I think that the intrinsic motivation is extremely important, especially for 16 Week Advanced groups. I mediate several engaging activities, in which the students are fully responsible for selecting the materials, analyzing and synthesizing these materials. To be honest, the instructor has enough time to do these kinds of student-centered activities in 16-Week Advanced class. I am not quite sure if they would have the flexibillity in other levels. With that said, I’d like to share one of the activities that I do for my 16-week Advanced level classes in order to help them develop a sense of intrinsic motivation.

SerdarOne of my favorites is called ‘My English.’ Each week is theme based aligned with the target topic that the coursebook covers, such as ‘Urban Planning, Business, Environment, etc. Students are free to search the web or the library database and find any lecture, article or video that they find interesting.Their job is to read, listen or watch the material that they find, take notes of main ideas and come to class ready to share it with their peers.

Every Friday, the last hour is called ”MESS :)” – My English Sharing Session-. In pairs or in small groups, students share the main ideas from the articles, lectures, or videos they have found in that week and reflect on them together. They are free to visit other groups and listen to as well. In the end, each group repsentative, which rotates every week, shares the outcomes of their groups with the whole class.

My students seemed to love this activity and expressed that when they are free to choose the materials and not forced to do mechanical exam-oriented activities, they feel more motivated. I had students talking about such complex issues so enthusiastically that even they were amazed by their superb performance :)

I hope that we would all have the time and the will to give our students a chance to study what really matters to them some time during the academic term.

by Serdar Incel