The way of how teachers give their English classes have changed a lot

along the time. Nowadays new techniques and strategies have been carrying out

by teachers due to the world is changing too; and they must adapt to the new

requierements of children in the classroom. A teacher can have a perfect lesson

plan but, even with it, an unmotivated student will not learn. Some teachers think

that motivating students is not their job and teacher’s job is only to know the

content and to teach it well. Then, students must worry about their motivation. In

fact, it is not true.

Some years ago when I was at school, I used to say that my English

classes were too boring for me because my teacher taught us a new topic, and

then, she gave us some exercises in order to practise. We hardly ever used to

have listenings or watch a film or a video. We rarely had some speaking during

the class, but it was a few minutes, and then, the class continued as usual with

more writing exercises. Therefore, I remember that I learnt some grammar

structures and vocabulary, but I was not sure about how to put them in practise in

a dialogue with other person for example. I mean how to put our knowlegde in

real situations in order to realize the main purpose of learning a foreing language:

" to communicate with other people from other cultures and countries". It could be

the way of teaching of that time that makes those type of classes were not

motivating. They were so static that made you not to expect excitingly English

classes, even thouh made you to think that learning English was not important for

our life.
 After observing some classes at Cristo Obrero´s school, I realiazed that

today teachers have a lot of new tools to motivate their students to learn English.

Different kind of ideas, techniques and strategies had to have been developed

this last time due to nowadays children are not the same as some years ago.

They are very active and they need to be stimulating all the time. At present, it is

quite common learning vocabulary and grammar structures throuhgout songs,

games and other engaging activities in the class such as role playing as the

teacher did in observation report number 1 and number 2. It is also very

important positive reinforcement during the class. I think it is the key of a

successful class, specially with little children because they love to be

congratulated or given some gifts like stickers or sweets by their teachers in front

of their partners. It makes them happy and encourages them to have the same

behaviour in the following activities and classes. Therefore, being a motivating

teacher is esencial to catch the attraction of students. It encourages them to learn

constantly because they can appreciatiate their improvement and they want to

continue developing their skills of speaking in English. Apart from that, as

students are used to use technological devices at home nowadays, schools tries

to adapt the classroom to the new children´s requierements so teachers are

allowed to use different kind of technology in the class in order to make more

dynamic their classes such as projector, computers, dvd player and so on.

In clonclusion to that it can be said that the combination of new ways of

teaching, technology and positive reinforcement create a good teaching

atmosphere in which students are contantly stimulating and enjoying the process
of learning a new language. In my opinión, a great teacher must recognize that

student motivation is necessary for success in learning and that teachers are

responsable of improving student motivation. They can not make someone

motivated, but they can create motivating learning environments where students

can feel as if they possess the skills necessary to meet the challenges of school

and feel some sense of autonomy or control in the class.