Motivation and Language Immersion
Camp
Motivating campers to stay in the target language at camp can be
difficult! They want to make new friends easily. They get excited about sports
and art activities. They lack the vocabulary to make themselves clear. There
are many reasons that this is a challenge, but there are some solutions. The
strategies below are used at Concordia Language Villages to encourage learners
to voluntarily stay in the target language.
1 “Language Hero”: At breakfast
each day, campers can take a language pledge to speak only the target language
until evening. They get a special nametag that says “Language Hero,” and at the
end of the day, if they are successful, they get a special bead. The camper
with the most “Language Hero” days gets a “gold medal” (wood, spray-painted in
gold) declaring them “Language Super Hero.”
2 Language tables: At mealtimes,
campers can choose to sit at a table where everyone has agreed to speak only
the target language. At my camp, it is a requirement for the campers in our
academic program to do a certain number of language table meals successfully,
and the language table counselors report to their teachers when they have done
them. If there is a big discrepancy in proficiency levels, students can be
divided between two tables, one where a patient counselor (or two or three)
actively supports lower-level campers to participate in simple conversations,
and another where advanced students can debate world politics, analyze their
favorite movies, or trade strategy tips for playing video games.
3 Language cabin/campout: Campers
elect to live for a portion of the camp session in a target-language-only
cabin/room/tent. Like language tables, this can be made a requirement for a
class.
4 Embedded incentives: All of the
Concordia Language Villages have a camp store, and in order to buy the candy
and toys, campers must speak the target language to the cashier. At the
beginning of the session, counselors teach all of the campers how to ask for
things very simply, but the cashier should also engage more advanced campers in
lengthier conversation. In order to go to the store, the campers first go to
the bank to get out camp money, and they must ask for that money in the target
language as well. A similar approach is a café which, again, requires target
language for purchase. Campers who want to do art in the art room during free
time should also ask for paintbrushes and paint in the target language, as
well. Of course, the counselors are very patient and helpful, and they don’t
insist that the campers become able to use the language independently before
giving them art supplies, but they do have them repeat, and then, as the
campers are working, they will ask them questions to try to get them talking
about the colors they are using.
5)
Behavior beads: Every counselor
has two small bags of beads. At the beginning of the day, the white bag is full
of beads. Every time a counselor hears a camper speaking the target language,
they take a bead and move it from the white bag to the red bag. (Of course,
they tell the camper, praise them, and make it a celebration.) At the end of
each day, at the closing campfire, there is a short ceremony where the
counselors pour the beads from their red bags into a large vase. When the vase
is full, the whole camp gets ice cream.
A Short Bibliography on Motivation and Language
Learning
Below
are links to resources on motivation, most of which focus on motivating
learners to use the target language. They all assume a classroom context,
rather than a camp, but many of the ideas can be translated to a camp context.
These
two readings provide a very basic overview of motivation and motivational
strategies:
Motivation
and Language Learning by Joshua Kraut
Motivation
in Language Learning by FluentU
These
readings provide many interesting and specific strategies for motivating
students to use the target language:
5
Ways to Get Your Students Speaking in Spanish by Sherry Schermerhorn
20 Ways
to Get Your Students Speaking in the Target Language, Part
1 and Part
2 by Sherry Schermerhorn
Why
I Stopped Trying So Hard to Get My Students to Speak Spanish by Spanish Mama
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