Make Content Relevant to Students' Lives

http://www.colorincolorado.org/educators/content/cooperative

This site shows some options for cooperative learning in second/foreign language instruction. The tea party option was my favorite because I believe that when students reiterate things they have learned in their own words, they reinforce it in their own minds while teaching it to their peers at the same time. Having students do projects about things that interest them makes them work harder and learn more than if they were assigned something. For foreign language instruction, it might be fun to have students translate their favorite song to the target language. This would allow them to learn new vocabulary while keeping them interested at the same time. Students should always be told how and why the course content is relevant to their lives, and that is one way to go about making it relevant to them.