Football and motivation

Materials: Handout 1 - Quotes Handout 2 - Role play Premier Skills English website Organisation: small groups, individuals, pair work, open class Aim: to help students develop a positive self-concept / improve student motivation Introduction: 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: 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. 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 the learners’ desire throughout the lesson and the final activity focuses on fluency which can give learners a sense of progress. • • Divide the class into small groups. Write the five questions on the board and ask learners to answer the questions together. Stage Procedure Discussion 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. Premier Skills English – Player Interviews Ask the learners to watch the video on Premier Skills English. Watch http://premierskillsenglish.britishcouncil.org/players/player-interviews/topic-english Ask the learners to work in pairs and complete the quotes with the words the players say Discussion: feedback Tell the learners that they are going to take part in a role play interview for a popular weekly magazine. Role play Tell the learners that before they do the role play, they have 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. Role play: preparation Hand out 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. 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 them up. Ask the learners to watch the video on Premier Skills English. 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. Keep the feedback focused on the future-selves. Ask learners who has the most interesting future plans.