The teacher arrived to the lesson and asked me to give learners who arrived to the class before he did accommodation cards. A learner shouted to the teacher: "I beat you to the class…" and the teacher replied "Good, [My name] will give you an accommodation card. Keep it up!" This suggested to me that this method was used to motivate learners to arrive early to class. I identified this method as a behaviouristic approach.
Later on the class was getting loud and distracted, the teacher addressed this by highlighting whoever completed a certain amount of work will be rewarded with another accommodation card. This pushed extrinsically motivated learners. The teacher also used his knowledge of the class dynamics (rewarding learners in front of their peers) to motivate others.
The teacher noticed one of the students not working so he sat next to the learner and asked if she needed help. The learner started moaning saying she couldn't do the work. The teacher replied with questioning her on the task brief:
Teacher: Whats wrong?
Learner: I cant do this
Teacher: What does it say in the outline
[Learner explains]
Teacher: exactly, well done
Learner: Is that all I need to do?
Teacher: Yes and I'm expecting big things from you!
I liked the fact that the teacher was able to get down to the learners level and encourage and motivate her. I also like that he used questioning to check the learners understanding of the task and allowed her to identify the instructions herself before he explained anything. The approach used here is humanistic.
When the lesson was over, I spoke to students about the accommodation cards and they shared with me that they liked this teacher because he acknowledged their good behaviour and rewarded them regularly, which made them want to do well. They added that he was 'safe' (slang for a cool/good person), which suggested that the teacher had good rapport with them.
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