Brain function is different in adolescence than in adulthood (25 years). The Prefrontal cortex continues to mature into the 20s, making decision-making generally more effortful and difficult. Adolescents operate more from the reflexive, instinctive, amygdalar part of brain, leading to impulsivity.
They also have less activity in the nucleus accumbens (a region of the frontal cortex) which leads to motivational deficit. This means that adolescents are drawn to high-excitement and low-effort experiences, or both. Long-term planning suffers and risk-taking or "laziness" are very common.
Teenagers can be very demanding and critical but once they are motivated they can show a lot of creativity and imagination in class so the question is how we can motivate them and get the most of each of them....
Below you will find some activities that really worked in my class and I hope they will be useful and enganging for your students.
Warming up - First Impressions are really important to get students in the perfect mood to motivate them. The beginning of the class is a key moment to engage your group of teens in the lesson.
- Cues! It's students' time to be detectives! Hide in the class five cues that will help them find out what the lesson will be about. To make this activity more engaging and fun write the cues in QR code! What I always use is the QR Code Generator: www.goqr.me to create the cues, I paste the cues on the classroom walls and then they have to use their cell phones to decipher the codes. They have to install a programme to read the codes, it's free and easy to download.
- Put a complex picture on the board related to the lesson, get them into groups to discuss what they think the lesson is going to be about and play some music in the background. When the music stops they share their ideas with the whole class.
- Jigsaw Puzzle: if your students have computers you can give them a jigsaw puzzle to introduce a new unit. Here's the webpage I use to create my puzzles.: http://www.jigsawplanet.com
- Pass the bomb: Get a ball and play some music, when the music stops, the student with the ball answers a question from the previous class. This is a great idea for revision that can be used at the beginning of the class or at the end as a round up.
Lesson Ideas
- Google Earth Tour: For this activity you will need computers and the google earth programme installed in the computers. If you are dealing with places, countries, cities, etc. you can get learners in pairs to carry out an expedition somewhere they would like to go. Then, they report back what they have investigated about the place they visited.
- Speed dating: If you want to practise speaking you can sit your students in two rows of chairs facing each other. Call out the first theme and give students two minutes to talk about the topic. When the time is over one side of the class remains seated while the other side moves to the next chair.
- Connecting chain: This activity is used to revise / practise linking words. The teacher makes a statement and adds a linking word, then throws the ball to a student who has to finish and end the statement with a connective word and so on....
- Survivors: Tell your students that they are flying as passengers on a jumbo jet over the Pacific. By chance a war takes place during their flight forcing the captain to land close to a small island. Passangers learn that they are about to become the last remaining survivors on the planet. The job of each group is to decide what sort of society they can create on the island. *Questions that may guide them through the task: what needs to be arranged / done immediately? How will tasks be arranged? How will decisions be made? Who will be the leader? What will they eat? How? How will children be looked after? How will family life be sorted? What happens to rule breakers? Stand back and let your students debate.
Rounding up
- Box and Cox: This activity is an unthreatening way of assessing to what extent learners have understood what you have taught. Ask students to write down a question that relate to something they do not understand. Make sure these are anonymous and ask them to put these into a box. You can quickly go through any questions and clarify issues to the class that they may not have understood.
- Don't mention it! Students draw from a bag/box a word they have learnt in class. They have to attempt to describe that word without using the word itself.
- Spot the mistake: Get students in pairs. The teacher writes a sentence, question, with a grammar mistake on the board and students must find it and correct it. You can also write grammaticaly correct statements and students decide if the sentence is right or wrong.
- Mind maps: I am a fan of mind maps as they are an excellent tool to revise concepts and consolidate topics. The use of mindmaps can be used at the end term or the end of a unit, Ask learners for key ideas from the last lesson/current unit/s and tell them they have to create a mind map. Then, they share them with the rest of the class.
- Who wants to be a millionaire? Prepare 10 questions for revision . Pick one learner to be the contestant and one to be the host, Like the television show,give learners three ‘lifelines’, phone a friend (ask someone in class) or askt he audience (everyone in the class writes an answer on a blank sheet of pape and holds it up). Swap the contestant and host.
It is a fact that motivating teens can be a really difficult task to achieve but it can also be one of the most rewarding experiences you may ever had. These were just some ideas that you can implement in class , try them out and see what happenes. I will be posting more activities soon. Stay tuned!
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