Behavioural change
 

When you teach a class for an extended period, how, if at all, do you try to change their behaviour?

A simple example would be getting them to speak only English in class. What other behavioural changes do you aim for?

Re: Behavioural change
 

Make them write word in English. Kids usually they like to play games and they like to pronounce the words, but they dislike the writing part. So I always have to do things like dictation, hangman, for push them to write or to see how the word is written.

Re: Behavioural change
 

I always aim to get the students to use the dictionaries provided in class. They often become too dependent on asking me what words mean, how to pronounce them etc etc. I won't be with them when they travel!
It's good practice for them and makes them more autonomous in their learning.

Re: Behavioural change
 

In primary and junior high school, I keep a list of specific vocabulary that I want them to use. With one class, I want them to use "classroom English." With another class, they just learned question words and I want them to use these words for simple questions instead of speaking Japanese.

So, I keep a list and check every time someone in the class uses the word. When they have a specific number of check marks, they will be able to play games (English games, of course) for one period or half a period.

With adult students, I charged them (a very small amount of money) and used the money to buy candy, chocolates or other munchies to bring into class.

Re: Behavioural change
 

For vocabulary reinforcement I let them look up the translation of a word from English to Korean and after that activity, I ask them to find the antonyms and synonyms of those words using the internet. I give them a website and give them a time limit and ask them to present their answers in English. Gets them working themselves in English and lets them take control of their learning.

Re: Behavioural change
 

Great answers so far. What about changing their behaviour in terms of motivation?

Re: Behavioural change
 

Ah motivation is always an interesting topic.

According to Douglas Brown, motivation is defined as the extent to which you make choices about the goals to pursue and the effort you will devote to the pursuit.

There are basically two different types of motivation -intrinsic and extrinstic. Instrinsic is the most powerful as it's concerned with "feelings" and as the student is more and more excited about the class they will forget about everything else. There is no apparent reward except the activity itself.

Extrinstic motivation is concerned with the reward in a physical sense (money, points, stickers, candy etc) and the activity is carried out for this reward. The students, especially younger ones, are drawn more to this as they can see the reward in front of them where as the higher self-esteem as a reward is more difficult to convey to your students.

I find with young students that a physical reward (extrinstic) is more useful as the students can actually see the candy/points and they think to themselves "if I do this correctly then I can get that." It motivates them but can have a really adverse effect on children later on as they might begin to expect "rewards" all the time for doing tasks. Over the long run they will focus too much on the rewards. And also it will cost you a pretty penny.

With older and more sensible students an extrinstic rewards system is better. They do a task and after completing the task see that they are better off with that knowledge than before the task without that knowledge. For example if they never answered a phone call in English and then you teach them some vocab. such as, "Can you hold on a minute please," "Sorry he's not here now. Can I take a message?" etc then they can see the real value of the exercise and their self esteem with be the actual reward. This is true of adults, especially company class students.

Therefore in my opinion a points based system is better for younger learners. Assign them some great prizes that will take them weeks and weeks to achieve (or months in my case) and have them to record their points on a daily basis in their notebook so you could design your own "Special Points Page" and add in the points for every correct answer they give, for singing loudly, not speaking Korean (in my case) for being nice to their friend and for playing nice during a game. It worked very well in my classes :)