Goals: Having small goals helps students to be motivated

Well I tried to make my title more professional so I skipped putting "I think." Anyway, the reason why I think that having small goals would help students is that, because it did help me. I guess lots of teachers (and also students) know about this, but I still wanted to write about my experience in the ESL class.

When I was in the ESL class, I took this one class which was very unique--American culture through sports. We were there to study and learn about the American culture through sports, and our ultimate goal is to improve our English skills, but we had small goals for each chapters. We didn't have any textbook (which I really liked about this class) so each chapter was certain sports that we picked--any sports that we would like to learn (i.e., baseball, basketball, football, and so on).

First week or so was about the baseball. I think we spent one day learning about the game--rules, little bit of history, and maybe some songs that you can sing when you go watch the game. Next class, we would actually meet outside, and play the game! Then next class, we'll have some discussion about how was the game, and what kind of rules that we knew, and so on. We had small assignments like study about the game beforehand, or present the sports that I like. This was fun because it wasn't just about learning English itself. We were improving our English skills with various activities.

So each week or so, we'll have different goals--"Let's learn about this sports".

Not only we learned about the rules, we learned about the culture. What people think about football in America versus in Japan? What kind of sports is popular in America? And why?

Because we knew that after we learned about the game, we played the game, we were so excited to learn all those rules and memorize them, for fun!

I know that language classes can be really boring even with various chapters in the textbooks because the ultimate goal for the class is "learning and developing the English skills" . Plus, most of the students are already in the language class for at least few months. Probably more than 8 months for the students who are in the advanced level. I know the fact that when I was in one of those English classes, I did really feel like all the classes were boring--even though I did have really fun classes because I felt like I can't reach my goal, ever.

So I always think about, how can I make the students more motivated (or keep motivated)?

Remind them about their ultimate goals like getting into the University?

Make the class more fun (if that's possible)?

Use new technologies?

Those seemed to be all great ways to make them motivated.

And I just wanted to add one more way--set some small goals which is not really about improving English skill only. Something more tangible that students can feel like they finished something (i.e., learn about sports, cooking, books, or maybe even songs).

Then maybe, when they accomplish those small goals, they'll be more motivated (hopefully).

ps. Please add "I think" on the title and various parts of this post. Thank you.

ps2. I'm trying to be vague about where I took the classes and so on, just in case. Hope I don't get in trouble by mentioning some of classes that I took...