Speaking is the skill most valued by adult and young adult students, as well as teachers. After all, no one asks you which language you read, listen to, or write – the focus is very much on speaking. We know from research that immersive speaking tasks are motivating for learners – but how can we adapt these tasks for distance learning, where engagement is often harder to monitor?
These days, teaching remotely isn’t an optional extra. 2020 plunged us straight into the online learning revolution – some of us kicking and screaming more than others! Motivating our learners was often hard enough in the face-to-face classroom, let alone online. Add to the mix remote teaching of speaking and many of us are feeling… let’s say, challenged. Based on research insights from motivation theory, here’s a look at three key factors for motivating language learners, and some top tips on how you can use these factors for teaching speaking online.
Engagement factor 1: relatedness
A positive, supportive learning environment and culture underpins all learner engagement. This usually refers to the relationship between you and your students, as well as to the peer to peer relationship between learners. In a remote teaching situation, a third level becomes more prominent: the attitude a student holds towards him or herself! A positive relationship with the self is a powerful underpinning to learning.
Since it is tied in with identity though, sadly it is not always robust – especially for young adults. This is why creating a safe speaking environment is crucial. Teaching speaking remotely, we sometimes ask learners to speak into a non-responsive black hole, or send us their voice recordings, which isn’t ideal. Have you ever watched yourself back in a video or listened to a recording of your own voice, and cringed? Yes, me too. It’s just not natural. So, what can you do?
Top teaching tip:
Use a digital avatar creation tool, such as Voki, to mediate the potentially scary speaking experience. This allows learners (and teachers, of course!) to create customised, walking and talking avatars. It’s fun, mirrors students’ experience of social online interaction, and the basic version is free. Using the avatars to communicate in their own voice, students can still connect with you and with their peers.
This is vital for motivation. They’re also likely to feel more at ease and willing to engage, as the avatars contribute to a non-threatening digital learning environment. Sitepal does a similar job, with an altogether more business-like feel to it – check them both out and see which best suits your learners.
Engagement factor 2: Autonomy
We learn better when we can control aspects of what, when, and how we learn. In our survey of motivation during the pandemic, students told us that although their enthusiasm for learning English had dropped a little, they appreciated being in control of their own learning.
Making choices is empowering, and highly motivating for learning. You’d think that when they’re engaging in speaking activities, making language and content choices fast and frequently, our learners must feel super-empowered – but this isn’t necessarily the case. Too much choice can be overwhelming, and one thing we don’t need in current times is more overwhelm!
Top teaching tip:
Use ebooks, such as the EVOLVE series, where learning is scaffolded by offering choice within a structure, and which feature dedicated speaking lessons based on immersive tasks. Unlike traditional print books, ebooks ‘come alive’ at the click of a button – and crucially, your learners exercise their autonomy in which button to click, and when! A way to teach speaking with ebooks while supporting learning autonomy is to set up the task so that learners prepare it in their own time, at their own pace, and by choosing a source – such as a video or a sound file.
Most new-generation ebooks include these. Then you can give students the task of pairing up with a partner of their choice for the speaking task. E.g. set up a role play activity which they report back to the rest of the class in your next synchronous online session.
Engagement factor 3: Competence
We’re more motivated in our learning if we believe we can be successful in a task. This doesn’t mean that the task should be easy – on the contrary, it needs to be at just the right level of challenge so that we can experience the rewarding feeling of having mastered something. But how can you ensure that each and every one of your students is suitably challenged through speaking tasks: not too little, not too much?
Top teaching tip:
Use a Learning Management System which facilitates the staggering of achievements and goals. To stick with the above example, EVOLVE comes with Practice Extra, which is a cutting edge way of bringing together all the skills, modalities and language functions of the course, including speaking. Challenge increases incrementally and progress is made visible, as answers can be checked as students go along.
In fact, as well as competence, Learning Management Systems support the other two key factors of motivation too. Students can work independently and at their own pace (autonomy), and connect with their teacher (relatedness).
Win-win all round! Have you used speaking to motivate learners in your remote teaching, or are you planning to? We’d love to hear from you – let us know via our social media channels below.
Reference: Ryan, R.M., & Deci, E.L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. New York: The Guildford Press.
If you’d like to know more about the use of ebooks in online learning, Cambridge author Ceri Jones has produced a downloadable guide for teaching with the EVOLVE eBook which you may find useful. We also have a whole host of blog posts on the world of digital and how to make the most of it in your classroom.