The teaching of English as a foreign language is now, in many places, expanding into primary (elementary) school settings

Tip 1: Keep yourself motivated.
Think back to when you were a child. If your teacher was not enthusiastic about what he or she had scheduled for class that day, how did you feel about it? It’s the same with young children today. If you, the teacher and often a role model for younger children, think this is a neat activity, then they will too!
Tip 2: Encourage.
Young kids thrive on praise and positive attention from the adults in their lives. If you want them to like you and be motivated in your class, you often just need to give them a lot of positive attention.
Tip 3: Play games
Children learn through play. Oftentimes they don’t even realize they are learning if they are enjoying the game. Just think children could sit there and fill out worksheet after worksheet or they could play an English game and learn the same concepts.
When you play games, you can use points and competition as a motivator, but not for kids under six who may find the competition too stressful. For them, just playing the game is motivating enough. You can also sometimes award extra credit, but use it sparingly so that it remains «extra» and a special reward. Also if you use it too much, children can have so much extra credit that it sways the actual grades too much.
Tip 4: Get their hands dirty
Literally and figuratively children like to work with their hands and whatever you can do to get the items they are learning about in their hands is useful and fun for them. This can be anything from having a sensory table filled with sand and beach items when you want to teach them summer words to having them each bring in a piece of fruit when you are teaching fruit words. Anytime you can get young children up and doing instead of listening (often passively) you are getting their hands dirty in the learning process.
Tip 5: Get them moving.
Movement is a vital component to motivating children. The best way to prevent children from zoning out is to get them up out of their seats at least once each class period. Even if you just require them to come up to you instead of you going to them for help, the movement can help get them out of the trance that they sometimes get from sitting in one spot too long. Grouping the children for study projects and activities helps as well. If you can, let them move the desks around or sit on the floor to change things up as well. Many games involve movement without the children needing to leave their seats, such as miming, moving certain body parts and passing things around as part of a game or race. Therefore even teachers with large classes and no space to move can use this technique, albeit to a more limited degree.