ENGAGING STUDENTS TODAY!

(Or How to Survive Teaching Today)

GUSTAVO GONZÁLEZ
gugonzalez1970@gmail.com

Chile, October, 2013

 AIMS OF THIS VISIT
To have a quick look at motivation
and what engages students.
To see how both teachers &
students’ roles have changed.
To explore some ideas and class
activities you can adopt and adapt
to engage your students in
meaningful language practice.
 Based on Ausubel’s ideas…

In order for learning to be meaningful, motivation

must come from the task itself.

Motivation is both cause and effect in learning.

The key is to take learning to its highest degree

so as to awake intellectual curiosity.
"Many people give up on learning after they leave school
because thirteen or twenty years of extrinsically motivated
education is still a source of unpleasant memories. Their
attention has been manipulated long enough from the outside
by textbooks and teachers, and they have counted graduation
as the first day of freedom. (Csikszentmihalyi, 2002)
"Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and
anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the
person's capacity to act." (Csikszentmihalyi, 2002)

Csikszentmihalyi calls the experience of being in this optimal

boundary area 'flow', which he describes as "being utterly
absorbed in something for its own sake because it's enjoyable
and you feel effective." Material which is intrinsically
motivating, we could say, is material which induces the
experience of 'flow'. (Hancock, 2010)
A taxonomy of intrinsically
motivating materials

(Hancock, 2010)
Interest
Personalization
Entertainment
Challenge
(Hancock, 2010)
 INTEREST

Material which aims to provoke

cognitive and sensory curiosity. This
would include real world articles and
images: human interest stories;
amazing and curious facts; surprising
customs; striking and incongruous
photographs.
 PERSONALIZATION

Material and activities which give

learners the opportunity to express
themselves and exchange information
about their lives, beliefs, belongings,
experiences, ambitions, habits,
interests and so on.
 ENTERTAINMENT

Material which aims to attract learner

attention because it is funny, amusing,
gripping, aesthetically pleasing,
engaging or involving. This material is
fictional, and examples would include
short stories, plays, jokes, comedy
sketches, films, music, poems, songs,
cartoons and art.
 CHALLENGE

Material which requires learners to

test their skills and luck in situations
with an uncertain outcome. Examples
would include puzzles, quizzes, guess
work, detective work, collaborative
games and competitive games.
“The IPEC taxonomy is intended as a way of keeping in
mind all the possibilities when it comes to preparing
or choosing teaching material and activities with
intrinsic appeal. When we choose classroom texts and
tasks, we obviously use the criteria of how well they
suit our teaching point and how appropriate they are
to the level of our students, but intrinsic appeal is
often considered afterwards, as if it were an optional
extra. However, if you believe as I do that learning is
more likely to be effective when learners are to some
extent intrinsically motivated, then it makes sense to
be more systematic in using intrinsic appeal as a
criterion in preparing or selecting material.”
(Hancock, 2010)
What is the kid doing?
 What is the kid in
this picture doing?
LISTENING TO MUSIC

WATCHING A MOVIE

Contacting people

Reading the news

Making music
MULTI‐TASKING GENERATION or
SWITCH‐TASKING GENERATION?
Are you acquainted with these names?

MARK DAVID WHITE &

PRENSKY ALISON LE CORNU

DIGITAL
RESIDENTS,
NATIVES,
VISITORS
DIGITAL
IMMIGRANTS
 Changes in the teacher’s role

From… To…
Supplier of Facilitator to learning,
knowledge, main collaborator, trainer,
source of tutor, guide and
information, content participant in the
expert and source of learning process.
all answers.
 Changes in the students’ role

From… To…
Passive recipients of Active participants in
information. the learning process.

Learning is thought of Learning is a

as an individual collaborative process
process. with other students.

Based on the chart “Cambios en los roles de docentes y alumnos en los

entornos de aprendizaje centrados en el alumno”. (Adapted from the chart
developed by Newby et al. 2000 in UNESCO 2004, p.28)
“The pace of change will vary for
different groups of teachers.
Some groups will move very
quickly to adopt new
technologies and new habits
while others will remain largely
unaffected by technological
changes. There will be no one big
movement or trend, but rather a
range of trends, some fast
moving, others slow...”
(Dudeney & Hockly, 2007).
 We’re already good teachers, and our
students are learning and growing.
But are we meeting our students’ needs
and interests, with all these new
technologies all around?

Don’t you feel

like this about
incorporating
them in the
classroom?
 What is there to do?
• TIP #1: Don’t freak out! There’s a
“help button” very close at hand!

• TIP #2: Consider it as a reframing of

our methods in the future of
instruction, a blended approach.

• TIP #3: See it as a tearing down and

rebuilding of traditional teaching,
where learning is a joint effort and
roles are reborn.
Adapted from Michael Fisher, 2009.
 Can you guess who the
person in the puzzle is?
 What
do you
know
about
Lionel
Messi?
PETER, PLEASE ANSWER THIS QUESTION

WHO ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?

 PETER, PLEASE ANSWER THIS QUESTION

WHO ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?

Answer: MESSI
.MESSI.

WHO ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?

A service that allows you to create your own talking picture
(blabber) by placing a moving mouth on a still image.
Upload a photo of someone to Blabberize, select a mouth
and then record a message. Once done, users can email a
link to the Blabberize hosted page or embed the result.
 AIMS OF THIS VISIT
To have a quick look at motivation
and what engages students.
To see how both teachers &
students’ roles have changed.
To explore some ideas and class
activities you can adopt and adapt
to engage your students in
meaningful language practice.
Are you taking away some ideas
to complement the coursebook?

Can you ADOPT some of these

activities, ADAPT them so as to
engage your students in a
meaningful way?

THEN…
 DON’T LET TECHNOLOGY
overwhelm YOU and knock
you off!!!

We, TEACHERS,
WILL SURVIVE!!!
Gustavo González
gugonzalez1970@gmail.com