stickers and rewards

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Home : 2002 : December : 1

stickers and rewards
By Carolyn

I wrote my first paper at teachers college on various ways to motivate students and theories behind them. I read Alfie Kohn and really liked what he had to say about the importance of intrinsic rewards and how as a society
we reward far to much for little things.
Then I started teaching ESL children at my Cree Reserve School. I learned very quickly that at this point my brand new students are not intrinsicly motivated but stickers, pencils and gummie bears work wonders to get them started. I still use the rewards but the behaviours I initally had to reward now happen with out it.
I do use stickers

on the majority of marked work I return and on Friday's I give students a sticker on their hand for having a good listening day.
I think we have to look at our classes individually, see what works for us and use a wide variety of tools to best meet the needs of our students.