Motivational tools to increase the use of English in the

classroom

By Heidi Witt-Williams

Dipont Education

By the end of this session participants will be

able to:

• incorporate a variety of activities into lessons which are known to encourage Chinese students to speak in English during lessons.

• provide students with incentives to actively participate in English during lessons across subjects.

Workshop Outcomes

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In pairs, discuss for two minutes only:

• What activities or techniques do you use now (or might you use) to motivate Chinese students to speak in English during lessons?

• Feedback …

Think, pair, share

Practical strategies which have been observed to work well with Chinese students

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Quick and Easy Strategies (safe)

1.Reading aloud objectives

2.What did we do yesterday? What is the most interesting thing you have learned this week?

Write answers on whiteboards and show. Teacher selects which students will read aloud their idea(s) to the class.

3.As a closing, write down 2 things you learned in today’s lesson and share with the class

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Quick and Easy Strategies (safeish!)

1.Talk to your neighbor for 30 seconds about … and then share with the whole class

2.Reiterating tasks/ repeating instructions

3.Students come up with 5 questions (who, what, when, where and why) in response to an item they are shown such as a quote, picture, object, cartoon or graph.

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The 5 W’s

•What?

•When?

•Why?

•Who?

•Where?

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Quick and Easy Strategies (scary!)

1.Get a student to summarize the main teaching points of the lesson in front of the class as a closing activity

2.You only have one minute! Every class starts with a different student giving a one minute presentation of a word or phrase pertaining to the topic of instruction.

3.Just a minute! No hesitation, no deviation off the theme. For more advanced speakers – no repetition!

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Additional Strategies to motivate your students

• Games: Matching (Tarsia), I beg your pardon, Back to Back

• Sequencing activities which are read aloud

• Cloze Activities

• Role-playing

• Drama

• Interviews and Class Surveys

• Presentations where a mark is assigned for use of English by all members of the class

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Tarsia

• With this software you will easily be able to create, print out, save and exchange customized jigsaws, domino activities and a variety of rectangular card sort activities. The activities created using this software can be presented in printable form, ready to cut out.

• http://www.mmlsoft.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9&Itemid=10

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Motivational Tools: Class Dojo

Web site: http://teach.classdojo.com/

• ClassDojo enables you to easily award and record points, achievements and rewards for behaviour and performance, in-class, in real time, with just one click of your smart phone or laptop.

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Motivational Tools: Class Dojo

ClassDojo provides instant visual

notifications for your students (‘Well done

Star! + 1 for teamwork!”) with a whole host

of game mechanics:

• badges and achievements to unlock

• in classroom games

• avatars

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Motivational Tools: Merits/Certificates

Student certificate award system

• Bronze

• Silver

• Gold

• Platinum

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Motivational Tools: Bunch of keys

Who is holding the keys?

• If a student speaks in Chinese, throw them your bunch of keys. If another student is heard speaking Chinese, the student holding the keys throws them on. Last person holding the keys has to do a forfeit.

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Wrap-up - Placemat

• In groups of 4, without any discussion, complete a placemat by each taking one corner and writing down which strategies you might incorporate into your lessons to motivate students to speak English during lesson time. (4 minutes only)

• Now summarize the ideas of the group in the middle of the placemat (6 minutes)

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Feedback and evaluation

• Please complete the PMIQ form to give us your feedback.

• Many thanks for listening and for your active participation.