Motivating our learners: actualising the vision, by Jill Hadfield

 The title of this particular session from IATEFL Liverpool Online caught my eye, and so I decided to view the video embedded below.  I was not disappointed.

I would like to share a few of my thoughts on Motivating our learners: actualising the vision. Before I continue, however, many apologies for the delay in posting this, but I had a very busy time whilst in the UK, so am now going to make up for lost time!

 Jill Hadfield is well known for many  ELT publications including Intermediate Vocabulary Games (Photocopiable ELT Games and Activities), which is one of my favourite teaching resources.  I knew her talk would be dynamic and practical.  I was not disappointed at all.

The following extract is a synopsis of the talk, taken from the Liverpool Online Session Presenter site:

'A vivid vision of their future L2 self is highly motivating for students. Vision alone is not enough however: this practical workshop, based on ideas in Motivation (Hadfield and Dornyei, 2013), will explore four ways to help students turn vision into reality: translating vision into goals; translating goals into plans; translating plans into strategies; and translating strategies into achievement.'

I was intrigued about the thought of actualising the vision of motivating our learners to do their best. This is something which always plays on my mind, when starting out with a new group of students.  How do they view the course?  What preconceptions do they have of their teacher, and how they will learn effectively? How can their expectations be met by their teacher?.  What steps can be taken to ensure that both parties come away from the experience feeling happy and satisfied?


My Thoughts
The talk was a mix of theory and sound practical applications, and I enjoyed it very much, viewing it from the comfort of my armchair.

I learned about operationalising the vision -  setting goals and making plans are key to motivating our learners. A 'routemap' can be provided to our learners to ensure they get done on 'the journey'.
Jill Hadfield outlined  how to map THE JOURNEY –

4 Steps to achieve this vision:

From Vision to Goals

From Goals to Plans

From Plans to Strategies

From Strategies to Achievement

 I highly recommend you view the 40 minutes of video from the conference. Please also view the Powerpoint presentation which charts the various activities that teachers can set up to maximise motivation in their learners.

Please note: I will embed the video as soon as I can.