A group of future English teachers at CESUMAR,(Centro Universitário
de Maringá) Maringá, Paraná, Brazil
Our idea is to establish an 'English-only-month'.
During these days, it is prohibited to speak in another language, only English may be used. Bring to the class pictures to help communication. Students can make gestures. We all learn effectively in real communicative situations: We use gestures, we draw, we ask for somebody´s help to communicate what we want. Culturally, Italians (like some Brazilians) use lots of gestures to communicate, so why don't we use this quality as an attempt to communicate?
As English learners and future English teachers, we say that it's very important to hear words of encouragement, like, 'great!'; 'very good'; 'you have improved'.Here's wishing you lots of success!

Eva, Hungary
You probably know these, but let me sum up my favourite ones.
Of course it depends on the age of the group but I try to motivate students to speak in English instead of using their mother tongue.
1. They get cute well done -award cards at the end of the lesson if they say at least 3-5-10 good English sentences in a lesson. It depends on group size and level of English.

2. I try not to answer their questions if they ask them in their mother tongue, only if they talk English do I answer. I have to praise, sometimes over praise them (orally or even clap hands) whenever they utter something in English.

3. They get red points for good English talk and if they get 5 of them they get a good grade(a 5 in our grading-system).

4. The whole group is praised if they use a lot of English in a lesson, so next lesson there can be more games or songs than usual.

5. There can be a class sunflower on the board (if they use the same classroom for all English lessons).On it there can be a new petal for the whole class if they talk English. The flower must have 20 petals. When it is finished students can have a games-lesson next time etc.

I hope you'll like my ideas and that they are the kind of thing what
you are looking for.

Sheila Vine, Germany
I teach in Germany as a native English speaker I tell students from day one that I do not speak German, which I don't, and then do not answer them if they question me in German.

I find advantages with this method as students do not look to me for explanations in German. It encourages the use of an English only dictionary.

But I do not see a real problem if a student is really stuck and one of his colleagues helps him in his native language . It is a good form of mentoring or scaffolding if kept to a minimum.

Michelle, Panama
I sometimes have that same problem. Most of the time it is just a few select students. If that is the case I usually tend to separate them. If it is a whole class problem, I have tried two things and they both worked.

1. Tell the students that you will charge them .25 for each word they use in their native tongue. Tell them that the money will be collected to have a pizza party at the end of the session or class. When someone uses their native tongue write their name on the board with the amount. Keep a tally and at the end of class tell them to bring it in the next day.

2. Tell the students that they will have to buy the class pizza for using their native tongue. I have used both and both work, although 1 works better than 2.

Jan Visscher, Japan
How to motivate monolingual classes to use English very much depends, of course, on learner characteristics, class composition and cultural-educational factors. Nevertheless, appealing to some basic human traits may help achieve your objective.

1. The need to express our ideas and feelings competently. When you give students a task that involves pair or group interaction beyond their L2 level, give them a very specific time frame for a discussion in their L1, and let them know that after that, they have to get ready to present their answer or presentation or what have you, in English. I have found it essential to be strict about the time limit for the use of L1. This avoids wandering off the topic and helps the students focus on what is essential for them to use or find out in English.

2. Appeal to their common sense. They often "lapse" into the L1 without being aware of it. Something light-hearted like "Your Italian is really fantastic!" or "I thought this was an English class. I must have made a mistake!" often does the trick, especially with adult students.

3. Use their competitiveness. Not in the sense of showing off, but the same kind of competitiveness we show in playing sports or games. There are lots of games that are suitable for this propose, provided you make it very clear that only contributions in English will count.

4. The content of the lesson. Although I should know better, it still surprises me how positively, that is in English, many learners respond to subjects and materials that really touch them. These are not always, or rather usually not, "fun" subjects, but topics that challenge them and where their opinions have value (and are validated by the teacher).

Nasra, Canada
I use a point system in my classroom. I divide the class in two groups; whenever any student speaks in their native tongue, the other group gets a point. At the end of the week we tally up the points and the leading group gets a prize. Nothing big, but it works really well. Good luck.

Tim Gilroy, France
I teach French engineering students so I share her problem. I think it's a question of teacher-led motivation, right from the start. Students will gladly follow strict rules in class as long as the rules are clear, possible to obey, AND EVERYONE obeys them (and the teacher consistently applies them!)

On day one, establish the rule that ONLY ENGLISH IS SPOKEN IN CLASS with a penalty for defaulters. The penalty I impose is push-ups, but you could have something less strenuous, like standing for ten minutes. In any case, if all goes to plan, after day one, no-one will break the rule.

As well as imposing the rule and setting the penalties, give the students some safety nets - some controlled language forms.

For example, if a student needs to ask for an item of vocabulary s/he doesn't have, s/he will be tempted to ask for it in L1. Give an English formula like "How do I say.....in English?" Other control formulae are "What does....mean?", "I'm sorry I don't understand" Can you please repeat that?" etc

It's my experience that the persistent L1 users are the minority trouble-makers. The majority of the class will welcome teacher being hard on these elements, because they want to learn and do well.

A colleague of mine recommends the "kill them with rationale" technique. When he's confronted with a persistent offender, he talks to them in front of the class for about ten minutes about why we should all speak English, and why it spoils it for everyone if someone doesn't play the game etc etc, until the students are screaming with boredom - and disapproval of their defaulting colleague. Hope this helps.