2. TEACHER
STUDENTS

3. ENHANCING MOTIVATION IN WRITING CLASSES
Linh, Tran Dang Khanh
Nha Trang Teacher Training College, Vietnam
8th ASIA TEFL Conference, Ha Noi, 5-8 August

4. Researching related literature Implementation Generating motivation
PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Identifying problems
Researching related literature
Implementation
Generating motivation
Maintaining motivation

5. Why don’t writing classes appeal to either teachers or students?
Identifying problems
Why don’t writing classes appeal to either teachers or students?
How can a teacher make his writing classes appeal both to himself and his students ?

6. Students’ problems Lack of interest Lack of ideas Lack of vocabulary
Tiredness from long concentration
Unawareness of teacher’s expectations

7. Teacher’s Problems
Should I give more functional grammar? So many wording mistakes!!
What can I do today to make the class more interesting?
I have a bunch of paper-grading!!

8. teaching effectiveness.’ (Dornyei, 2001:116)
Related literature
‘teacher’s skills in motivating learners should be seen as central to
teaching effectiveness.’
(Dornyei, 2001:116)

9. Motivating the Unmotivated (4th VTTN conference)
JEREMY HARMER –
Motivating the Unmotivated (4th VTTN conference)
Appropriate teacher behaviour and good teacher-student rapport
A pleasant and supportive classroom atmosphere
A cohesive learner group characterised by group norms
Generating Student Motivation
Increasing learners’ ‘goal-orientedness’
Making the curriculum relevant for learners
Maintaining and protecting motivation
Increasing the learners’ self-confidence
Creating learner autonomy
Encouraging positive self-evaluation
Increasing learner satisfaction and the question of rewards and grades

10. Generating motivation
Designing syllabi that meet S’s needs and match S’s competence.
Syllabus content
Materials
Class activities

11. Generating motivation
Raising S’s awareness in:
The importance of writing skills
Characteristics of written language
Genres and the characteristics of each
The differences between English and Vietnamese (native) writing styles
Formal / informal English

12. Generating motivation
Making lesson titles relevant to Ss
Ex: - Paragraph writing 
- How to state a simple opinion 
- Narration 
- How to write a short story 

13. Maintaining motivation
Giving various classroom activities
Dramatising / visualising for concept understanding
Group work
Games

17. Generating & maintaining motivation
Having writing process as the red thread permeating classes, with combination of group work and individual work
Analysing question / need  Brainstorming ideas  organising ideas  writing first draft  Checking & Editing  writing final draft

18. Generating & maintaining motivation
Helping Ss to design check-lists and use them to correct own & peer’s papers; teacher’s grading only after peer correction

19. Generating & maintaining motivation
Encouraging S-S and S-T communication through s, class journals, book reflection, etc.

20. Results? 100% students in favor of the writing – correction process.
3 class journals
Why not more homework (8/83)?
More time for writing classes (22 / 83)
Why not games / writing contests between groups? (9/83)
10 / 83 prefer teacher’s correction to peer correction
(Feedback from 83 Course Evaluation sheets /School year 08-09)

21. Conclusion
“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” (William Arthur Ward)