How to keep your students motivated during summer intensive courses

Richard Cleeve
Two students sat on stairs smiling at a laptop

Summer is here and so are English language intensive courses. Adults and teens are lining up at your classroom doors, full of enthusiasm and ready to learn English. But soon they’re staring out the windows, looking up at the bright blue skies and wishing they were on the beach, or - frankly - doing anything but studying English for the next 100 hours.

So how can you turn it around and keep your learners on track and motivated this summer?

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How to keep your students motivated during summer intensive courses
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1. Start off on the right foot

You have a lot to do in this first class. It sets the tone for the entire English course and is your chance to show your students what you expect from them and what they can expect from you.

In teen classes, you’ll need to spend time outlining class rules and establishing your authority. You can do this by creating a class contract together and getting everyone to sign it. Although it’s summer and you want to have a good time, remember to stay firm and use an authoritative voice - at least for the first week or two.

With adults, it’s essential that they leave the first class feeling like they’ve learned something. By all means, start with some fun activities to break the ice, but make sure they go home feeling that their money was well spent. Ìý

2. Keep things personal

You’ll also need to spend some time getting to know your students in both adult and teen classes.

While learning about their interests, you should also find out about their personal and professional objectives, so you can tailor your classes to meet their needs. Do this by surveying the class early on and use their ideas to plan later classes and projects. Students always appreciate personalization - and it certainly helps keep them motivated.

3. Don’t go easy on them

Your first class should be interesting, fun and focused on breaking the ice. But perhaps more importantly, it should challenge them. No one wants to take an easy course - it feels like a waste of time (and money). If your activities feel too easy, they’ll switch off, their minds will wander, and it will be tough for you to recapture their attention.

It’s therefore a good idea to have a range of activities of various difficulties up your sleeve. If students find things too easy, you can increase the challenge.

In addition, you should always have extra work for fast finishers. Teens especially get distracted quickly, but adults will also lose interest if you’re not giving them enough to do. So make sure to mix fun, dynamic activities with level-appropriate materials.

4. Give them something to work towards

Set your objectives early on. This includes:

  • Short-term objectives: What we’re going to achieve this class
  • Mid-term objectives: What we’ll achieve by the end of the week
  • Long-term objectives: What you’ll be able to do by the end of the course and beyond

People like to know why they are doing things and how it will be useful for them. Objectives are a good reminder of this, and you can help students track their progress towards their goals by giving them daily or weekly can-do statements or by having them keep a learner journal.

5. Keep getting and giving feedback

It’s a great idea to start every class reviewing what happened in the previous class or the previous week. This helps students refocus and remember what they did, and sets the tone for the rest of the day. It also allows you to re-establish authority with teenagers if students were rowdy or distracted in the previous class. Go over the rules again, if necessary, and explain they’re starting over with a clean sheet.

You can also have students reflect at the end of each class, sharing what they found hard, what they learned, what they enjoyed most and what they want to do more of. This will help you continue to deliver classes that challenge and interest them during the course.

6. Mix things up

Routine is important but so is surprise. Once you’ve established how things work and the activities and projects are well underway, turn it upside down. Take students outside, play a game or start an inter-class competition.

It will refresh your students, re-energize them and give them a new kind of challenge. It will also keep them on their toes and excited about what you plan next - a great motivational tool.

7. Be original

Introduce challenging themes, topical content and allow students to bring their own articles, videos and photos. Using authentic materials alongside coursebooks is a great way to motivate students. If they see that they can understand and work with real-world content, they’ll increase confidence in their own abilities.

8. Follow a structure

Progress, progress, progress. Without it your students will lose all motivation, even if your classes are challenging. Use a course to support your curriculum. Not only will it help you develop themes during the language course, but it will scaffold language and give students a physical reminder of what they are learning and achieving.

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    6 tips for planning your first English classes

    By Nicole Kyriacou

    You are nervous, yet excited. You want to appear relaxed and fun, but still be taken seriously. Most of all, you are keen to make an excellent first impression.

    With all that in mind - planning your first English classes of the year can be a daunting experience.

    Here are six things to consider when planning your first classes:

    1. Set clear aims

    Whether you are teaching young learners, teenagers or adults, it’s important you discuss the aims and objectives of the course from day one. You’ll need to learn more about your students' needs to do this. Why are they learning English? Do they want to prepare for an official exam? What activities do they enjoy? What things do they need to improve the most?

    The way you do this will depend on the age of your learners. For example, with adults and teens, you could get them to interview each other and write a report about what they found out. With younger children, do a survey they can complete using smiley faces.

    2. Find out students’ interests

    Although you should understand your students' needs and why they want to learn English - to help make your classes relevant and engaging - you should also discover what they enjoy doing outside of class.

    To do this, get students to write mini bios you can stick around the classroom. Or have them prepare presentations where they share something they are passionate about with the rest of the class - using coursebooks. As a class, go through the contents page, vote on which topics students find most interesting, and start with those.

    3. Break the ice

    You want your first class to be fun so that students are motivated, and associate English language learning with something they can enjoy. Ice-breakers can also be an excellent way to get to know each other and learn about your students' current level of English.

    Activities where students have to ask each other questions work well.

    4. Provide a comfortable environment

    Young learners and teenagers tend to be shy at the start of a course - especially if they don’t know each other. Develop a rapport and break down boundaries by including team-building activities in your first class.ÌýYour aim is to have all the students feeling more comfortable with each other before the end of the lesson so that there are no awkward silences in future lessons.

    5. Manage expectations

    Managing expectations is an essential part of a teacher's job. Make sure in the first class you are clear about what you expect from your students and what they can expect from you.

    Have students brainstorm the rules for the class and then make a big poster or ‘class contract’ which all students have to sign. Display the poster on the wall so you can always refer to it if someone misbehaves.

    Try to keep the rules as positive as possible. Instead of writing: 'Don’t speak your first language', write: 'Try to always speak English and ask if you don’t know a word'. If you are feeling really brave, you can even get your students to devise a list of rules for you which you can display on the wall next to theirs.

    6. Make it challenging

    It’s great making your first lesson fun - but there’s nothing more motivating than leaving a new class and feeling like you’ve made a good decision and you are going to learn lots (and you aren’t wasting your time or money). This is especially important for adult learners.

    So, as well as getting to know each other and finding out their needs, teach them something new. This could be 10 new pieces of vocabulary, how to structure a letter or report, or a list of resources they can use at home to practice their English.