HOW TO AROUSE STUDENTS’
INTEREST IN LEARNING ENGLISH
I. Introduction
II. Why do we have to arouse students’ interest
in learning English?
III. Some activities to arouse students’ interest
in learning English
1. Eliciting
2. Using visual aids
3. Teaching English through games
4. Role play
5. Using Language Lab
6. Using PowerPoint presentations
7. The teacher’s attitude

IV. Conclusion

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HOW TO AROUSE STUDENTS’ INTEREST
IN LEARNING ENGLISH
I. Introduction
“My students are very lazy and stubborn. When I explain the lessons, they
don’t pay attention and let their mind wander. When I ask them to do the
homework, they just ask other people for help. When I ask them to learn the
lessons, they ignore it or just spend little time doing that. I don’t know what to do
now.”, a teacher of English complained. This is a common case in many classes of
English. What’s the solution to that problem? We cannot use the rod to force our
students to learn. Nor can we split their heads to put the knowledge into them.
What can we do? The better way is to arouse students’ interest in learning English.

On the contrary, the extra motivation generated through this will more than
compensate.
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III. Some activities to arouse students’ interest in learning
English
There are various activities in a classroom to arouse students’ interest in
learning English. In this limited unit, I would like to suggest some common and
useful ones.
1. Eliciting
In many classes, it is the teacher that talks while the students listen. If
the students speak at all, it is usually to repeat what the teacher says, or to
answer a set question. This way of teaching will obviously make the
students feel bored and frustrated. Instead of simply giving words,
sentences, or structures, the teacher should involve the students more by
drawing them from the students. He should ask them for their ideas and
suggestions, getting them to contribute what they know already, and
encouraging them to guess new words. This is called eliciting.
Eliciting involves the class by focusing student’s attention and making
them think. This happens even if students do not know the words being
elicited; so elicitation can be used for presenting new language as well as
reviewing what was taught earlier. Furthermore, eliciting encourages
students to draw on what they already know or partly know. So it is a useful
technique for mixed ability classes or classes of students from different
learning backgrounds, where different students know different things. In
addition, eliciting gives teachers a chance to see what students know and
what they do not know, and so adapt the presentation to the level of the
class. Of course, eliciting takes more time than straightforward presentation
of new language. However, it will catch students’ attention and they will

When getting students to guess, the teacher should pay attention to
these points:
- The teacher should pause after asking each question, to give students time
to think
- The teacher should vary his or her questioning technique according to the
difficulty of the question, letting good students answer difficult questions
and directing easier questions at weaker students. In this way the whole
class will be involved.
- The teacher should try to elicit “onto the blackboard’, building up a set of
examples as students respond
c. Getting students to imagine
A textbook often include only questions that would be to elicit key
vocabulary or structures, or to establish a situation or topic. Therefore, the
teacher should take every opportunity to ask questions that require students
to interpret what is in a picture or a text ((EX: To get students to interpret the
picture in unit 1 of the textbook “TIẾNG ANH 10” (on page 12) the teacher
can ask “Why is the man in the field?”), or to imagine things beyond a
picture or a text (EX: What will happen next?). There are no single “right”
answers to these questions but a wide range of possible answers. Students
are encouraged to express their own ideas and feelings. Questions of this
kind encourage students to give a more imaginative, personal response. If
we ask questions like that, we can involve the class in discussion and can
stimulate freer use of language.
2. Using visual aids
There are various kinds of visual aids that we can use to teach English such
as the blackboard, real objects, flashcards, charts, the teachers ourselves, flannel
board, slides, coloured rods, etc.
Using visual aids has a lot of advantages:
- Showing visuals focuses attention on meaning, and helps to make the
language used in the class more real and alive.

-to teach the word “cell phone”
-to practice the structure “What …for?”( What is a cell phone used for?- It is
used to talk to people when you are away from home.)
-to develop an imaginative dialogue:
Student 1: Could you lend me your cell phone?
Student 2: Yes, of course. What do you want it for?
Student 2: My sister has been to Hanoi. I’d like to phone her.
c. Charts: They are large sheets of card or paper with writing, pictures or
diagrams, used for more extended presentation or practice. They would
usually be displayed on the wall or blackboard, or the teacher can hold up
for the class to see.
EX: To teach the word “erosion”, the teacher can show this picture

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Using charts is convenient because of the following reasons
-The teacher does not have to spend time in the lesson drawing or writing on
the blackboard
-As the chart is prepared in advance, it is possible to draw the pictures or
tables more carefully, and also to make them more attractive (e.g. by using
colour)
-The chart can be kept and used again with the same class (e.g. for review,
or to practice a different tense), or used with other classes and by other
teachers.
-The textbooks we are using now are up-to-date and have good illustrations.
There may be no need for teachers to make charts. However, it may still be
worthwhile to copy some visual material from the books onto charts, so
that the teacher can introduce the lesson in a more interesting way, or
review earlier lessons, or simply to make a change of activity.

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+ The teacher can also divide students in groups. Each group will think of a
word or a sentence and the representative of each group will go to the front of
the class in turn. The group who can guess the word or the sentence will get
three marks. The group with more marks will be the winner.
b. Lucky numbers
+ Have students form groups (It is up to the number of the students in class)
+ Write on board some numbers
EX: 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
+ There are some lucky numbers (e.g. 2, 5, 9). The group who choose the lucky
number will get 2 marks without doing anything.
+ The other numbers will show a question or an order. If the group can answer
the question or perform the order well, that group will get 2 marks. If that group
cannot answer the question or cannot perform the order, the other groups will
have the right to do them.
+ When all the numbers have been chosen, the group with more marks will be
the winner.
c. Jumbled letters
EX: Rearrange these letters to make a meaningful word: sweta

E
R
O

W
M
A
M
V
K
Z

N
C
O
U
F
N
L

K
T
N
T
S
D
X

E
S

W
E
R
O

W
M
A
M
V
K
Z

N
C
O
U
F
N
L

K
T
N
T
S
D
X

E

group that can
? complete the task correctly will be the
?
cartoon
winner.
listening to music
f.? Word nets ?
documentary
+ Thetravelling
teacher writes on the board the word nets.
watching
EX:
television

HOBBIES

reading books

?
?

?

comic

swimming
?

in the river


+ Hide the objects or pictures.
+ Call on the representative of each group to go to the board to write the names
of the objects or pictures. The groups with more correct names will be the
winner.
i. Slap the board
+ Write new words or stick pictures onto the board.
+ Call on two groups to go to the board (Each group has four or five students)
+ Have each group stand in the same distance.
+ Say aloud the words in Vietnamese if the words on the board are in English
and vice versa. (Say the words in English if using the pictures)
+ The students of the two groups will go to the board and slap the word said
aloud.
+ Give marks to the group that can slap the word more correctly and quickly.
+ The groups with more marks will be the winner.
j. Find someone who
+ Write the table on the board. Have students write it on their notebooks
Use a computer
Speak French
Cook
Play the guitar

Name
Nam

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swim
+ Have students make yes-no questions for the words in the left (e.g. Can you
use a computer?)

Bookstore

Village

Hotel

street

School

+ Divide the class into 2 groups: one is “Noughts” (O) and the other is
“Crosses” (X)
+ Have the groups choose the words in the squares and make sentence with that
word (e.g. There is a post office near my house)
+ The group with the correct sentence will receive a “O” or a “ X”
+ The group with three “O” or “ X” in the same vertical line, diagonal line or
horizontal line will be the winner.
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n. Crossword puzzles

Find the word which means:
1. say one is sorry, esp for having done sth wrong
2. give money so that sth will happen
3. finish
4. happening or done once every year
5. encourage or make sth more active
6. give sth to sb as a prize
7. without problems or difficulties

I
6
M
8
A

1
S
O
N
M
A
O
S
N
C

A
P
M
N
U
W
O
P
N
O

P
O


O G I S E
O R
T E
E
Y
T
C E
S T

o. Word dominoes
EX: …cheatomatonakedirector…
p. “Composing Stories”
This game can be played by the whole class or in groups. The purpose of
this game is to cultivate students’ reading comprehension and memory. For
example, delivering ten disordered sentences of a paragraph from a text which
students have learned. The winner will be the group who can rearange it
correctly and fastest.
k. Miming
+ Divide the class into groups.
+ The representatives of the groups will go to the front of the class to mime a
job or an action in turn.
+ Each correct answer will be given 1 mark. The group that has the student
miming and can give the correct answer will be given 2 marks. The group with
more marks will be the winner.
r. The teacher can also design games which are similar to popular games on
television such as “Chung sức”, “Rung chuông vàng”, “Đường lên đỉnh
Olympia”, etc. (Instead of using Vietnamese in these games, we will use
English)
EX: The game which is similar to the game “Chung sức”:

7. playing sports(7 marks)
8. meeting friends(5 marks)
9. traveling(3 marks)
10. sleeping(1 mark)
+ After all of the ten answers are given, the group with more marks will be the
winner.
4. Role play
Role play is a way of bringing situations from real life into the class room.
When we do role play, we ask students to imagine. They may imagine:
- a role: in other words, they pretend to be a different person (e.g. a farmer);
- a situation: in other words, they pretend to be doing something different (e.g.
planning a holiday)
- both a role and a situation (e.g. a police officer asking about a lost bag).
In role play, students improvise. The situation is fixed, but they make up the
exact words to say as they go along. ( So reading a dialogue aloud is not the same
as role play.)
Role play increases motivation. Always talking about real life can become
dull, and the chance to imagine difference situations adds interest to the lesson.
Children and even teenagers and adults often imgine themselves in different
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situations and roles when they play games. So by using role play in class, we are
building on something that students naturally enjoy.
When using role play, bear in mind that the situations we use for role play
should as far as possible within the experience of the students. In general, the more
familiar a role or situation is, the easier it will be.
Suitable roles for school classes would be:
- People familiar to students from everyday life, e.g. parents, brothers, sisters,
teachers, shopkeepers, police officers.

students may be more impressed and remember the vocabulary or sentence
patterns easily and can keep the memory longer.
PowerPoint presentation is a great way of displaying pictures and linking to
movie clips. It does break the monotony in the classroom and adds variety. You
have access to many teaching tools when you can produce your lesson plan with
PowerPoint. Pictures of vocabulary words, hyper links to informational You Tube
videos, and recorded dialogues are just a few of the many features you can
incorporate into your PowerPoint lesson plan to make it engaging and informative
to your students.
Pictures:
You could use photographs and clip art to help you explain the meaning of
the words you are trying to teach. Students will have a better understanding of new
words if they can see pictures to help them understand the meanings. Keep your
pictures relevant and simple, however. There is no need to fill a slide up with
photographs to help explain just a few words.
Recorded Audio:
You can record the pronunciation of new words, custom dialogues, English
songs or listening exercises for your students to play at appropriate times during
your lesson with a PowerPoint-presented lesson. Students will be able to hear
authentic speech during the lesson. You can send your lesson to your students after
class so that they can then review the speech that they heard during the lesson on
their own time and repeat it as many times as they think necessary to better
understand it.
Video:
Put a link to a You Tube video into your lesson if you want to show a video.
For example, if your lesson is about job interviews, you can show a short video on
how to act during a job interview. Students can then discuss pre-determined
questions you have given, listen for new vocabulary you have pre-taught, or
perform their own job interviews after watching the video.
Games:

should be corrected but first and more important, he should also be praised –
‘Good, Well done. Yes, I want to collect our books. You ask the question again so
everyone can hear it – Listen. “Do you want to collect our book?” Now you ask.
Good’. In this way the form of the question has been corrected but the student has
been given full credit for making himself understood. This method increases
student motivation, he will now be keen to try again and not nervous of making
mistakes.
The teacher should also give praise to the students even if they make very
small progress. Use the encouraging words , such as Good , OK, CLEVER and
use “try” , “Do your best “, or “ I believe you can do better next time.” which can
encourage students and help them build self-confidence instead of “No” , “ You
can’t “ . Then the students can learn English harder and harder and get better
achievement. Day by day the interest in learning English is brought up, and the
students want to learn English self-consciously.

IV. Conclusion
Learning is a personal journey. We are simply a guide. Our students have to
do the traveling. A guide can’t force a tourist to see what he or she doesn’t want to
see. We organize a learning environment, but we can’t learn for the students. They
have to do the learning themselves. So the teacher should teach the essential things
and things that motivate the students. Besides, English lessons are like the
medicines that the students should take. They may still need to be sweetened with
the sugar of enjoyment, fun, creativity and a sense of achievement. That is the
reason why the teacher should create activities that can arouse students’ interest in
learning English. It may take time and energy to do so or you can get failure in the
first few times. Don’t worry. It is said that “Cultivation of the soil serves ten years’
interest. Cultivation of the mind serves one hundred years’ interest”. And
remember the English proverb: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”.

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