(Blog post prepared in part for TESOL 6510, Second Language Acquisition at the University of Northern Iowa)
One way to motivate students to to allow them to choose ... something. Anything. Give them a choice between singing song A or song B. All those who want to sing A move to that side of the room and those who want to sing B move to this side of the room. And those who talk cannot vote.
Another choice: what vocabulary words do they want to learn. I ask that question after young students take a field trip to the zoo or a farm. They practice asking the question, "¿Cómo se dice ...?. I teach the word, then allow the student to choose the image we use in an online slide show they can use to show their families, or to review. I have used Haiku Deck and Sway. Both offer good images and their learning curve is not too complex.
Here is an example of a first grade class's choices for animal vocabulary.
Another choice: what vocabulary words do they want to learn. I ask that question after young students take a field trip to the zoo or a farm. They practice asking the question, "¿Cómo se dice ...?. I teach the word, then allow the student to choose the image we use in an online slide show they can use to show their families, or to review. I have used Haiku Deck and Sway. Both offer good images and their learning curve is not too complex.
Here is an example of a first grade class's choices for animal vocabulary.