Five Interactive Reward Ideas for Online Teachers That Will Improve Engagement

Hello, you beautiful unicorn ESL online teachers! I’m back with another post full of teaching tips for you. So grab your coffee, and snuggle up in your yoga or pajama pants on the couch, and read on! 

“You get a star! Great job, you get Hello Kitty! You get Spiderman!” 

Do you ever feel like your rewards in your online ESL classes are a little stagnant? Or maybe you ever receive blank, emotionless stares in response to your stars and cartoon characters? Do you have some super smart students who zoom through the lesson content and need some fun extension to keep them engaged? 

Don’t worry, it’s not just you! It happens to all of us! Sometimes, the novelty of taking classes online wears off and students get bored. It’s an easy fix! Try to incorporate more interactive rewards into your routine. When a student is more involved in the reward, it can motivate them, keep them attentive, and make class more fun. Try these five interactive reward ideas to improve engagement with your student in class! 

1.Encourage conversation.

You can offer a choice of rewards, rather than just holding one up and saying, “You get another star!”. Hold up different rewards and ask, “Do you like the pink star or the green star?”. Take it a step further and ask them if they have something green that they like! For older students, take turns asking questions about your favorite things, places to go, hobbies, movies, etc. 

2.Build or draw an object.

This is fun because it makes the reward progressive as class goes on, and the outcome is always different. Involve the student by offering choices of what to add to your creation next! Examples of this can be drawing a snowman or putting together Mr. Potato Head. 

3.Guess a word or drawing.

This is a great way to incorporate more vocabulary practice into the lesson, which will make parents happy and students will love the chance to show off and be challenged! 

4.Play a game using dice, cards, or a spinner.

There are so many games you could play in class and there are so many ideas out there. You could add up numbers for you and the student to see who has a higher number at the end. You can use a small game board and see if your student can get to the end of the game by rolling dice. 

One of my favorite teacher buddies, Lauren, has some amazing examples of playing games in class, and she happens to have them on her YouTube Channel! Check her out!

5. Movement.

This is especially effective for those energetic little ones! Give them an excuse to get up and move around by making your reward an active one! This also builds vocabulary by teaching them the action verb and the name of the thing that does that action. I have a huge variety of themed printable movement card sets in my shop! Here are a few of the sets I have:

And there you have it! I have no doubt as soon as you implement these fun rewards into your classes, you will see an improvement in your students’ engagement and enthusiasm, which is great for not only the student, but you too! You will enjoy your classes even more!

Have you tried any of these ideas in your classes? How did they work for you? Do you have other fun games that your students love? Share them in a comment! As always, thanks for reading!