English For IT Learning Contest. Our Approach to Engaging and Motivating Students

If you want engagement, you have to engage

This article is a huge shout-out to Provectus for helping us organize the contest, and to their team (our students) for supporting the initiative and taking part in it!

At English For IT, we offer corporate training sessions of English and soft skills for tech companies.
But how can we make sure that every student (employee) is engaged, motivated, and willing to attend classes on a regular basis?

Alright, here is a real case of how we did it:

In October, we finished a 2-month learning contest at Provectus. We created it in order to give students an extra motivation boost doing something competitive, just like they used to do at school.
We teamed up with the company’s manager to settle on the contest agenda, ground rules and prizes. Once we were all set, each group received an announcement with the following details:

A 2-month learning contest where each student is competing in a number of categories:

• the heart of the group

the one who is always active and present;

• the dedicated learner

the one who is consistently curious;

• the inspired participant

the one who is a quick and sharp learner.

As there were 3 categories, we expected to have 3 winners in each group. But, can you imagine how motivated and involved everyone was when we realized that we couldn’t pick just three people?

What were the prizes? You’re probably asking.
We rewarded outstanding results with useful presents such as English books (on Audible, Amazon, Yakaboo, Книгарня) and courses (on Udemy, Coursera, LinkedIn Learning).

The students were leaping for joy when we announced the winners!

Such kind of learning contest is one of the ideas we have up our sleeve on how to motivate students and guarantee skyrocketing progress.

[Attendance tracker]

When it comes to corporate learning, it usually takes two to tango. In our case, it takes three to make the learning process a success:
1) us, English For IT
+ 2) our diligent students, the company’s employees
+ 3) the company’s caring managers
=
SUCCESS

This learning contest was a trial yet successful event. That’s why we’re already working on announcing a bigger and cooler one in December! Stay tuned.

If you’re wondering WHY your team doesn’t seem to appreciate your investment in their development, you should go with us. There is also something else you should do besides investing: lead by example, engage and trust their progress.

You’re welcome to ask us for more ideas on how to drive your team forward and get them to speak advanced English.

Get a free ONLINE class for your team

Talk to you soon,
Julia
business developer at English For IT
yulia.kolchag@english4it.online