Weblog Commenting and Trackback by HaloScan.com

Getting there

 

Friday, April 15, 2005

 
So, almost 24 hours late, here it is, the checklist for yesterday...and I'm thinking that going through it I must be more aware than I was last year, and wow do I think of a lot when I teach!

Creating the Basic Motivational Conditions

1 Demonstrate and talk about your own enthusiasm for the course material and how it affects you personally. I didn't check this, because I wasn't. Reading over Doernyei, 2001: 35 he talks of passion, enthusiasm and clearly identifying reasons for being interested, also showing you are going to work equally hard, being spiritually present (THAT I believe I was, as oppose to Tuesday, when I was not so aware of being grateful to be in the room with my students, but it's not an issue I've been checking for to date...need a new category? It did help me a lot to feel blessed, grateful, reverent of my student's presence with me. Sort of pseudo religious terminology here but I don't know how to phrase it better.)

2 Take the students learning very seriously. x I checked this because I tell them they're the best, and I expect it. And I do. Respect the teacher, respect yourself. This category also includes indicating that you care about student's progress, and are available physically and mentally. Part of this yesterday was for instance going early to the old room and making sure the new room number is written up on the board in the old room, so that when students go mistakenly to the old room which is printed in the syllabus, they see the board and know to come up to the new room, (the change was posted on the bulletin board in the hallway and nobody checks.) But I think this is one I take almost too seriously??? Is that possible???

3 Develop a personal relationship with your students. x I think I was careful to listen and pay attention to my students yesterday. I picked up a load of early students in the old classroom and shared the lift up to the new venue with them. I had a wee chat before class with one student about his hay fever, teaching him the word, and talking about how i'd read a suggestion we should even change the long summer vacation to a long spring vacation, because there's less pollen in summer!

4 Develop a collaborative relationship with the students'parents. Being a parent myself, I kinda want my son to get on with his life...but then I myself felt so lonely as an adult when no family (husband or kids) came to celebrate my karate obi, or other good things in my life...still, not one I have ever worked on although I am aware of never having checked it...I've already thought this one could be easily addressed with a class blog!! Oh boy!! YES SIRREEEE...Waiting to see if I can get students to make a class blog, cos i'm sure not going to...

5 Create a pleasant and supportive atmosphere in the classroom.x I just love this one. It includes establishing norms of tolerance, encouraging risk taking, accepting mistakes as natural learning tools, personalizing the class. (Never used that aspect, not being our room for more than 90 mins) . My whole Bushisms handout is a kind of discussion of tolerance, and rule 6, and having people realize different groups have different priorities in what rules are important as I collect them at the board, and that there's no right answer to if mistakes are ok or not for a world leader, only opinions. And that we can laugh, which happened a lot more yesterday, a kind of happy relaxed laughter happened when I asked a student to come in earlier next time but saying they were a model student in the way they sat down quietly.

6 Promote the development of group cohesiveness. I didn't check this because I didn't use icebreakers in the sense of introducing yourself by name and all that, or sharing personal info, or preventing rigid seating patterns (the room is pretty choc-a bloc, so moving around is going to be an issue). Although I do regularly use small group tasks where students can mix, I ran out of time to do the vocab A-B work where the class really mixes and gets up out of seats, so I didn't check this today.

7 Formulate the norms explicitly, and have them discussed and accepted by the learners.x Well this says specifically include a group rules activity, explain importance of norms and how they enhance learning and ask for agreement, elicit suggestions for additional rules, and put the rules on display. The only thing I haven't done is the last bit! (Not my room, no markers, magnets etc.etc.) but at any rate this motivational strategy I am USING!

8Have the group norms consistently observed. x This includes me observing the norms myself, I think I did yesterday, I came on time, I had my study materials, I drank in the break, I did my best, I spoke in English in gorup activities, I learned from my Tuesday mistakes and made new ones, I was available to be called for help, and I'm trying to make it real,...I think it's more important to not let violations go unnoticed, but I don't like the word violations as Doernyei uses it here cos when I think of it in terms of violations I get teachery all stiff and policewoman whip in hand and the students call me "scarey", kowai. Definitely not the way to go. If students are to be respected, then "violations" are mistakes or problems to be discussed by all...and mistakes are ok, so it is more a question of raising awareness and reaffirming rules than policing violations, which is what I think I was doing yesterday.
Total Strategies Used in Quadrant 1
5
Percentage of total strategies used in Quadrant 1
63%

Generating Initial Motivation?
9 Promote the learners' language related valuse by presenting peer role models.
x
10 Raise the learners' intrinsic interest in the L2 learning process
x
11 Promote 'integrative values by encouraging a positive and open-minded disposition towards the L2 and its speakers
x
12 Promote the students' awareness of the instrumental values associated with the knowledge of an L2
x
13 Increase the students' expectancy of success in particular tasks and learning in general.
x
14 Increase the students' goal-orientedness by formulating explicit class goals accepted by them.
x
15 Make the curriculum and the teaching materials relevant to the students.
x
16 Help to create realistic learner beliefs.
x
Total Strategies Used in Quadrant 2
8
Percentage of total strategies used in Quadrant2
100%

Maintaining and Protecting Motivation
17Make learning more stimulating and enjoyable by breaking the monotony of classroom events.
x
18Make learning stimulating and enjoyable for the learners by increasing the attractiveness of the task.
x
19Make learning stimulating and enjoyable for the learners by enlisting them as active task participants.
x
20Present and administer tasks in a motivating way.
x
21Use goal-setting methods in your classroom.
22Use contracting methods with your students to formalise their goal commitment.
23Provide learners with regular experience of success.
x
24 Build your learners confidence by providing regular encouragement.
25 Help dimish language anxiety by removing or reducing the anxiety-provoking elements in the learning environment.
x
26 Build your learners confidence in their learning abilities by teaching them various learner strategies.
x
27 Allow learners to maintain a positive social image while engaged in the learning tasks.
28 Increase student motivation by promoting cooperation among the learners.
x
29 Increase student motivation by actively promoting learner autonomy.
30 Increase the student' self-motivating capacity.
Total Strategies Used in Quadrant3
8
Percentage of total strategies used in Quadrant 3
57%

Encouraging Positive Self-Evaluation
31 Promote effort attributions in your students.
32 Provide students with positive information feedback.
x
33 Increase learner satisfaction.(celebrate achievements, display work)
34 Offer rewards in a motivational manner.
35 Use grades in a motivating manner, reducing as much as possible their demotivating impact.
x
Total Strategies Used in Quadrant 4
2
Percentage of total strategies used in Quadrant 4
40%
Taken from Doernyei, Z. Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom. Cambridge University Press 2001

|