Fostering Student Motivation

hi everyone
as our assessed teaching has finished, GEÇMİŞ OLSUN everbody;) I think everybody tried to do the best teaching:)) Anyway, I won't talk about assessed. The thing which attracted my attention in my asessed teaching was that to motivate each learner throughout the whole lesson is really hard work for a teacher. As teachers, we cannot expect that each student in the class would be motivated all the time during the 40 minutes!!! So I have searched for some information about motivation issue. A small list has occured which includes some important clues for student motivation.I also added some of them from my own observation during my practice teaching:

• choose topic from students' own life (real life situations)
• praise whenever they achieve something
• be a model for them as being enthusiastic and interested in learning
• use humor
• try to appeal to all intelligences througout the lesson
• include novelty/variety materials
• don't make your students sit and listen passively
• use drama, games
• allow students to create finished products
• involve distracted students in the lesson by asking question which is simple for them to answer

what else can be added to this list? we shouldn't forget that students motivation is one of the most essentail issue to have effective teaching-learning atmosphere.Let's find another clues to motivate our students. Would you please add the other items which you know? What are the other items to be involved in this list?

"TEACHER=GARDENER" Let's find metaphors for "teacher" ;)

Every job requires dealing with somethings related to itself. For instance, an officer in a bank is engaged in money issues; an engineer works with measurement of places;a green-grocer sells fruit and vegetables... What about teachers??? Yes, students are the center of our job as teachers. But the different thing from the other jobs is that our center is HUMAN. In that sense, as teachers, we cannot just deal with them by just trying to teaching in the classroom. As the students are not machines but "human", we must take into considiration of their needs, interests, moods, social backgrounds because with the lack of knowledge about the students, we cannot have the comfortable atmosphere of teaching. As teachers, we should not forget that our students are not paper, not machine, not computer but only HUMAN. With this view, I want to share my imagination that I see teachers like "gardener" who wants to grow flowers so s/he has the knowledge abot the flowers such as which place they like, how much water they need, when and how they bloom. So "teacher" means "gardener" to me. What about you?? Which occupation are teachers like for you? What does "teacher" mean to you?Let's find metaphors for "being a teacher" all together;))

I am confused:((

hi my dear colleagues!!
I want to state one of my problem about being a teacher:( Our mentor teacher tries to be beneficial for us as possible as she can be. On Wednesday, she gave us some assignments of the students in order to check them. She explained how we should check them; what the criteria we should consider into, which symbols we should use to show the wrong things, etc. All these are fine..While checking the assignments in the evening, I feel like a real teacher who studied at her home also. This is my problem:( I feel the burden on the teachers that their work does not finish in the school, but goes on at their home and in their free times. So I feel a bit depressed and already bored with my future occupation. I really wonder whether you have this kind of negative feelings about being a teacher or not.. Am I the only one who depressed about her future job at the very beginning of it?!!

All Prejudices have been perished:))

This term, we have taken our last course about practice teaching, and our school is METU college as you all know. At the very beginning, I'm so happy that the school is so near us to go easily:)) So, at the very begining my first impression ,which is positive, started in the RING as I was going to school like going to my departure:))
When I was entering the school gate, I had been full of prejudice against private school. But I must admit that after seeing nice, smiling teachers and clever pupils in the school garden, I changed totally my mind. Also, it is so well-organized school for students that I even wanted to have studied there in my childhood:))To see little faces speaking English with no Turkish made me embarrased and be happy. Moreover, I didn't expected such a nice mentor teacher. She is very effective teacher and her attitude towards us was so appreciative that I like her very much. Her helpful manners, encouraging behaviours made us felt comfortable in the class.
On the whole, I must confess that I am so regretful for the sentence " oh no! I don't want to go that stupid school!" which I uttured in the first time I learned the school where I would do my practice teaching. As you see, I am full of positive impressions about the school for the first week. I hope, all the term would be full of good impressions and we would be pleased to go there! Let's see what would happen throughout the term:)) I wish all my prospective colleagues good luck;))

The unknown 5 things about me :))

yes my friends, are you ready? we will learn about our unknown world:))It is the time for confession!!! here are my 5 secrets that a few people or no one knows.Don't be shocked please:))

• I am an adult and prospective teacher but I am still so scared of darkness:(( At nights, I cannot stay alone my home. I don't know what I will do next year...
• I am the fan of some singers of arabesque music type such as Ismail YK, so I am a "kıro" :))
• No matter the season is winter and there is snow everywhere, I wash up my hair every morning.Without washing up my hair, I don't go anywhere.
• In my hometown, every weekend there is at least one wedding ceremony, with my mother and some friends, I go to every wedding ceremony at every weekend.
• I really don't like snakes, and I am really scared of them.Even when they are on the TV, I cannot look at them.

Hi my dear colleagues:)

As prospective teachers of the near future, which would be together with recent technological devices and mostly computers , this blog will be very useful for us to use technology in our job. So, thanks to Sibel hoca, we will learn a lot about this blog in order to use it in ELT. Besides, we will have fun too:))
Let's enjoy and share our ideas and opinions about our future job. FUN :)))))