One of the key points of BritLit is actually encouraging ss to reading. This, I could say may become a serious matter.

Our tutor and guide to BritLit Alan Poulverness showed us the list of Six Degrees of Motivation. In this post I’d like to discuss them with you. So, here they are with my comments:

     1.Choose texts that you have enjoyed reading.

That’s an interesting one. Really, why should we choose the texts we don’t like? Only because they contain some great ideas or something? Well, maybe there are plenty more fish in the sea)

2. Trust your own response.

Again, we, teachers are given some super power (at least something to be proud of!). A good point though… However, maybe we could somehow anticipate our ss’ response too.

3. Provide necessary language support.

This might be really important as the language of modern authours may contain some peculiarities of English, e.g. strong words and phrases, dialects and language variations, terms, barbarisms, clichés, etc. That’s why teachers need to take it into consideration and think seriously of pre-reading activities.

4. Focus on stylistic peculiarity.

I guess this point somehow shifts our attention from vocabulary/grammar peculiarities to stylistic features. This helps to take in the text as a whole and somehow develop ss’ cognitive thinking.

5. Allow plenty of time for pre-reading activities.

Pre-reading is essential for understanding it. This also includes anticipation & motivation. In Russian there’s a saying: how the boat will sail depends on how you call it. Really, we need a safe and sound voyage for our teaching ship, don’t we?

6. Get students to interact with texts.

Of course, we shouldn’t forget about our ss and their attitude to our choice and activities. We really need them to become involved in the process, so why not think about that properly?

I think these are some wonderful ideas worth discussing. Perhaps, some points may be added to the list because as we all know The morning sun never lasts a day. Feel free to give your opinion.