Focusing on "fore-bend"
I take a morning yoga class every Saturday.
Today we focused on “fore-bend,” which I am not good at.
The instructor told us the effect of fore-bend on both our body and our mind.
Practicing fore-bend makes our body feel relaxed and direct our attention inward.
We tend to focus too much on achieving our goals in our daily lives.
However, it is important to focus more on the process.
She showed us how to do fore-bend effectively.
First, straighten the spine.
Second, tip the pelvis forward while rotating the thigh inward.
Third, put the chest on the upper legs. Finally, lower your head.
I had a fruitful time in today’s lesson:)
Have you made a New Year's resolution?
Have you made a New Year's resolution yet?
2017 is going to end in two days, so I reflected back on this year and made plans for 2018 using "YOUR BEST YEAR EVER 2018" worksheet.
This worksheet was made by Mel Robbins, the author of "The 5 second rule."
Thanks to this worksheet, I was able to clarify what I achieved and what I couldn't this year.
Also I could analyze the reasons why I couldn't achieve some of the goals I had set.
If you are interested in this worksheet, you can download it from the following link.
The good point of this worksheet is that you can go through the following areas of life: Health, Love, Work and Fun.
By the way, one thing I was greatly surprised at was that I couldn't describe "when I laughed the hardest in 2017."
It was a lot of fun to make a list of "Top 5 Goals" in the four areas of life in 2018.
Now that I finished filling in all the forms, I am so excited to work on my goals in 2018.
What is “motivation”?
In the previous post, I talked about the issues of my teaching styles.
That is, I haven't concerned about my students’ motivation so much.
What is "motivation"?
Gardner has proposed that motivation can account for a great deal of learner achievement.
In his Socio-Psychological Model of Motivation, he divides motivation into the two types of motivation; Extrinsic Motivation (Integrative Orientation & Instrumental Orientation) and Intrinsic Motivation.
In this model extrinsic motivation is more important than intrinsic motivation (Dőrnyei & Csizēr, 1998).
Dőrnyei (2001) made the counterargument in regard to Gardner’s model as follows: Although a great deal has been written in the past about what motivation is, describing its components and dimensions and how these influence learning, very little has been said about how this theoretical knowledge can be applied in the actual classroom (p.2).
He asserts that teachers need to consider what to do, what to teach in the classroom.
In my opinion, teachers'job is to teach students how to learn and to lead them to have intrinsic motivation in learning.
In the upcoming blog post, I will talk about why motivation is important in the language classroom.
REFERENCES
Dőrnyei, Z., & Csizēr, K. (1998). Ten commandments for motivating language learners: results of an empirical study. Language Teaching Research, 2,3, 203-229.
Dőrnyei, Z. (2001). Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom. Cambridge University Press: UK.
Motivation strategies in the language classroom
I have taught English at junior and senior high schools in Japan for more than decades.
My teaching philosophy is to create a successful classroom.
The term “successful” means that students can enjoy learning English and use what they have learned during the class and eventually in the real world.
In order to create this condition, I have tried many sorts of teaching methods.
I have to admit, however, that some of my students do not seem to be satisfied with my English classes.
What are the reasons for this situation?
One of the reasons may be my teaching styles.
I have just tried the methods that seem to be interesting and effective for my students without associating the methods with theories.
Because of that, I still cannot have confidence in my teaching styles.
Then what is another reason?
I have noticed that how little I have been concerned about my students’ motivation despite the fact that motivation must be one of the most critical factors for a success-oriented classroom (Dőrnyei & Csizēr, 1998).
I will talk about motivation on the upcoming blog post.
On the final blog post on motivation series, I will suggest some ideas of how teachers might increase learners’ motivation to acquire foreign languages .
REFERENCE
Dőrnyei, Z., & Csizēr, K. (1998). Ten commandments for motivating language learners: results of an empirical study. Language Teaching Research, 2,3, 203-229.
I started English blog
Hi friends,
I finally started my English blog today.
I am going to mainly share my experiences as both an English teacher and an English learner in this blog.
I will look forward to brush up English skills with you all.
Thank you for visiting my blog.
