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MOBILITY 8. “Interactive teaching - Using educational games and new technology in order to enhance learners’ motivation”. Eruditus Language School. Konstanz, Germany. Daniel Arador. Day 1


Today we have had the first day of the course. We introduced each other and presented our countries, schools and educational systems. All participants are either from Spain or Finland. We discussed in length the concept of motivation and what fosters it. It was interesting to see how teachers from different countries (or at least different regions) working at different levels of education (kindergarten, primary, secondary and education for adults) have pretty much the same ideas and experiences. We agreed that the following points enhance motivation:

  1. Encouraging students
  2. Offering incentives
  3. Drawing connections to real life
  4. Incorporating new technologies
  5. Going on field trips
  6. Allowing students to conduct experiments
  7. Making teaching fun


After that, we played a couple of games to get to know each other better. These can also be used in a regular class to get students to know each other better and form a more cohesive group:

  • Keep the balloons alive. Each students writes their name on a balloon. Then all balloons are thrown up in the air and students are told not to let them touch the floor. This fosters cooperation and helps create team spirit.
  • What’s the story behind your name? Students are told to walk up to the whiteboard and write their names or nicknames on it. Then they have to explain a story related to their name (preferably why they have that name). This helps them remember each other’s names and form bonds from the beginnig.
  • Who am I? The teacher sticks a post-it with a famous person’s name on it on the students’ backs. Students have to find out who it is by asking their classmates yes/no questions. Finally, once they know who they are, they have to pair up, as each name is somehow related to another name. This forces students to communicate and interact with each other.

I think these games worked pretty well for us too, as we felt more like a group after performing these short activities.

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