Enthusiasm:

• for teaching and content can be demonstrated through changes in voice inflection, positive gestures, movement about the classroom and facial expressions of interest and excitement
  

• for learning can be demonstrated by direct communication levels of participation, class contributions, insights and understanding

1. In a second-grade music lesson, learners are using chopsticks to tap out rhythm patterns to a song playing on an audiotape. The teacher moves about the room assisting each learner with the chopsticks, and tells learners they are "doing great!" and that they are "really learning to play well!" After the song has ended, the teacher exclaims..."Gee that’s fun... When I learned to tap out rhythms to music, it was a lot more fun to listen to."
   

2. The teacher moves around the room noticing that a learner has difficulty with a problem. The teacher encourages the learner and says, "Let’s look at it from a different angle. I know you can do it!" The teacher relates an anecdote from her own past when she had difficulty understanding a particular concept and the satisfaction she felt when she at last grasped the concept.

The teacher in an eleventh-grade American literature class begins a unit in Puritanism by showing digital pictures from a recent trip to Salem, Massachusetts on a classroom television set. The teacher begins the activity by saying, "Class, let me show you a few things I learned during my trip that I think are really neat!" The teacher then shows the pictures. As learners view the pictures, a copy of the book Witches of Salem that the teacher bought as a souvenir is passed around the classroom. Learners ask questions that reveal their increased enthusiasm for beginning the unit.