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I Think This Is The Best Writing I’ve Seen About The Art Of Listening
What Leaders Get Wrong About Listening is a podcast and transcript from The Harvard Business Review. I think it’s really, really good, and very applicable to the classroom. I’m adding it to The Best Ideas To Help Students Become Better Listeners — Contribute More.      “Creating The Conditions For Self-Motivated Students”I’ve written quite a few posts for the British Council over the years. Unfortunately, most of them are no longer on their website. So, I’ll be republishing the ones here that I think still could be helpful to teachers. This one was published in 2014.
 geralt / Pixabay
The Latin root of the word “motivation” means “that which inwardly moves a person to behave a certain way.” Unfortunately, all too often we teachers talk about motivation as something we have to do to students instead of helping them identify ways they can motivate themselves. I was a community organizer for nineteen years prior to becoming a high school teacher, and one of the tenets of effective organizing is recognizing the difference between irritation and agitation. We irritate people when we challenge them to act on our interests while we agitate people when we challenge them to do something about their own interests, concerns and dreams. Given the fact that our students are not in our classes the vast majority of their time, we must make the latter a priority. I don’t believe I have ever motivated a student. As Edward Deci, the renowned researcher on motivation issues, wrote: “The proper question is not, ‘how can people motivate others?’ but rather, ‘how can people create the conditions within which others will motivate themselves?'” There are many strategies ESL teachers can use to create those kinds of conditions by fostering students’ sense of intrinsic motivation, which comes from within themselves, as opposed to extrinsic motivation, which comes from outside factors (such as grades). Teachers and researchers have found that positive teacher-student relationships, a supportive classroom atmosphere, enhancing students’ sense of autonomy through providing choices (homework options, seating arrangements, etc.), and praising effort (“You pronounced the dialogue very clearly, Jose — all that time you spent practicing it paid off”) instead of ability (“Your English is great, Jose”) are a few strategies teachers can use to strengthen ESL student intrinsic motivation. ESL Students setting their own goals has also been found to be an effective motivating strategy. I have collected many different goal-setting lessons I use, including student hand-outs, here. Once students have identified their goals, substantial research has been done showing that student use of imagery — particularly with those learning a second language — can result in both increased learning and increased student motivation . I often have students take thirty seconds at the beginning of a class to visualize in their mind successfully working towards achieving their specific language learning goals (after teaching a lesson on its value towards learning). Just as plentiful research has found that students seeing the economic and social benefits of high school graduation and college attendance generates increased student enthusiasm for learning, it is not a stretch to imagine a similar effect on English Language Learners by their learning about the many benefits of learning another language. Through lessons and videos, my students regularly learn about the economic, professional and health benefits of learning English. As you can tell, I emphasize in-class efforts to help students motivate themselves. But I don’t live in a fantasyland. I recognize that learning another language, especially one as crazy as English, is very hard work, and, despite lots of intrinsic motivation, there will always be many attractive alternatives to studying available to students outside of school. So, as part of “creating the conditions” in which they can motivate themselves, I provide my students with a list of low-stress, high-interest activities that I request they do outside of the classroom, and which they can fit in doing a few minutes at a time. These include: * For the growing number of students with smartphones, I provide classtime where they can try out the growing number of mobile apps for English-language learning. Duolingo and ones created by the British Council are particularly engaging. * I ask students to take photos of signs or passages they come upon during the day that they don’t understand. They then text them to my phone and I create a weekly slideshow where we review their meanings. * I ask students to keep a simple “log” of things about which they talk to themselves in English. For example, while they are riding their bike to school they can say to themselves, “That is a red car with a man and woman inside.” Students then share these internal conversations with the class. * I maintain “virtual” classrooms on many different websites where students with home computers and Internet access can go to and learn/practice English. I usually ask that they spend a minimum of two hours each week on the sites of their choice, and will modify that up (and occasionally down) based on individual conversations with students based on their self-identified language-learning goals. * For students who do not have computers and home internet access, we use creative strategies to help their families obtain them.
How do you help your students to motivate themselves?  “6 Reasons Why I Stayed Teaching at My School for 22 Years”6 Reasons Why I Stayed Teaching at My School for 22 Years is the headline of one of my recent Ed Week columns. Why leave a high school where the administrators have fostered a supportive environment and made teaching fulfilling? Here’s an excerpt:
 This Week’s “Round-Up” Of Useful Posts & Articles On Ed Policy Issues
Here are some recent useful posts and articles on educational policy issues (You might also be interested in seeing all my “Best” lists related to education policy here):
Whatever Happened to Detracking? is from Larry Cuban.
I’m adding this post to The Best Resources Showing Why We Need To Be “Data-Informed” & Not “Data-Driven”:
I’m adding this post to The Best Posts On The Value Of Ethnic Studies Classes – Help Me Find More:
I’m adding this post to The Best Resources For Developing Lessons On The Question, “Who Is An American?”:
  “Five Strategies For ELL Vocabulary Instruction”I’ve written quite a few posts for the British Council over the years. Unfortunately, most of them are no longer on their website. So, I’ll be republishing the ones here that I think still could be helpful to teachers. This one was published in 2014.  viarami / Pixabay
Reading, writing, listening and speaking in a new language demands a number of prerequisites — a desire to do so; a certain level of self-confidence; a supportive atmosphere and, of course, knowing the meaning of words in the new language. In other words, vocabulary. Here are five of the many instructional strategies I and, I’m sure, many other teachers use when teaching vocabulary to English Language Learners. Most, if not all, incorporate the widely proven research that finds that physical movement and/or images strengthen second-language learning: Personal Dictionaries: Each week students complete at least one of these “Four Word Sheets” where they identify…four new English words they have learned during the week from another class, our class, television — from anywhere. It’s composed of four of these sections which, as you can see in the image below, have spaces for the word and various representations/definitions of it.
Students divide into small groups and teach and learn these words to each other, using the process as an opportunity to practice academic vocabulary: John (holding up his sheet): Can you identify a word you like to learn? Sue (pointing): Yes, can you define ___________(whatever word she chooses that is on John’s sheet)? Picture Word Inductive Model: I’ve previously written an extensive post about the Picture Word Inductive Model (PWIM), which is just about my favorite teaching strategy with Beginning English Language Learners. Pre-Teaching: Perhaps the most widely-used method, and a particularly effective one, is identify key words in an upcoming text that are probably new to students and then define those terms prior to reading the text. This strategy is also effective for teaching terms that, while they might not be found in an upcoming text, are important for learning upcoming concepts. For example, here’s a pre-teaching sheet I use prior to beginning a unit on writing a problem/solution essay. I use this strategy by first placing the sheet on the overhead, pointing to each word, say it, and then ask students to repeat in unison. Afterwards, since our students often know more than we think, I give students a minute or two to review the list and see if they know what any of the words already mean. Then, after providing students time to share what they know with the class, we relatively quickly review the words and their meanings. “Relatively quickly” is an important idea to remember — there are few activities as deadly to a class environment then spending an hour on a list of words. I once saw a teacher spend a half-hour on the definition of “expedition”! I fell asleep, not to mention the students! After students read the text, I’ll often ask them to go back and highlight the words we pre-taught. It’s a way to reinforce their meaning and an excuse to revisit the text again with a new task. Reinforcing Vocabulary Instruction Online: There are countless free online sites specifically for learning vocabulary in English, and most are organized thematically and provide audio and visual support for text. There are also similar sites specifically geared towards teaching academic language. And, for some great fun as well as learning, it’s hard to beat online hidden object games. Creating Vocabulary Videos: Having students use either the Twitter app Vine or Instragram video to create very short creative definitions of words is a fun and reinforcing learning activity. Students can create simple storyboards, video using the Stop Action feature on both of the apps, and then post their finished creations on YouTube. You can see many examples my students have created here, and I’ve embedded a sample below related to our problem/solution essay unit: 
What are your favorite vocabulary instruction strategies?  More Recent Articles |
