teaching to non motivated teenagers

Help, tips and advice in teaching English

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maylilot
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Joined: 26 Feb 2010, 23:39
Status: Teacher

teaching to non motivated teenagers

Unread post by maylilot »

Hi Lucy. I was given a class on saturdays at 8 in the morning. For three teenager two boys and one girl. they are among 14 and 15 years old. They have had 4 lessons all of them with different teachers. They are supposed to be upper intermidiate.

My problem is that they don´t want to be there. They´d rather be sleeping at their homes. They´re going to the institutes because their parents told them. They told me the previous class that they are tired of studying english! They weren´t that bad, but they just wanted the time to pass by and go home.

I was supposed to made a review and they had a quiz the same day. They told me we already have seen that topic with the other teachers, but they don´t manage well the topics. They have an idea...

Well, I don´t know how to motivate these students and furthermore, I don´t think they want to review those topics again, because they didn´t very well in the quiz. Am I supposed to be more flexible with teenagers? I have never work with them.

By the way, I´m in a spanish country and I´m not a english native teacher. So. if you find some mistakes and you don´t mind please feel free to correct me.
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Lucy
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Posts: 658
Joined: 13 Jan 2004, 15:09
Status: Teacher Trainer

Re: teaching to non motivated teenagers

Unread post by Lucy »

Hello Maylilot,

I suggest you try out some project work with these students. You can tell them that they are going to give the class a short presentation on a subject of their choice. They can choose any topic they’re interested in; it doesn’t have to be an academic topic.

As homework, students can do research on their topic; for example, on internet. They bring their research into class and work on a summary of what they found. You can guide them in their writing of a short summary of their research. You could do some initial work on writing summaries; any good book on writing will have example exercises. They can also use graphs and other visual material to illustrate their chosen topic. You can also work on how to prepare and give a presentation; again available in many good course books, especially books on business English. The preparation of the project can take a few weeks, as both homework and class work. This will give them practice in reading, writing and speaking. They will also practise listening when they are listening to their classmates’ presentations. They will also learn vocabulary associated with their chosen topic. The advantage of such work is that students choose their topic and they work at their own pace. You can start classes with group work; eg how to do research, how to write summaries, how to do a presentation. Then they can work alone.

I have answered many questions about teaching teenagers in this forum; I suggest you look through those posts and then write in again if you have further questions.

All the best,

Lucy
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