How to motivate learners? There are ten techniques provided by Ken Wilson that the teacher can employ to motivate learners.
1. Make them curious
eg. the pre-reading exercises, before presenting the related vocabulary
"if you feel engaged by a reading text then it is very likely that your students will too."
2. Challenge them
When the learners are tired, especially in evening class, the teacher can push them out the comfortable zone by, for instance, asking them to read the bullet-points extracted from the reading materials.
3. Avoid the obvious
If celebrities are materials, teachers should shun them presented in the textbooks in an outdated way. Besides, stories of the celebrities are more engaging than biography.
4.Devolve responsibility
Let the learners in higher level support the lower level ones in separated groups.
5.Teach unplugged(occasionally)
Learners should be given more chance to get involved in the classroom and affect the resources used.
Teachers are suggested to unplug, at least partially.
"...classroom sessions should be materials light, conversation-driven and deal with emergent language."
6. Let students use their tech and their tech skills
Instead of totally banishing the technical devices, such as smart phones in the classroom, the teacher could incorporate 'Google moment', that is, to ask the students to learn something by themselves through their tech skills through those smart phones.
7. Encourage their imagination
The typical situation is the teacher provides less examples of a grammatical structure but elicits learners' examples.
8.Find out what they know and what they're good at
It is valuable that the teacher investing time in discovering and getting to know about their learners' autobiographies.
9.Take a break
Teachers should have a break and hand out their 'authority' to the learners. The only thing the teacher have to do is to establish a rule of an activity (or a game) that can be accomplished by the learners before the break.
10.Turn your classroom into a spider's web
Sometimes the teacher should relinquish control where possible in the classroom. In other words, the teacher should not always be the centre point of a 'wheel', meaning the learners are all seeking the 'right answers' from the teacher. The classroom ought to be like a spider's web where sometimes the 'centre' may turn to one of the learners, though the teacher might ultimately remain the hub.
Reference:
Sherriff (2012) "Motivating The UnmotivatedTen Ways To Get Your Students To DO Something", 2012 englishagenda.britishcouncil.org/sites/ec/files/Seminars_motivating.pdf
