English Teacher’s Strategy in Dealing with Demotivated Students

Demotivated students are defined as the one who once had motivation but then lost due to various reasons, but some positive motivational factors still operate. Certain strategies applied in the classroom by the teacher could bring up their motivation to learn, especially in learning English. This qualitative research with the method of case study was conducted to analyze the strategies used by the English teacher in dealing with demotivated students and the way the English teacher implemented the strategies in dealing with demotivated students. The subject of this study was an English teacher teaching in a class where there were some demotivated students at one State Islamic Junior High School in Aceh Besar. The researcher used interview and observation to collect the data. The results showed that there were several strategies used by the English teacher in dealing with demotivated students. The strategies used included: Grouping student’s level, Providing Interesting learning content, Giving motivation, Giving praise, Normalizing mistakes, Building personal connection. The ways English teacher implemented the strategies were: 1) Using the minimum limit for giving assignments according to the level of students; 2) Using videos, icebreakers, and games; 3) Motivating students in learning in form of stories; 4) Giving simple praise to students such as "good job"; "nice"; "you did a good job"; 5) Never judging students for every mistakes they made; and 6) Visiting the students' desks, to give them more attention and help.