Students Motivation During Pandemic Times
Image source: Josué David Bonilla
The class environment is essential for students when it comes to learning, it is not just about giving and internalizing information. As teachers, whatever the subject is, we deal with dropouts during the year, that is why motivating them to attend class is necessary for their benefit. This pandemic has been an opportunity to take advantage of technology (whenever is possible), in which we could say that younger generations (the 2000´s) are more in touch with. This tool, together with video games, are a powerful resource to use motivation and creativity to keep them engaged in class, or at least that is the way I see it.
During my teaching practicum, I have been looking for ways of having my students participate and keeping them engaged in my classes. As you can see in the image, I created an activity where students have to find a verb (from a set of three) that has a different -ed ending sound using the trending game Among Us to find that impostor verb. They were loving it, and this is what I mean when I say that creativity is a source of motivation and engagement. But I have to be honest, not all the time I feel that I can get closer to my students and make them feel that the language can be fun as well, there are some activities that I know they will be useful but might be boring somehow.
One of the main difficulties during the whole process of being a college student and a practicum teacher, is to find ways of attracting students´ attention towards the English language, but most importantly, to have enough time to make creative activities that can motivate learners to stay focused in virtual classes because the class environment during right now is their homes, a place where they can be easily distracted by anything. My recommendation to my colleagues who read this, is to create competitive activities in imaginative ways, but to do this, it is important what the student´s likes are that might catch their attention when you use your activities, so that we can keep guiding them through the path of knowledge and growth in funny and interesting ways.
I completely agree with your comment! I think the hard thing to teach has been being able to motivate students to want to enter our class. Besides, trying to please all the students by creating interesting activities and, at the same time, taking many courses in the university is not easy. However, we try since we want students to learn without seeing the subject as an obligation.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your recommendation to catch student’s attention, which has become a difficult task to achieve during virtual classes.
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ReplyDeleteI agree, teaching and studying at the university is very difficult, but with discipline it is possible, we should not give up.
it is admirable how creative you are to use a game that has nothing to do with education as an english class tool. there are specialized apps or pages for teaching that were thought by and for teacher, but a game like that calls youngster attention by its own, adding the english part was a very smart move.
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