Teachers of English often complain that adult learners are difficult to deal with. The latter are often dissatisfied with teaching methods and homework, are unwilling to speak in English and actively participate in classroom activities. As a result, they tend to leave the course all too soon. This interactive talk is an attempt to look into the reasons behind adult students’ lack of motivation. The participants are going to analyse what makes adults different from children and teenagers and find ways of helping teachers make their classes relevant to their adult learners’ needs. We will also think of strategies for adult learners to overcome psychological barriers and see the rewards of their efforts as soon as they expect, so that they stay motivated to develop. The goal is for the participants to walk away with concrete ideas for their own classes.

There are a variety of ways in which you can make your lessons memorable in order to help your learners take valuable information with them when they leave your classroom. In this workshop we will look at a number of practical ideas to help you liven up your lessons, make them fun, relevant, engaging, and creative so that both you and your learners feel you have gotten the most out of the face-to-face or online time you spend together. A variety of ideas will be introduced and participants will have the chance to try a number of them out for themselves. The workshop will conclude with questions and a short discussion about how to implement the activities for specific teaching situations

Nowadays fun is considered to be a desirable ingredient in almost all classrooms. It is believed that if students have fun, they get motivated and therefore, learn more effectively. This could be true. However, what makes fun meaningful or what kind of fun really helps to progress in language learning is not always understood correctly by teachers and students. In this session we will look into the psychological side of fun and entertainment. Then we will try out activities and techniques that make fun productive and bring results.

Music is a powerful tool for engaging and inspiring our language students, but we usually focus on how to use the lyrics of songs to help us do this.
This session includes a series of practical demonstrations of how different pieces of classical music, music without words, can be used for language learning.
We will look at lessons for teaching grammar, vocabulary and functional language. We will also explore activities developing fluent speaking and writing, from poetry composition to exam preparation.

In my talk, I will investigate how motivation in language learning works and how we can influence its dynamics. Using clear examples, I will illustrate how to praise students to stimulate their development; how “bad” stress differs from “good” one, and how it affects individuals during the learning process and exam taking. In conclusion, I will give some recommendations on how a teacher can create and maintain motivation in a group of students and how to support students’ self-esteem and maintain positive attitude towards learning and exam taking.