best thing a teacher could do to encourage
students to speak in a foreign language, or to speak at all, is to create
a safe environment. Letting them know that a mistake or an error is not
the end of the world. They need to know that nobody is perfect, everyone makes
mistakes and it is okay. A safe environment provides students the opportunity to produce output and to recieve feedback out of their utterances. But how do we create a safe environment in which
students feel comfortable enough to speak in English?
The first thing a teacher should do is to learn
the students’ names as quickly as possible, as it is said in the EFL Press by
David Martin. First of all to be able to control the class, but more
importantly, because in that way students can appreciate that you care and you
try to know who they are. For D. Martin, it is his first priority.
In the website teacherjoe.us we can find some
tips that could help us do achieve that. Teacher Joe establishes five
principles to encourage students to speak English and turn us into “Super
Teachers”. The five principles mentioned in Joe’s blog are:
1. Positive reinforcement. That is to prize the right attempts of our students, no matter how
small their success. I believe this is essential, especially for little kids
who need to be reassured every time. For sure, mistakes should be corrected,
from my point of view, in the best way depending on the situation. But as I
said, children have to see that making mistakes it is ok and that trying to
speak and making successful attempts are rewarded.
2. Clear goals and instructions. Students need to know how they have to do the
activity and why they are doing it. In my experience, if children pay more
attention because they understand why it is important.
3. The element of surprise. Teachers usually always follow the same structure in every class, but
we all love to have a little surprise for a change. Surprise activities that
change the everyday routine can make the day special. Goals and instructions
have to be very clear to students.
4. Variety is the Spice of Life. As in the previous point, changes can make our
day special. To have a routine is good for everyone, but having a great variety
of activities and games to practice the language make the class more easygoing
for students and teachers at the same time.
5. Friendly Competition. I personally like this point very much. In life we need to know how to
cooperate with others. But it is also very important to know how to lose and
how to win with friendly and healthy competition. In teams students can play
different sort of games and also it can be in pairs or even individual,
depending on your goals and what you want to achieve with that activity or
game. We should make sure that everyone is participating and they all get the
same chances to participate. Moreover, it does not have to be a punctual
activity, it can be something done during the whole term. For example rewarding
those who participate actively in the classroom, those who made a good
dictation, those who brought the perfect homework during the whole week, etc.
An activity
that I like very much to use to review vocabulary and to make students speak in
a friendly competition situation is the following, it is divided in two parts.
1st part
The activity is about guessing
different words related to the unit that the teacher will write on the board
(or project on the screen). The class will be divided in groups (2 or 3
depending on the total number of students). Everyone in the group will be
facing the board (and the word) except one member of the team. That student who
is not looking at the word will have to guess it with the descriptions and
examples that his or her team mates can provide. The first team who says out
loud the word (so the teacher can hear it) gets the point of the round. Every
time that the word is changed, the student who guesses changes too, so everyone
has to guess at least once.
2nd part
All the words are written down in
little pieces of paper and they are facing down on the table so nobody can see
it. In turns of 30 seconds (or 1 minute) the students will pass one by one
(first one team, then the other and so on) describing as many words as possible
so anyone in the team can guess it. Students can pass to another word as many
times as they wish. The game will be finished when there won’t be any words
left. At the end they will count the words that they have guessed, counting one
point per word.
Finally, they will see how many
points they have achieved between the first and the second part.
If you are looking forward to know more
activities to make your students speak English, check out these blogs:
I hope you found this information useful for
future English lessons.
Thanks for reading!
References:
Teacher Joe. “Encourage
Your Students to Speak Out in English” Teacherjoe.us, n.d. Web 6 May 2014
Martin, David. “How
to get your students to speak 100% English”. Eflpress.com, n.d. Web 6 May 2014
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