Besides all these additional techniques mentioned, I always have the feeling that one point may be even easier and more powerful: If you yourself are enthusiastic about your topic, your students will recognize this and often be "infected" by it.

Maybe this is similar to Ismael's point of telling stories - if you are "in" a topic yourself and can fluently talk about it, sometimes completely forgetting what you actually wanted to teach, students also have fun, are fascinated, start asking questions.

Best regards,

  Andrea

There are few methods which can be useful to attract students' attention and interest...

1. question answer method : this method is useful by 3 ways.....

a. if a easy question is asked to  an average student , encourage him to give answer. after answer his confidence level will be boost and he give more attention towards teaching.

b. few questions are challenging which liked by above average , clever students. So that they also concentrate in lecture though they understand the topic early than others.

c. Teacher student interaction is possible and class become more live.

2. Discussion method

3. Role play method

4. Game method

these are other few methods which can improve students' attention and interest.

Why don't you try to flip your lessons? See http://flippedlearning.org/site/default.aspx?PageID=1 for more info. Good luck!

Some more ideas for you ( from a never ending range of possibilities):

debates, class discussion on a thought provoking image or short videoclip, using case-based real scenarios to frame problems or questions that students need to research, field base or real world excursions and research. Definitely go to the website Jesus recommends...lots of stimulating 

Contain related story telling

Debates, case study, teamwork 

Debates, case study, teamwork 

Debates, case study, teamwork 

In the classroom I prefer teamwork + discussion + video. But I Always prefer to go out with excursions and apply the theory or with observations or specific workshop.

An oldie method, maybe also devaluated: Telling stories.

But the professor needs to be instructed in the technique.

Greetings!

A good Question I always support to Lesson Plane Design How You Design A lesson Plane And What Steps You Take To Success But In simple Few Tips For Designing Lesson Plane 

1.Motivation(Ask Few Pre-Reading Questions)

2.Method (Lecture ,Activity,Role play or Project)

3.Randomly ask Questions (Student Involvement)

4.Feed Back (Ask Some Question That How Much Student Gained)..... 

Besides all these additional techniques mentioned, I always have the feeling that one point may be even easier and more powerful: If you yourself are enthusiastic about your topic, your students will recognize this and often be "infected" by it.

Maybe this is similar to Ismael's point of telling stories - if you are "in" a topic yourself and can fluently talk about it, sometimes completely forgetting what you actually wanted to teach, students also have fun, are fascinated, start asking questions.

Best regards,

  Andrea

Trying to transmit to students the uniqueness of the classroom as compared with other sources of knowledge. For example, offering things within the classroom that they are unble to get across the Internet. 

At the first meeting with the students I tell them: I'm not here to teach you math. I'm here to show you various ways to understand math and you have to choose the best method for you. And if you do not know what to choose, I am here to help you to choose - motivational speech. And as Prof. Nitin Bajirao Borse and Ismael Esquivel Gámez, I tell stories to illustrate different math concept.

Here are examples of a debate and Social Media discussion for engaging students in critical thinking.

many thanks,

Debra

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

Conference Paper Social Media in Education: Bringing Your Classroom to Life -...

There are many, many, pedagogical techniques that have evidence for increasing students attention, interest, enthusiasm, and intrinsic motivation for class.  Generally speaking, any good teaching technique does (in addition to improving student learning).  Here are three general categories.  Some techniques are about grabbing students attention for the topic at hand - raising a question at the beginning of class, showing a puzzling demonstration of something to be explained, or providing a question for students to inquiry about and discover the answer for themselves.  Some techniques are about interactivity in the classroom - questions, discussion, group work such as the jig-saw, flipping the classroom when you can make the more active parts during class meetings, and activities where students experience the topic for themselves.  Finally, it's easy to overlook the power of a good lecture.  It's the part of class we can plan most carefully in advance to maximally benefit student learning.  Videos, diagrams, pictures, and clear succinct text on slides matter.  Storytelling is especially motivating, as Andrea points out.  I attached a chapter I wrote about the value of sharing our personal stories in class.  Best wishes engaging your classes! ~ Kevin

Chapter Antsy Students Impatient to Leave Class & Faculty Captive in...

To me attracting students' attention and interest is all about how I engage my students in the teaching-learning process. I have found implementing different behavioural and cognitive engagement strategies such as 'weaving the web', 'ACID, 3-2-1, 'K-W-L', 'Museum walk', 'Carousal', 'Fish bowl', '6 thinking hats', 'Star model', 'graffiti wall' etc. very useful.

Learners usually follow the attitude of the teacher, the moment they see your dis interest to a topic they grow the negativity also. When teaching grammar for instance it is best to not teach it in isolation but to include a text or something to teach it I'm relation. Theme teaching across different subjects also creates interest in learners as they can create links between these subjects and thus draw links in-between.

If your knowledge and experience in that perticular subject is up to the mark then student definitely attached towards the class rooms. The interest of teacher will reflect the views of the students.

The element of surprise can be used effectively with pre-service teachers to attract attention; throwing students off guard yet eager to find out what's going on. When speaking about gender issues I've put up signs on the lecture room doors to have all females sit on the right and males on the left side of the theatre.I have put cards under their seats with different pieces of forensic evidence when discussing problem-solving and when examining the nature of feedback I've put sticky notes on each chair with different statements such as 'good try' , 'poor effort', 'you can do better', 10 out of 10'... to let them experience what those meaningless statements feel like, to lecture from the back of the theatre or the side with a handheld mike...

A major issue here is defining and measuring students attention and interest while teaching! It is likely to be a 'gut feeling' and very competent colleagues can offer a huge number of techniques/tricks which may or may not work. The key point here is, use whatever pedagogical tools (teaching styles and associated learning theories) that are appropriate for the learning you wish the students to achieve. Interest and attention are likely to be achieved if they are learning.  

 It's similar to what Cristian-Mihai said above.  In the first meeting I used to tell students that "I am not here to teach.  We'll learn together".  It encourages students' participation.  I invite students to be helpers for their peers and it enhances participation and involvement.

My technique to attract the attention of students is to involve them through discussions from problem situations related to the real world and its challenges.

We are in the midst of analyzing a huge data base precisely on this topic.  With interviews of our most successful undergrads over the past 7 years, students' responses to what professors do that supports their learning was a bit surprising.  Whereas we predicted that personality and enthusiasm would be the major theme in students' perceptions of instructors, our data revealed that the thing students found most helpful was making lecture notes available (this included PowerPoint slides, etc.). We are still deciphering the comments, but the lecture notes are used in a myriad of ways by students.

Personally I favour a flipped classroom approach. I use a combination of Reflective Writing before class and conceptual conflict group exercises followed by a written critique:

Toolbox of activities to support students in a physics gateway course.Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research. 6(2),020111,1-15, 2010 DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.6.020111 Calvin S. Kalman, and Shelley Rohar

Our research shows that a a combination of appropriate instructional activities: (i) preclass reading with metacognitive reflection, and (ii) in-class active learning that produces cognitive dissonance causes the beliefs of novice science learners to became more expertlike in their thinking:

Combination of Interventions Can Change Students’ Epistemological Beliefs.”Calvin S. Kalman, Mandana Sobhanzadeh, Robert Thompson, Ahmed Ibrahim,and Xihui Wang.

Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research. 11, 020136 (2015)  pp 1-17– Published 21 December 2015.

Good Afternoon, 

On the first day of school, we celebrate success! I start out by telling the students to give themselves a hand! They look puzzled at first, but by the time I finish my spill, they understand and are on their feet. This sets the tone for the rest of the school year.

-Instructional: 

I believe in putting the power back in their hands. I use UBD which was developed by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe in  2002 which heavily supports high levels of shared-inquiry during readings.  

For more information: 

https://www.d.umn.edu/~hrallis/courses/3204sp05/assignments/ubd_template.htm 

http://www.gcu.edu/documents/legacy/Education/Clinical-Practice-UBD-Lesson-Plan-Template.pdf

http://www.greatbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Shared-Inquiry-Handbook.pdf

http://www.slideshare.net/lnitsche/shared-inquiry-overview

To motivate my students I work the Physics (my concentration area) near to reality them. When I work this form, the teaching is more easily understood by them. I use newspaper news, paradidactic texts, simple experiments etc. If I propose one situation problem (or another approach), I ask the opinion them and the debate starts. The form to work can be different, but the teaching should do meaning to all, if not the students will stay unmotivated.

I have made a series of videos that involve local research problems , local researchers using statistics in studies of agronomy, animal science, soil science, wildlife, food science etc..... I have a large firts year class and instead of taking the students to the field I have brought the field, cage, lab into my lecture theatre. Contact me for more information.

teaching methods to attract students' attention and interest is to reformulate your lessons likes as  activities form and create competition betwen students .

I teach "Technology in the Classroom". I teach my pre-service teachers that there needs to be a change with instructional strategies from teacher centered to student centered with activities that actively engage students. I also have "Flipped" my class with short (10 min) lectures that I use to do in class as homework. I have created a YouTube playlist that go along with each topic. Students like the videos because they can watch them over and over, go forwards and backwards to take notes. When I assign a video, I have a follow-up quiz in class to check for understanding. I also create videos to go along with reading assignments giving tips on what to focus on in the reading and give some further information. Students have told me over and over how much they like the "flipped" videos. 

I teach Public Administration to under graduate students.

Since my subject is dynamic and deals with government and governance we discuss daily issues even the political issues on a daily basis. For example teaching Indian Administration I take up issues related to Central Government / State Government / Judiciary / other bodies to make the concepts clear inside the class. This kind of illustration gives them a chance to speak and get involved. Politics is as it is an interesting field with endless illustrations.

Then use of Multi Media devices - PPTs and Videos etc. to make the concepts clear.

Regards

Vibha 

Dear colleagues, I sincerely thank all of you for sharing your teaching methods with me! I also thank in advance all those who will answer in the future.

Best wishes!

Case study ,Story telling and Inquiry based learning are best methods for engaging children.Besides  all these methods Flipped learning is very useful for students .Student learn a lot from   from day to day life examples 

I agree with all previously mentioned approaches.

I also think it is very important to connect the learned concepts to students' life. They have to feel and see the power of math. Only then they will be enthusiastic to lear.

To attract attention of students and maintain, involve the use of most of the sense like touch, seeing (visual) among others. These gives variety and arouse interest as learners will be fully engaged.

I am conducting a study of adapting Interteaching methods (see Hanline; and also Seville) for my senior nursing students. This assists them to focus on important knowledge needed for success in class and in the profession.  Students then come prepared for class discussions, which become interactive and collaborative with peers (and me) in the classroom.  It has been enlightening to have engaged students who know what they need to know when they arrive.  This allows more time for creative reflections and media sources to be used for reinforcement of content.  I also convey that I am a student advocate, which gains their respect and attention more easily from the start.

Good Morning from Manila Prof. Kapiki,

When I was a college student in my current alma mater, sans the hotel school, my professors and instructors made me and my classmates go into the field to learn first hand how things are being done aside from learning from textbooks.  During class, we were made to report what we discovered and share our newfound knowledge.  This is where the class didn't go through the traditional learning method whereby the professors lecture in front of the class, which makes it more interesting because we the students teach our fellow classmates and we entertain questions.

Now that I am a college instructor in my alma mater's hotel school, I am doing the same method my professors and instructors taught me.  This way, my students learn from hard experience aside from reading pages in their prescribed textbooks/reference materials and surfing the net.  Thus, I make my students have the experience to teach in front of their classmates what they have learned and I simply supplement the topics.  Personally, my class never gets bored.

Letting the students create the culture of the class goes a long way in getting buy-in.  I use the approach similar to that mentioned before in that I am here to help I am not here to tell you how to do math, research etc but I have workflows and ideas to help you leverage what you already know into what you want to accomplish- I as the instructor am not the focus- 

Dear Soultana Kapiki

I consider it important that education is interdisciplinary . In this sense , the five dimensions of knowledge represent an optimal methodology of teaching practice

 Dear Eisa,

Philosophy is a conditio sine qua non for education because studies the man, nature and society as they present themselves in the real world, complex and multifaceted. This attitude before reality makes philosophy one year light-knowledge ahead of the particular sciences, because while they begin to discover the so-called multidisciplinary approach, philosophy now points to this integration of knowledge since its inception, more than two thousand years.

Dear Mareena Memon,

The problematics based on interdisciplinary projects are very healthy in student involvement during the construction of knowledge.

I use the five dimensions of knowledge that involves both interpersonal relationships as mediation teacher .

one can use real life examples and teaching practically,,

Depending on the topic you are teaching, I sometimes use the activity of Reading aloud by a student one at a time. This makes others attentive because they are anxious to hear the pronunciation of words, facial expression, voice level, this is especially true since English is a second language in my country. Use of debate, role play, music and other inrteractive methods of teaching.

One of the most important techniques that can help teachers build students'interest is drawn from self regulated learning theories by Zimmerman and others. Focus here is on building responsibility and control. Teachers need to make students feel that they are responsible for their own learning and that their engagement is beneficial to them in the long run. Modeling needs to students - i.e. showing them how they may need what they are doing in class either for the present time or the future is highly interesting. Besides, talking therapy that first shows students how being engaged requires attention and objective setting is also crucial. Building control over learning is indispensible for students success. One way I do this is I talk to students who are not engaged about avoidance strategies and how students who use these strategies are low achievers. research in causal attributions is also useful. you can read my article on students' attributions of success and failure. 

Good day,

  I am glad that I can share my experience with you. Here are some papers:

  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/276542671_SOME_STRATEGIES_OF_THE_EFFECTIVE_TEACHING_OF_FOREIGN_LANGUAGES

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286625219_THE_PROCESS_OF_GLOBALIZATION_AND_ITS_EFFECT_ON_THE_TEACHING_OF_FOREIGN_LANGUAGES_AT_THE_INSTITUTIONS_OF_HIGHER_EDUCATION_ON_THE_EXAMPLE_OF_IVANE_JAVAKHISHVILI_TBILISI_STATE_UNIVERSITY_GEORGIA

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286624705_FOR_THE_IMPROVEMENT_OF_TEACHING_FOREIGN_LANGUAGES_ON_THE_UNDERGRADUATE_LEVEL_ON_THE_EXAMPLE_OF_THE_REFORMS_CARRIED_OUT_AT_THE_FACULTY_OF_HUMANITIES_OF_IVANE_JAVAKHISHVILI_TBILISI_STATE_UNIVERSITY_GEOR

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287205749_Methodologies_of_Teaching_Foreign_Languages_at_the_Higher_Education_Institutions_on_the_basis_of_comparative_analysis_of_methodologies_used_at_Ivane_Javakhishvili_Tbilisi_State_University_Georgia_and_

Wishing you all the best!

Irina

Article SOME STRATEGIES OF THE EFFECTIVE TEACHING OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Article THE PROCESS OF GLOBALIZATION AND ITS EFFECT ON THE TEACHING ...

Article FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES ON THE UND...

Conference Paper Methodologies of Teaching Foreign Languages at the Higher Ed...

Dear Irina;

We know that there are no magic formulas because it is subjectivities . I like to use interdisciplinary projects , they represent a constant dialogue with other areas of knowledge. In my doctoral thesis I developed the five dimensions of knowledge as a form of organization of these interdisciplinary projects . I hope this helps you

Dear Claudia, thank you very much.

Many interactive methods can be used like reading aloud, Socratic method of question and answer, debating, role play etc

I have developed an approach that I name the PONTES approach.  The book was published last year (2015) by Paco Editorial (São Paulo, Brazil) both in English and Portuguese languages. Basically, it recommends the development of teacher  skills and competencies aiming the construction of creative bridges during the lessons with the students and the development of pedagogical articulations with the school, the personnel, the families, the socio-cultural context and the musical groups of the community, in order to connect the students with the learning of the curricular contents. 

Hello teacher. We used it as innovative method the five dimensions of knowledge. It is an interdisciplinary method used in all basic education.

I always take roll so every voice can be heard at the start of class, requiring a nonthreatening  fun fact about themselves.  I use my sense of humor in class to get students' attention for important or difficult points to aid in comfort with dialogue.  In addition, I use the Interteaching Method (see Philip Hanline or Brian Seville research) so students are prepared prior to class...credit is given for preparation of PrepGuides, and attendance/peer work to help with engagement..  

I use debate, reading aloud by students, one at a time, quack jokes, using students to illustrate on the chalk board

Try it out, I use it with undergraduate student of geography

Use games like Snakes and Ladders where you use content of the subject to write in the spaces. Ask the student to to make the chart for the snakes and ladders. They will enjoy making it as well as playing it. Scrabble is another game where the content of the subject is used to form the words to be used on the chart. The students will do the formulation and play it as well. This best for adult students or undergraduate students. It is very good for developing teamwork, communication skills, language development, peer learning, cooperative learning etc. I am a geography teacher; teacher trainer

I conceived a Game based approach to attract students' attention and engage them in learning concepts like ERP and it's impact to Business OR Critical Success factors for Project Management.

The results of the students in exam as well as during assessment by an external panel consisting of members from Industry, had set a new benchmark. Students comprehension on subject was extraordinarily deeper and superior to that from the conventional methods of learning by reading and listening /watching.

I found Game based method to be very effective [students learnt concept through critical analysis] and efficient[students grasped subject much faster and deeper].

The extraordinary outcomes of the approach motivated me to document it in a book ;

• https://page-one.live.cf.public.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4842-2421-2_2/lookinside/000.png
• https://www.apress.com/in/book/9781484224205 ..Chapter#2 Aircraft Manufacturing Game & Chapter#4 - Blindfold Game respectively].

Rita BoUchard

This method was created in light of Paulo Freire's theory in my doctoral dissertation. theory and practice in an interdisciplinary process. Thank you teacher

Dear colleague, I suppose that one of the best methods can be translanguaging.

Mostly I will use Chalk and Board, PPT , solving more problems from students in the class rooms and Self Notes preparation from students are the best methods for teaching I feel (for Engineering Graduate students not for School students for school students we need to use different approach).

First Step-I start my lesson with previous knowledge testing and for that, I use stories/poetry, visual/audio. Second Step- For content delivery, I give examples of daily life and used to ask probing questions. In the Third Step, I conduct a group activity. Fourth Step-Recapitulation.5th Step-Self assessment by the learner. In all the above steps, the learner is very attentive.

I use this method for prospective teachers [undergraudate ]

Mostly I use the PONTES approach points. I believe that the music teacher needs to have a positive approach, needs to observe very well the students' profiles and the culture he belongs, needs to act with naturality in the classroom or studio individual lerning situations. Teachers need to develop a natural personal relationship in relation to the school and students, needs to apply the good technical strategies and know well the music contents, needs to have a well developed form to express himself/herself and to use his/hers sensibility to teach.

I use debates to develop students' interest and understanding of course topics, while enhancing their collaborative, critical thinking, and communication skills:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274720155_Debating_A_Dynamic_Teaching_Strategy_for_Motivating_Students_and_Teachers

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

Best,

Debra