I agree with the answer above. Maybe you can bring reallife to your students. Go outside and deal with real life situations. Let them work in groups. Maybe you can also use new digital media. Let them write a blog, a wiki or somethig else in the web. Good luck.

Dear Ali Ahmad,

As Rost (2004) states, " motivation trumps on motivation". Some writers like Graham (1995) claim that teachers should not look for motivating factors. Instead, they should look for ways to remove and eliminate the sources of motivation For instance, factors like low self-confidence, self-blame and control of affective states can be rewarding. (also see Flout & Flout, 2004).

Best regards,

R. Biria

I agree with the answer above. Maybe you can bring reallife to your students. Go outside and deal with real life situations. Let them work in groups. Maybe you can also use new digital media. Let them write a blog, a wiki or somethig else in the web. Good luck.

Hi,

One way of re-invigorating them is to meet their goals. What do you think they might need English for. I have often propagated what I call literacy and language for specific purposes. There are sociological and educational justifications for this theory. In short, I argue that if you match the subject with the object of the learner, motivation will improve dramatically. Identify what the goals of your students are and see if you can use that as a route back into English learning. If they want to be footballers,. why not give them resources built around football and footballers rather than Shakespeare and Dickens

My suggestion is that you should discover their focus of interest (for example, music) and take as a thread of your classes.

Best luck,

María

Hi Ali Ahmad;

Children will fulfill the expectations that are communicated to them by the adults/educators surrounding them. Is there a possibility that you are showing signs that your students are picking up on that indicate a lack of motivation is expected by them? Use every chance that offers a place for genuine praise that will encourage the students to show them that they are making progress in the efforts that they do make regarding learning. As well; constructive criticism does enable students to become more motivated. One way to ensure that you will have motivated students is to give rewards for earned work. Offer to have a pizza party or a day without any homework (or something similar that your students would truly enjoy) if everyone in the class earns an 85 or higher on a certain test.

Another thing that may render as an aid to motivate your students is instructing to the different learning styles in your classroom. Helping children learn about themselves, shifts the curriculum form one of learning to one of discovering. Expecting an auditory learner to be motivated if her only instruction comes from reading a textbook is in essence; setting her up for failure. As well; kinesthetic learners will be frustrated listening to lecture instruction class after class. There is a wonderful online quiz that you can give your students to discover the different types of intelligences that your students may have. It is located at: http://www.mypersonality.info/test-mi/. Perhaps bringing a different perspective into the class will reengage your students. In addition, it will challenge those who are already seeing success from the current learning.

Other things that may aid in the students learning and motivation is to simply change the learning environment. A field trip that incorporates the lesson into it changes the pace, and allows the children to see a different perspective than the one of classroom learning. If a true ‘field trip’ is not available or convenient, simply having class outside can be just the change up that you need. As well; incorporating other subjects into the curriculum aids in setting a different pace. Your students may also benefit from a class meeting in the library or in another classroom. You can still meet your daily class goals even if you take your class beyond the classroom walls. Try setting your students to do research at the library, view another class, or listen to resident speakers in an open area. There is continuously language to be learned, so converge your listening, language, and comprehension objectives outside the confinement of students' desks. As well; having guest speakers come in the classroom may aid in motivating your students to learn.

Providing students with accountability is an significant component of being an instructor. Have your students help develop a rubric that meets the expectations for a passing grade. Having them help develop the rubric gives the students a sense of control as well as aids in accountability. Having your students be responsible for their own learning is a necessity for any educational practitioner.  

I hope that some of these are suggestions that you can use and that are beneficial to you. I also added a link to a PDF that I located that may aid you as it addresses engagement as well as other issues that are significant to student learning.

http://www.mypersonality.info/test-mi/

http://www.oecd.org/education/school/programmeforinternationalstudentassessmentpisa/33918006.pdf

If your university allows it, change the materials you are teaching and use something that is more relevant to the students' own lives. I have attached a newspaper article which I adapted for an English lesson a few years ago and, once the students had finished the exercise, I started a class discussion about the issues brought up in the article. Obviously you need to be careful not to bring up 'sensitive' issues, but I have found students can get more engaged and interested in class if you are dealing with issues that they can relate to.

Hello Ali Ahmed

Many years ago, in York, England, I taught English (my mother tongue) to international students who did not have English as their first language. While I am a researcher, I have not investigated this field empirically. Notwithstanding, I have professional experience. I always began the class with a song that I thought most students would like. The Beatles´ Let it be was very popular. I would give the students the text of the song and leave a few words out. Their task was to sing along with a recording of the song  several times and to fill in the missing text. They really liked this and it got the lesson off to a motivational start. I also tried, insofar as it was possible, to bring English grammar (the hard, boring part) into English descriptions of the students´ own interests: movies, football, travel and so forth - as formulated in English, of course. Like I said, this is not empirical, but it really worked for me and my students. Good luck Ali Ahmed. Best wishes Paul

Guided imagery procedures in general, and allowing your students to travel mentally into the past and into the future on the basis of their concrete and personal life scripts can be effective ways to motivate them. Indeed, these methods and procedures are neglected to date in teaching English as a second language to students. However, a growing body of research suggests that they can be effective ways in teaching  English to students.

Check this site out Ali Ahmed:

http://www.uis.no/faculties-departments-and-centres/faculty-of-arts-and-education/the-national-centre-for-reading-education-and-Research/

Best wishes Paul

So far, you have several good answers.  From my research in music education and my experiences in teaching English, I believe that English pop songs are very useful to stimulate students' interest.  My students can sing these songs without having to.understand the words.  How much better when they do understand!  All over the world, students of every nation and culture love pop songs.  At times, they prefer this to their own ethnic music.  Thanks.

Conference Paper MUSIC PREFERENCES OF MALAYSIAN STUDENTS AND NATIONAL INTEGRATION

Any student who lacks interest in study & get also tired in learning in English language or should to say to say any other subject for such student for such student on e has to create an atmosphere for which he may comfortable & enjoy the environment .

The task is not easy but at the same time such student may starts taking interest in their studies .

1 We have to try & understand his psychology 

2  In which way his mind works & if it is not congenial for study ,we have to find suitable atmosphere for his liking .

3 We have also to study & to observe & temperament & behavior of such students & if you find that the student is of angry nature,arrogant ,in such cases we should not behavior in higher & fired matter but we should try with loving nature & observe that with our approach his behavior gets changed .

4 Face s the mirror & one has to observe his behavior in the line with his FACE,EYES,& FOREHEAD . To this we can grasp his temperament & 

5 Last but not the least what ever may be religion ,& culture such student behavior which may helps to take the necessary action .should be diverted to move to path of prayer & such holy atmosphere,

6 We desired that the student should learn the English language in case if he is not interested to study the said language we have to find in with subject he is interested & concentrate on his subject for his career . In this English will be secondary subject for him.

This is my personal opinion 

Try having them listen to English music, watch English movies, and write/chat with native English speaking people their own age.  I myself love learning languages, but am generally bored to tears by language-based textbooks and find them ineffective--if you go to France, no one speaks exactly like in textbooks, and for your students, when they come to the US or another English-speaking country, they'll find that whatever they've learned out of a language textbook is next to useless.  Textbooks are great for other subjects, but just aren't applicable to languages.   Babies don't learn languages from textbooks, and if you tried to teach a baby English by reading him a textbook, he'd be mute for life.

Most students enjoy listening to music and watching movies, but even that is boring when done in class while the professor pauses every five minutes to point out something grammatical.  Instead, try telling your students to find an English movie they want to watch or five English songs to listen to and then have them explain the main topics of  the movie/songs in class as a brief presentation.

Getting students an English-speaking online penpal could also help--most students like talking to people their own age, and it's much easier to ask a penpal how to say a word in English while chatting on Skype than it is to go to a professor's office hours.  In addition, your students will learn how native English-speaking people really talk from their penpals, rather that how the textbook would have them talk.

Good luck!

I think forming small groups (I refer them as Conversational English Groups) of 4-6 students and allowing them to have informal discussions focussed on specific topic of their interest each time probably once a week or once every other week depending on the time availability might help you generate and keep your students interested in learning. You can refer to the Facebook page of UNMC CEGs program for further details that I developed and implemented last year.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to ask me again

Wish you all the best

Vijay Paralkar  

You can have them debate on a topic relating to there prior reading, experience, or societal/global issue. Here's a link to a conference paper I presented last April on the topic:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274720155_Debating_A_Dynamic_Teaching_Strategy_for_Motivating_Students_and_Teachers

Best regards,

Debra

Conference Paper Debating: A Dynamic Teaching Strategy for Motivating Student...

Hi,

I just wanted to recommend you an excellent book from the Book Series: Advances in Motivation and Achievement. The last volume (Volume 18, 2014) is on Motivational Interventions and includes wonderful chapters from different theoretical perspectives. (Editors: Stuart Karabenick and Timothy C. Urdan).

All the best,

Eleftheria

Let them create someting themselves, English Quiz in an APP or online, competion elements might be challenging, let them write poetry or songs but that is all content. If you look at the learning proces we seem too much focussed on teaching instead of students learning.

Look into Team Based Learning (TBL). This is by far the most exciting way of learning for students in small groups, and they not only are focussed on acquiring knowledge but more so on the application of it. I can highly recommend it for all unmotivated students since in this way of learning they themselves are held accountable. 

Tell them to build up "cross words" to be answered by classroom mates as a challenge. Those words to be discovered would come from answers to music lyrics, poetry, popular proverbs and so on, concerning the studied object at the moment.

Four years ago , I was teaching secondary school form 4 students  in English literature . I use their area of interest to help them understand the importance of studying English language  . By the end of the year ,some students were writing poems, memo and stories based on their environment and about their personal experience in the past .. Some even create blogs . 

*The first class you should tell them an inspiring story about yourself .

* Let them know the importance of English Language around the globe .

* Have fun classroom activities :E.G.

Who Wants to be a Millionaire,Classroom Pictionary,Jumble words , Play their favorite song and let them fill in the gap from the song lyrics , Tell them to book hotel for  holiday in England "phone conversation" ,Debate , Role play , choral reading , Guess the action ,Describe a missing friend to the police , Tell/write about a festival in your home town , campaign for a position of a president of your country .. Loads of activities to make the classroom fun and helps the students to fall in love with English language . I always use a scenario created by the students as my set induction for my topic .    

As a  teacher you should be creative at adapting materials to fit each individual in your classroom , Lastly , try to study more about discovery learning approach . I hope this helps . 

Dear Mr. Ali, 

In my teaching experience I´ve seen there's one thing that is usually infallible, the teacher's love and passion for what he/she is teaching. If that's present, then will appear the exercises, the examples, the games, etc., to help the students to be motivated to learn.

Good luck!

 I think a good summary of all of the ideas shared is this: Less of you and more of them. What do they want to learn?

I agree with what everyone has said.  I have one more suggestion.  Working in collaborative groups is great if you can really get students to collaborate.  In working with my adult students who are preparing for university, one of the things we have found to be most popular are  hands-on projects.  We make sure students know what their strengths and weaknesses are so they choose group members whose skills will complement each other.  They have to defend their group members skills after they choose groups.  This means they all will have something different to contribute to the group project and it prevents them from just choosing friends.  Additionally, when they have to work in teams at work, they need to know how to form strong teams and this teaches them how to do so.  Finally,we assign various projects they work on which use all of their English skills.  

For example, in our engineering English class, we had students research about how to design cars to be aerodynamic to increase gas mileage.  They had to design a car based on their research with drawings and written explanations, working on grammar, vocabulary usage, research format, presentation of ideas logically etc. Then we gave them pinewood derby cars and asked them to actually carve the cars, weight them, add wheels etc. to follow their design.  This caused them to practice speaking using the vocabulary and the concepts they had written about in their paper.  We also help them to remember correct grammar that reoccurs during these discussions.  Next, they had to give a sales presentation as if they were selling their design to senior management of a car company to produce their car.   Finally, we had races to see who won and they had to do an analysis afterwards. The analysis was to explain their car's performance and suggest changes and why they thought these changes would work.  

They are given language objectives and specific skills to both learn and practice and they know that they will be graded at different points along the way.  In the car project, they are graded during the analysis paper and the sales presentation because they have practiced those skills during the initial design paper and the discussions during building.

We have projects for building boats, towers, running a political campaign, designing an advertising campaign, starting a business enterprise, and many others that correspond to topics they will study when they are in undergraduate classes.  They know they are learning vocabulary, writing papers, and doing projects which are like those required of undergraduate students.  This is the key motivator.  Few are ever bored in these classes.  

Dear Mr. Ali:

Learning English language, especially when the people aren't native , is difficult; although no impossible. Teaching between ten or fifteen words daily have good results because people get vocabulary in short time to build sentences or words with meaningful. If you have young people, I recommend to use topics that pleases them to their age. remember, little but effective.

When I entered the classroom the first thing that I would say is, let's talk or what's on your mind? This allowed the students to express their views on any topic without me being bias. Prior to that, I set guidelines to follow. The dialogue would last for about five minutes. Students want to know if we are listening to them and have compassionate for their feelings and views. I also allowed them to select their partner or group. This must be done in a creative way so that students are able to think about how successful they would be with certain peers because some of their grades were guided by the group. Bring the world into the classroom content. I would take students on an expedition walk around the campus; whereas, you have to craft your lesson content into your plans, for example, studying literature scholarly artists painting of nature and etc. What do they see? How can they express their knowledge into a writing piece with pictures? Keep an anthology portfolio that they could use for future references.

 Another strategy and technique that I used at the beginning of the class was to allow students to engage in writing prompts that were selected by them. These prompts were posted on the wall or the board. I would make sure that students were given credit for their writing and you should include comments. This method was used to get them engaged in any form of writing for that day. I would allow a couple of students to share and make a smooth transition into the lesson.

Finally, every student in the classroom had to teach a lesson. Once again, guidelines must be established. They would have all of the tools and materials to do an effective job. We would plan the lesson together and they would have to practice with me and at home prior to presenting it to class. I would take a seat in the back of the classroom as if I was not there. Keep in mind all challenging problems were directed to me.

Just remember, you have to create and use strategies and techniques that are comfortable with you because one size does not fit all. The modality of students learning is different; therefore, differentiated instruction may apply.

In today’s society, students are using different forms of technology to keep them interested in school; however, that technology can be beneficial to you in teaching students to learn.

Check out Harry Wong publications.

Hi sir,

Before being a lecturer, I was a teacher for Secondary level. I ever taught English to naughty and demotivated students. Their English score were poor, their pronunciation were bad. They preferred speaking in Bahasa than in English.

One day, I ever made a drama/role play project. We presented "Pocahontas" drama. I took some grades from it.

For listening, I asked them to watch the movie. For reading comprehension, I asked them to read the story of Pocahontas. For writing, I asked them to create a dialog or narrator. For speaking, all communication during practices must be delivered in English.

They were very enthusiast. We prepared to perform on the stage in one ballroom. We prepared the props, such as: sewed some traditional clothes, did some face painting, did hair decoration, made stage decoration, etc.

During the preparation time, I saw their enthusiasm to learn English. And surprisingly, their English ability increased. Start from that time, my students followed the English class enthusiastically. :-)

Dear Ali Ahmed,

An important issue in student's willingness to learn a foreign language is motivation, and more specifically self-efficacy and task perception. Part of our research on English as a foreign language related to task characteristics, students' perception of task difficulty, and perceived self-efficacy has been reported in the following articles.

Wu, X., Lowyck, J., Sercu, L., Elen, J. (2013). Vocabulary learning from reading: Examining interactions between task and learner related variables. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 28 (2), 255-274.

Wu, X., Lowyck, J., Sercu, L., Elen, J. (2013). Task complexity, student perceptions of vocabulary learning in EFL and task performance. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 83 (1), 160-181.

Wu, X., Lowyck, J., Sercu, L., Elen, J. (2012). Self-efficacy, task complexity and task performance: Exploring interactions in two versions of vocabulary learning tasks. Learning Environments Research, 15(1), 17-35.

I hope this theoretical entry will be helpful as a source of inspiration and of further reading as well.

I taught physics for almost a decade, though it's different from English, I think they have some commonalities when it comes to motivation. This question is a question about motivation. I think it will be helpful to find ways to motivate these students. It is important to note that different individuals respond to motivation differently or have different sources of motivation. I found that probing students and bringing out the knowledge in them through questionning kept students curious. It is the socratic method of teaching. Instead of telling them the content, I ask them question and if they don't answer, then I answer the question but at this time, their minds must have been triggered to think as they are gradually being engaged in the lesson. The strategies you will use  will also depends on the level of students you are teaching. If they are kids, you can always ask them to repeat like in a chorus the key points of the lesson. I found that my 10 to 14 years old students enjoyed verbalizing the lessons together under my directions. I frequently give them verbal praises when they participate or answer a question. You could also make the class very competitive. Divide the class into two sections and award points after asking questions. Sometimes, even physical award such as a pens motivate some students when they participate. This also depends on the setting. Some schools or cultures would not like teachers to give physical awards to students while others don't mind. Besides,  I learnt by experience through all my years of teaching that one of the greatest quality that a teacher will need is patience. Even when students don't respond at the rate at which we expect, we will need to be patient to watch them grow. In such moments when students seem to be performing below expectation, which really crushes the teacher's spirit, and even make one feel like cursing the students, I would reflect on my own performace when I was at their stage or age. When I identify with them as such, I will gain control over myself and look for different ways to pass the lesson across. I became a very good story teller even in a science subject that seems to lack stories. Students like stories and seem not to forget teachers who tell stories. They even remember the stories more than the lesson but often associate the story with the lesson when they are related. I am saying this to say that story telling is also a good way to engage students to like what they are learning. With English, I think verbal practice is very important, so I would recommend using some interesting rymes, poems, and help students memorize words and sentenses. Again, this depends on the level of the students and the kind of concept you are teaching. I would also say use videos if you can. Some class settings don't have the technology to suppot videos but I think videos are engaging. This means, you would have to look for short videos that illustrate points you want to emphasis in class. I would encourage you to try a lot of things and stay motivated as well. As much as students need motivation, teachers need to stay motivated. Each time when I felt like giving up on a student, then I would recall that "a great teacher is the one who is able to raise a slow student ". Remain courageous, teaching is an art, keep exploring what works. Sometimes what works for "A" would not necessarily work for "B" but there are also commonalities in human behavior that can help us predict outcomes under certain condition. In the nut shell, try different strategies.

I have a problem of the word demotivate ,I am sure you wanted to say motivate, well if you want students to be motivated ,a lecturer should use different teaching approaches or styles e.g   dramatization, Group work, communication approach, debates, story telling  teaching media such as films, newspapers etc can also motivate them to learn English.

thanks Arif  ,I also like your approach , as long as  lecturers are basing their teaching on student centred learning  , so as to encourage students to take part in their own learning.

I agree with the suggestion about self-efficacy.  In addition, most students respond to having a positive relationship with their teachers - being liked and appreciated.  So, if you can find things to see as assets it might help.  You might seek culturally based assets, which are often overlooked as irrelevant, but within each culture or within culturally based activities your students do with their families they may have wonderful stories to tell that could be translated to English and valued.  If you have large numbers from one culture, you can research those activities, or even call on a cultural advocate from the community to help identify topics.  I once had a class of seemingly very unmotivated students who did not respond to the regular curriculum. It had no relevance to them.  When I modified my curriculum to make it more meaningful to them, and to reflect their interests, the response was excellent.  Best of luck! 

You might try another approach. Ask the students why they lack motivation. It may take you far closer to a way forward. Their reasons may have  little to do with your teaching, your subject and have far more to do with their lives beyond..

 I was teaching English in a school in India and was suprised to realise that the staff nor the children had heard of George Orwell. As he was born in India, I thought it would be inspiring for me to read some of his things. I chose short passages, gave an intro (to give context) read it out and said what I felt it was important and asked people how it made them feel (I chose shooting an elephant). This got a great response.

Perhaps finding some Eritrean writers that inspire you, and reading them out, might be a good way in (Saba Kidane seems very inspiring!?). I know they might not be 'in English' but perhaps you coulud find translations and ask the children which versions they prefer?

The moral of the story is find something with local relevance that you're passionate about and share that passion with the people you're teaching, share in it with them, and they will hopefully become inspired! All the best,

Harry Potter has worked for my daughter. Having hardly read any books longer than 30 pages by age 9, she discovered Harry Potter and jumped to 500 page books. Book clubs have also helped many young learners develop a love for reading as they develop identities as kids who love reading and 'belong' top these clubs.

There is, in my opinion, a difference between  learning English as first or mother language and English as a Foreign (EFL) or Second (ESL) language. I supposed that the question that Ali Ahmed raised stems mainly from EFL or ELS.  Students  EFL or ESL have a different language structure, they lack natural environmental stimuli (media, daily life) and consequently experience enormous complexity created by the gap between mother tongue and  foreign language.

This is also my experience as a Belgian citizen with Dutch as mother tongue, French as second language (bilingual country), German during my specialisation studies in Helidelberg and English as the dominant communication language in the international scientific forum.

Moreover, our research on ESL for Chinese students revealed a high level of didactic complexity. In this series of question-answers,  I read a lot of interesting didactic approaches that take into account the novice position of ESL or EFL learners.

Yes learning to love reading is very different for learners and their experience will be different based on whether  they are reading in their home language or in a 'foreign' or second/ third language. A key problem in our country is insufficient early readers in our many official languages and so it is difficult to develop a culture of reading in these languages when there are few resources available for this. I do believe that starting after school reading clubs where facilitators actively source readers that are both appropriate to the learner reading levels of learners in the club and to their interests are sourced, shared and discussed - this sharing of such resources is especially important in resource constrained contexts.

By choosing interactive topics which appeal to them such as by using kahoot or social media.

You can first try to do a questionnaire survey and try to find out what they are interested in. Then , you can design some activities suit to their interest and needs. You had better encourage them by paying attention to what they have done well and pointed them out immediately. By doing all these,maybe it will change.

Raising intrinsic motivation requires shifting the locus of control from teacher to learners. Let them decide what subject(s) they would like to discuss and in the process gear the discussion towards the required subject. Learning in context is a must. It is also highly motivating to incorporate the use of their mobile phones in the teaching-learning process, by texting each other, WhatsApping, checking the weather in different areas of Sudan/the world and report on it, mapping out an alternative route home, etc. The more you contextualize and situate learning, the higher their motivation and engagement would be... 

movies, games and dancing proved to be beneficial in motivation youngsters to learn languages, in addition texts on teenage idol characters , and characters of interest to the children : sport figures, musicians and so on.

Good luck

Developing a love of language can often be stimulated by developing friendships with people who speak that language as their home language. The old traditions of 'pen pals' with children from other countries is one made much easier through social media as long as all safety checks can be in place for enabling safe communication between children across different contexts and languages.

Well, teaching English language should never be seen as boring only if the instructor him/herself is energetic and creative. There were so many things we could use and do with our students whether in/out of the classroom. I would like to suggest Boardgames which I had printed out in the form of Banner to be used in the class. 

If you want it to be communicative then apply something what am now using for my research study: Selfie (refer to ppt)

Dear Prof. Ali,

I agree with Prof. Lowyck’s answer concerning ESL or EFL students.  In fact, this is a problem in many countries in the area, particularly Gulf countries. Although students start learning English from primary education (e,g, Grade 1 in Oman), still many lack motivation and learn little English. There are a number of reasons,  including what is mentioned earlier, such as lack of uses in daily life, lack of resources to support teaching and learning, self-efficacy and task perception. In addition, English is the language of instruction in the majority of higher education institutions, particularly for science, technology, and business majors . Of course this puts much pressure on our students. There are many cases where students withdraw from higher education because of the difficulty of English.

I agree with inputs concerning how to develop positive attitudes toward English (clubs, storytelling, group work, games, technology, etc.). It is also very important to understand the issue within a larger context as well (e.g. the state of English in primary/secondary education, instructional time devoted to English, instructional materials used, teacher preparation, students and parents's attitudes towards English, policy etc.).

I work with students who have had poor experiences with writing because writing was not used to help them articulate who they were.  We made the writings relevant to their experiences...I know I have mentioned Dr. Asante's work on subjects like this...the conceptual framework can be applied here as well...  

I work at a bilingual school in Italy. Our focus is on addative bilingualism and interlingual teaching and learning (Eithne Gallagher http://www.eithnegallagher.net/). Within this methodology, utilising students' home languages as a scaffold for learning the target language is critical. Allowing students to translanguage, utilise mother tongue and English in conversation, may assist them to develop self-efficacy or confidence in English. Certainly allowing students to produce bilingual texts should prove motivating as would focusing student writing on topics which are of personal interest to students (Hidi & Renninger).

I would agree with all comments, especially Khalil El-Saghir's summary. Might also add something about encouraging a positive attribution and self efficacy...

"I'm terrible at French, in fact my whole family is terrible at learning languages, they are so innately difficult and my brain doesn't work that way..."

At Medical school we have a similar problem, some topics are branded 'difficult' and students told 'you probably won't get this' and 'its dull and just something you have to learn'. Perhaps unsurprisingly these are the topics that the students then struggle with.

So, helping students realise that their own efforts result in successes and failure, and that challenges can be exciting, failure is always part of learning, will help them learn. Often we reinforce negative messages with the way that we present material.

The key is to get them interested through activities and then let them do small exercises that are individually scalable. I have used these techniques in teaching English to a group of underprivileged youth

Have you considered setting up a partnership with a university in an English-speaking country so they can communicate with real-life students in another language? This would bring meaning to their interactions and hopefully encourage them to raise their game. 

Well firstly find out why they are demotivated and then help build their competence and love for learning.

I teach TEFL, and I teach it to students who don't always get to choose their English Major, which means I have plenty of students who don't want to learn and see no point in it.

Therein lies the rub.

When students don't see the point in something, they don't want to learn it. They become disinterested in it, especially if they struggle. With our students, the lack of a strong English education background and the minimal effort approach from past teachers means they are ill-equipped in learning and this means they are not prepared, fear failing, and therefore give up (assuring their failure).

What works for me is making it relevant to them. In other words, find some way to connect English to their future goals. Case in point, this year I had several boys who wanted to be in STEM programs and do their Masters in them. I had them email top US Universities to find out if they can do a STEM Masters with an English Major, and the answers were generally yes. The students used English to communicate and confirmed that English is not a dead end alley, but a doorway and a tool to making their future goals come true.

Granted most of these boys still transferred their major, but of the three who did not, they have not given up hope because they are majoring in English. They realize that if they study hard they can still achieve their goals, and that is because they are English Majors.

So make it relevant to them - have them utilize English towards one of their goals - I always have my Freshmen English Majors write an essay at the end of their first semester writing class with me: "What are your future goals and how will majoring in English help you achieve them?" This gets them thinking about their future goals and more importantly, the role of English in them.

Hope that helps.

Rob

Sandra Gray mentioned partnering with an English-speaking University; I think that is a swell idea. Immersing your students with students who may be interested in learning the language that your students speak would help on both side. It's just like having an exchange program where students go to a foreign country and live with a family who speak the language that they are learning. It could be very interesting for your students. Just an idea.

Students learn with interest if they are involved in process and something new and challenging is there develop activities to involve them ,you can design different situations in which they can use what you are teaching .

Hi Ali.  Great question.  I want to believe that your students at worst, may be disturbed, but not disturbing (Zionts, 2014).  I like Pervell's hint on games.  Basically, this may be of the order of bringing them inside from the outside, and gradually.  Let them present in class as if they are newscasters, let them read to self, read to buddies, read to someone, do word wall work during which they may be introduced to words they may not have seen yet (Daily 5, 2015). They could generate their personal dictionaries through which you may be encouraged to do expressive drawing.  Also, they could watch video clips and prepare rap music if they so wish.  Get some audio book that may be used as shared reading.  Raz kids, learning a-z etc. could help.  Let them tell stories through writing or make their own recordings in English.

References

The Daily 5.(2015). Retrieved from http://k-5literacyconnections.weebly.com/daily-5.html

Zionts, P. Banks, T., & Killu, K. (2014). Teaching students who are disturbed and disturbing: An integrative approach. Texas, USA: ProEd.

Ali, I'm not a english teacher, but my experience with students of the basic and high educution showed me that the teaching should do meaning to they. If you use some things or methods far away the students' reality, their interest will be minimum. You can to search some things that they like and use in your class. If the subject of the class be near from their students, they will be to like. You can to try show videos  (movies, musical clips, etc), lyrics or slogans of marks known and apreciate by them. I hope I've helped you. Good luck and good work.

Dear colleagues, thank you very much for your responses. They are of great value and I'll consider all the suggestions and ideas you have proposed. I'll even let some of my students - those of faculty of education - be acquainted with your responses so that they can make use of them when they begin pracicing teaching.

Great work, Ali.

سلام شما می تونید از روش های ایجاد انگیزش استفاده کنید. روشهای حمایتی معلم از دانش آموزان به شکلی که بین دانش آموز و معلم صمیمیت و احساس همدلی شکل بگیره و دانش آموز واقعا احساس کنه که معلم نگران وضعیت درسیش هست.

Hi Ali,

Kudos to you for sharing! 

I would like to add some bit of using technology if available, loads of App of learning English can get students involved and fun at the same time. Getting them enjoyable class will probably shift their mindset bit by bit.