It is anot always the motivation is on top when you have to study. I once heard someone say don't feel so much just do it. At times I can find it difficult to study, when I think the assignment is unclear, or it is a lot to read, or you are just not in the mood for actually spending time studying when you can do something else that is a lot more fun.

Like today, I started to bake bread instead of picking up The Good Research Guide and read the chapter about Ethnography. Knowing that if I don't do it today I have to do it tomorrow since the seminar is on Monday. And I also know that I have to read a 30 page article tomorrow for the same seminar, so in my study plan I divided the reading so that I wouldn't need to read everything on the same day.

At the moment we are reading about speaking in class. Students need to practice speaking but how do you de this in a fun and not intimidating way? Well, according to The Practice of English Language Teaching by Jeremy Harmer students often feel anxious when they are supposed to speak, and this is because students are often asked to speak without giving them time to prepare what they are going to say or that they have to speak in front of the entire class. Dividing the students into smaller groups and giving them some time to think about how they would say something I belive would be a valuable way of getting students to speak. I also believe that you as a teacher shouldn't interupt your students to correct them when they speak but encurage them to use the language. 

Learning language might not be the most fun thing to do. It is difficult and at times not so fun especially when you have to study grammar but it is a necessary evil I'm afraid. In order of being able to speak a language you need vocabulary and grammar. It is the two most important things without it you will not be able to write, read or speak.

When learning a language I would not recommend starting with grammar since it is boring and the students will loose their motivation if they had any when they started. Instead you should begin with vocabulary teach your students words and use different ways of doing this. Be more creative than only using vocabulary lists. 

One exercise which might be fun for the students to do is a word map. A word map is built similarly to a mind map that is you but the subject word in the middle for example Christmas. Then the students should come up with words that are related to Christmas such as, food, snow, Christmas tree, decorations and anything else they can come up with. And you connect these with each other where possible. It is important to first show the students what they are expected to do so that the students know what success should look like. After doing one word map together give your students 2-3 words which are related in someway and ask then to try to find the connections by making word maps.

Of course you will also need to follow this up. It can be done thorugh reading comprehension, listening or writing. You will have to use a text where they can find the words that you have given them and thus you as a teacher can see if they have understood the words or not.

Today our society is about technology and principals at schools demand teachers to use computers and so forth. The students at the schools get their own computers and today giving the students a computer is a way of getting students to the school.

How does this then work in the classroom? Not at all!

In my opinion students shouldn't be allowed to have computers all the time since they cannot handle the responsibility. They check facebook, play games and watch youtube instead of doing what they are supposed to do. They don't charge their computers and believes this gives them a free pass for not doing the exercises. When you then ask them a questions they say I don't know I haven't done it. As a teacher your feel lite yeah that's not my problem you have been given plenty of time to do the exercise now answer my question. 

It is also surprising how the students don't have pencils or paper with them to the classroom. They know they don't have any battery in their computer so they can't take notes on these but somehow they don't understand that paper and pencil exists and if they don't use their computers they have to write by hand instead. During my teacher practice at least 10 minutes EVERY lesson went to the students going to get a pencil, the books or their computers. They don't understand that they have to bring the materials to the lesson.

I'm really afraid of how the school will be like when I graduate and should start teaching. I literary afraid of teaching since the knowledge of the studnets is so low and the demands on the teachers are so high.