Motivation is what you get started. Habit is what keeps you going. Unknown
We think that motivation is very important and it really is. It is one of the key factors to achieve our goals. However, it isn’t enough. Although you want to change the world, although you want to go one step further, you can’t always move as you think.
When we discuss the failures of our students, we often reach to a fact that they don’t know how to study. We know that they just do the homework at home and even they do the ones that they can do and they ignore the ones that they can’t do.
All of us know that they study for the exams one night before or they try to finish their projects so close to the deadline.
It is the characteristic of a student but these 21st century students will be different than us. The world they are living in is highly competitive, as all of us agree and they must be very competitive to be successful in their lives.
How can we help them?
Of course we should try to motivate them, we can be role-models and show how enthusiastically we are doing our jobs. Moreover, we should help them set realistic goals and teach them how to form habits.
We can start the first week of the school year with such activities that will help them learn to study.
So can we just brainstorm and come up with some ideas and activities for all of us that can be used at the beginning of the next school year.
My contribution
A wall dictation:
Prepare handouts with quotes on learning and stick them on the walls.
After finishing the activity, discuss the quotes
Ask them to choose the most motivational quote.
In teams ask them to write their motto for the class.
Prepare posters with their mottos and display on the walls
BTW I really love this one : A teacher can but lead you to the door, learning is up to you. Chinese proverb
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I couldn’t agree more, Eva, with you. Teenagers are hard to motivate and they don’t know how to study. As teachers we should be role-models, as you have so clearly expressed. You’re proposal is useful to make them reflect on learning/studying strategies.
Regards,
Marisa
Eva,
I’m a big one for question based curriculum. Really and truly it is the curiosity that we suppress that kills so many teenagers. Give them a question and get them answering . It is authentic, it works. CLIL should be the approach with teens, not language learning (except for low levels.).
Here is a presentation I made of questions Connie Weber’ s students came up with. She is a great teacher in Michigan with her own ning, http://firesidelearning.ning.com
That’s my idea. http://eflclassroom.com/flash/whatsworthknowing2.swf
David
Hi,
Marisa, thanks for your endless support.
David thanks for the contribution and the links. They are great.
Eva