Motivation

Motivation is an essential part of learning a skill. This lesson combines traditional approaches to motivation with the role of a self-concept in motivation.

The traditional approaches include:

• The topic - football is probably the most popular sport in the world so the subject matter is motivating.
• The tasks - the activities are designed to offer variety which should maintain the strength of a learners’ desire throughout the lesson and the final activity focuses on fluency which can give learners a sense of progress.

In professional sports psychology, athletes and coaches recognise the value of a positive self-concept and practise visualising success. In this lesson, learners are encouraged to compare themselves to professional footballers who have moved to the UK to play. They will be asked to visualise a successful future-self living and prospering in the UK or another English speaking country.
 

Procedure

1. Discussion

Divide the class into small groups. Write the five questions on the board and ask learners to answer the questions together.

1. Why is it important to learn English?
2. Do you speak English regularly?
3. Who will you speak English with in the future?
4. Where will you speak English in the future?
5. Do you have a favourite word or phrase in English?

Tell the learners to write down the best answers from the group. Monitor your learners, looking for interesting answers. After your learners have finished discussing and have written down their answers, nominate members from each group and ask them to share their ideas with the class.

2. Watch

Premier Skills English > Players > Player Interviews > Topic - English 

Ask the learners to watch the video on Premier Skills English.

3. Watch: Feedback

Ask the learners to work in pairs and complete the quotes with the words the players say.

Distribute handout 1: Quotes

4. Discussion: Feedback

Ask the learners to return to their small groups from the start of the lesson to compare their answers from the discussion with the players’ ideas.

5. Role play: Preparation

Tell the learners that before they do the role play, they are going to do a visualisation exercise. Tell the learners the date (10 years in the future). Tell them that they are like the Premier League players and have moved to England (or another English speaking country) to work and have become really successful.

Distribute handout 2: Future-selves 

Ask the learners to look at the future-selves questions and think about the questions. There is no need for the students to make notes, but they can if they want.

6. Role play

Tell the learners that they are going to take part in a role play interview for a popular weekly magazine. The magazine in your country runs a feature on successful expats (people living abroad). Your learners are going to take turns playing journalists or their future-selves. Tell the journalists that they can use the questions on the future-selves handout or they can make up their own questions. 

This is a fluency activity so it is important that you give your learners time to repeat the role play, each time, swapping between reporter and successful expat. Give each learner the opportunity to play the journalist and expat 3 times. Be sure to have your learners swap partners each time.

If you have room, you can arrange the chairs in your classroom into two rows with learners facing one another. This way, you can have one set of students move left and the whole class will have new partners.

7. Role play: Feedback

Keep the feedback focused on the future-selves. Ask learners who has the most interesting future plans?