Motivating Students

Teaching is challenging because a teacher does not only teach students but also motivate them to participate learning and to succeed. It is not an easy task because not all students are well motivated to study. In my class in Indonesia, I often find out that only a few students speak English in the classroom while other students are unresponsive. However, it is not fair to blame the students for the unsuccessful learning. I realize that the students’ minor participation in learning English can also be caused by inappropriate techniques, activities and materials applied by the teachers. Therefore, I reflect on my teaching techniques, the materials I use, and the activities I apply and make some improvements in order to encourage my students to be active. I work hard and I do not want to give up teaching them because it is my responsibility to facilitate them with enjoyable and meaningful learning. I have to be a motivator for my students.

Actually, there are many ways a teacher can do to motivate students to engage them into learning such as giving reward, compliments, encouragement, innovative teaching techniques and activities so that students will not feel bored and frustrated. That is why being an ILEP fellow is beneficial for me because I get loads of ideas especially on how to apply methods and techniques in teaching and motivating students. It is fantastic because I get things that I really need as a teacher that I have been learning from lecturers in Host University and my partner teacher in host school where I am doing internship program.

As an ILEP fellow, I have been doing internship at Statesboro High School for about two months. My partner teacher is very smart, great, talented, loving and caring teacher. She can present the lesson well and she is a good storyteller as well. In addition, she is also good in managing class and she is even good in handling students. I am sure I can learn much from her about techniques and classroom application in teaching English as well as encouraging and motivating students.
She motivates students by giving rewards such as giving candies, ice cream, and chocolate. When the students feel tired and bored to go on learning activities, she usually wakes them up by taking some candies and distributes them to students. To motivate students to do assignment on time, she sets the timer and the students have to get things done when the timer rings and the fastest student will get rewards and compliments which can motivate them to do better.

When students have problem or do wrong things, she usually advises them softly by not discouraging them. She does not scold students rudely using high tone of voice but she sits face to face with them and speaks with them just like their mother advising them. She always emphasizes students that they have to study well and pass the exam with flying colors. By doing so, students will get better job in the future, they will get more money, which will become incentive in their lives. Sometimes, if students do not do the right things in the class, she tells students that she will call their parents. This action will stop students for not doing mistakes anymore in the class.

She told me that she also motivates students using game, music and songs but so far, I have not seen these activities in the class. I expect her to do these activities in her future classes. Once, she played movie of “The Pursuit of Happyness” and the students felt excited. After watching film, she assigned them to write journal about it. To motivate students to come to class on the next day, she did not play the whole movie at once but she played it in three sections, which took her three days to play it.

As mentioned above, many ways a teacher does to motivate students in learning. It much depends on the character of teacher and students. Using different techniques in teaching is one of the ways but unfortunately, I found my partner teacher applies the same monotonous techniques everyday. She delivers lesson by lecturing without pair work or group work. Students keep sitting at their desk until the end of the class and no discussion or debate activities. I also saw students sleeping during the class and she usually wakes them up by tackling their faces with a tool made of feathers. Even, one of the students complained her by saying why they had to do the same thing every day. However, she is a great and wonderful teacher who can manage the class well. I know every teacher is unique and has different ways of teaching. I have been learning a lot from her.

Consequently, teaching is complicated because it does not only include teaching the lesson but also motivating students. It is not a piece of cake, which can be done in simple way, but it requires experiences, skills, and hard work of a teacher. Teacher’s attitudes, behaviors, and characters also play important role in the success of motivating students, which blend together with emotional intelligence. By having these potentials, a teacher will be able to motivate students successfully in different ways.

WHO AM I AS A TEACHER?

I was born in Bukittinggi, a small beautiful tourist spot in western part of Sumatra Island in Indonesia. Many foreigners from different countries visited the town to spend their vacation and this condition encouraged me to learn English well in order to be able to communicate with them. In my school years, I often spent my time by wandering around the town just to chat with them. I was very excited and it inspired me to become an English teacher. Therefore, I can say that being a teacher was the perfect choice of career because I enjoyed my job. I was also supported by my parents who had been teachers for all their entire lives. In addition, I became more comfortable being a teacher because it was also supported by belief in the community that teacher is a preferred and appropriate job for a woman. Why did I say that? It was assumed that a woman does not only have the ability to teach and educate students at school but also to teach and to educate their children at home. It was also in line with the concept of religion (I am a Moslem) that teaching is a noble job in which someone can transfer knowledge to other people and it is respected as a good deed among the community. Furthermore, being a teacher I can educate myself in my entire life by learning from other people. I decided to become a teacher since then.

Right after completing my higher education, I enrolled at Teachers’ College in Padang majoring in English Language Teaching, graduated in 1994, and continued my family tradition to be a teacher. I started my career at LIA English language institution in Pekanbaru teaching English for children, teenagers, and the employees of government and private institutions. To develop my career, I applied to be a teacher at a state school in 1998 and I was assigned to teach English as foreign language at Vocational School 5 Pekanbaru. To increase teachers’ professional development, I was awarded to study master degree at Indonesia University of Education in Bandung majoring in English Language Teaching in 2003. How lucky I was. After completing my master degree, I got a job teaching at Senior High School 8 Pekanbaru, a national school with international standards. I have been teaching there for almost one year. In addition to teaching at state school, I am currently involved in a secondary profession. I continue my teaching at LIA English language institution. Teaching experience at both of institutions is very advantageous that can benefit me in teaching my students from time to time. I teach at state school from seven in the morning to two in the afternoon and teach evening class at LIA. By exploring classroom theories and techniques at state school as well as at LIA, modifying and applying them in English language teaching I can improve my teaching. I even do classroom action research in order to find the effectiveness of teaching techniques. I am very lucky to teach at both of institutions because they give me many ideas in teaching and understanding different types of students.

Nowadays, teaching is more challenging and people have changed their opinion and thoughts about teachers. Nowadays, teacher is not preferred most anymore because of the salary and welfare. However, I remain myself as a teacher. I do not want to switch my exciting job because I love teaching. As a teacher I have goals to pursue. First, I want to be a professional teacher who is able to play different roles. A teacher should act as leader, actor, motivator, creator, facilitator, etc. with the philosophy to provide the students with meaningful and enjoyable learning. As a facilitator, a teacher guides the students during the process of learning. A teacher may not spoon-feed the students but guide them to experience independent learning to find the problem and the solutions. It can be said that a teacher is a gardener who plants seeds and watches them grow. It means that I have to give them knowledge, guide them in learning process, and see the progress. Furthermore, teaching is not only improving students’ intellectual ability but also educating them to have good personality traits. As a result, they will posses good intellectual, mental and spiritual character which are very important to improve human resources. I also teach my students to have critical thinking to develop themselves as professionals in the future. Second, I want to create English language community in my school. It is in line with the mission of my school as one of international schools in Indonesia, which requires both students and teachers to be able to use English in learning and teaching process and daily life. Third, I want to be an agent of change in the world of education, especially in English Language Teaching by transmitting my ideas to the teachers, educators, and stakeholders of education in order to improve the education system in Indonesia.

In order to achieve those goals above, I have to develop my teaching skills as well as English language skills. Nowadays, teaching is becoming a more challenging job which requires a teacher to work hard to keep track of his or her goals and students’ achievements. I need to develop myself by participating educational training program, workshop, seminars or conferences in my country or overseas in English Language Teaching and target culture learning. By doing so, I will get some benefits of learning more teaching techniques and applications which I can implement in my class. I believe participating in ILEP is a great opportunity for me to achieve my goals as a teacher. It benefits me in some ways.

Teaching English as foreign language to 10th, 11th, and 12th grade students is not an easy task because not all of them are well motivated to learn. Moreover, I teach large class with 35 to 40 students, some of whom are passive. I often find out that only a few students speak English in the classroom while other students are unresponsive. However, it is not fair to blame the students for the unsuccessful learning. I realize that the students’ minor participation in learning English can also be caused by inappropriate techniques, activities and materials applied by the teachers. Therefore, I reflect on my teaching techniques, the materials I use, and the activities I apply and make some improvements in order to encourage my students to be active. I work hard and I do not want to give up teaching them because it is my responsibility to facilitate them with enjoyable and meaningful learning. I have to be a motivator for my students. That is why this program will be very fruitful and many things will make sense to me. I will get loads of ideas especially on how to apply methods and techniques in teaching English as foreign language. It will be fantastic because I will get things that I really need as a teacher. I believe that the program will transform the brilliant educational modern theories into classroom practical applications.

I believe that the program also fits the curriculum of English language teaching in Indonesia, which is aimed to enable the students to communicate in written and spoken form in the cultural context of English language. Teaching English is not merely teaching the language but also teaching culture of the target language by creating the activities including cross-cultural understanding in which the students can compare their culture and the target culture. Learning English without including target culture learning will cause misunderstanding and misconceptions. This program will help me a lot improve my teaching by broadening my horizon about new nuances of cross culture learning. By doing so, I expect I can create English language community in my school. Moreover, after completing this program, I will transfer the ideas of language teaching to the teachers back in my home country, which will be facilitated by Teachers Training Center every time a teacher completes a training program in his or her home country as well as in overseas. This way, I can be an agent of change in education.

Based on my experience as a secondary-level teacher, there are some critical issues facing secondary education in my country. First, the issue about national schools with international standards is booming now. Coincidently, my school is a national school with international standard which has the target to educate the students to be skilful, good problem solvers, independent life long learners, responsible for the tasks given, creative thinkers, effective and efficient communicators in the national language as well as English language and able to cooperate with other people. Besides, students must be able to apply Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to support their study. As an international school, my school has accessed to international world by joining student exchange programs as well as teacher exchange programs to have international learning and teaching experience. It also has a worldwide network with other students and teachers in the world through International Education and Research Network (IEARN). By joining this organization, students or teachers can access current information about education, teaching, and learning. They can also discuss some issues about education online. Therefore, participating in this program would help me overcome the challenges to pursue the mission of my school as a national school with international standards. I will be beneficially informed about international education as well as teaching techniques in classroom applications. Teaching practice at an American school will brighten my insight in teaching. Besides, I will also have an opportunity to establish a school network with American school so that the teachers and students in both schools can share ideas in education.

The second issue is the theory of multiple intelligences developed by Dr. Howard Gardner. He proposes eight different intelligences to account for human potential in children and adults, including linguistic intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, spatial intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, musical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, and naturalist intelligence. For the implementation of the theory, the teachers have to present the lesson in various ways such as using cooperative learning technique, music, art activities, role-play, multimedia, field trips, inner reflection, games and much more based on the students’ needs and their unique intelligences. Fortunately, the theory of multiple intelligences has attracted the attention of many educators in Indonesia nowadays, and many schools are currently using its philosophy to redesign the way teachers teach the students. The problem is that not all teachers and educators are competent to implement this theory appropriately. It is a challenge that Indonesian educators have to overcome. Therefore, by participating in this program I will help the government find an alternative solution of the problem. It will be very valuable for me in finding classroom ideas about teaching based on the theory of multiple intelligences as well as cooperative learning, differentiated instruction, higher level of thinking, brain-based instruction, learning through cultures, etc. I think the program will also provide the participants with many resources on teaching, learning, and school administration, which are very beneficial to apply back in schools in my home country. By participating in this program, I expect to meet excellent educators and professors in English language teaching and learn a lot from them.

In the end, I can say that I am a teacher who is willing to pursue excellence of teaching in order to dedicate the best thing for my students in terms of language teaching and education. I want to prove myself as to be a competent and promising teacher and educator in my environment. Therefore, my willingness to pursue further trainings in education and to learn from others as well as to adapt to new environment will benefit me greatly for my future professional development.