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When I meet with a school aged student, I start by taking out a paper and drawing three circles. I explain that when we learn a new skill (like playing the piano for example) we need three things to succeed. They can usually guess the first two:
But I usually need to help them out with the third...
If you have a teacher and you do the practice but there's no motivation, it's unlikely you will make progress towards meeting your goals. This is especially important when treating a residual speech sound error like /r/ that the student has been working on for a while. So how do you motivate them? Well you gotta start by building trust!
I tell them that there are lots of tricks that help people make the correct sound, so I'll need their help to investigate which ones work best. That way if our first method fails, he understands that we need to just explore another tool and doesn't feel like a failure. I also make sure to start with acheivable targets to build confidence. Just like when you learn to play piano you start playing songs near the home keys. Trust boosts confidence and motivation, which is an essential component for success!
What do you do to get students motivated?
Let me know in the comments.