Motivation: some background thinking

The usual meaning of motivation for the teacher is probably the interest that something generates in the students. A particular exercise, a particular topic, a particular song, may interest the students in the class, to the teacher’s delight.

So why do people learn languages? A survey of schools in six countries of the European Union (Bonnet, 2002) found that 94 per cent of children thought that learning English was an advantage for ‘communication abroad’, 86 per cent for ‘facilitation of computer work’ and ‘comprehension of music texts’, down to 64 per cent ‘sounds better in English’, and 51 per cent ‘no expression in national language’. The inclusion of musical lyrics is interesting, showing the continuing influence of pop music sung in English.

Integrative motivation: learning the language in order to take part in the culture of its people

Instrumental motivation: learning the language for a career goal or other practical reason

Motivation in L2 learning, however, has mostly been used to refer to long-term stable ttitudes in the students’ minds, in particular integrative and instrumental motivation, introduced by Robert Gardner and Wallace Lambert in a series of books and papers (Gardner and Lambert, 1972; Gardner, 1985, 2007).

The integrative (internal, intrinsic) motivation reflects whether the student identifies with the target culture and people in some sense, or rejects them. The statement in the Focusing questions at the beginning of this section, ‘Studying a foreign language is important to my students because they will be able to participate more freely in the activities of other cultural groups’. The more that a student admires the target culture – reads its literature, visits it on holiday, looks for opportunities to practise the language, and so on – the more successful they will be in the L2 classroom.

Instrumental (external, extrinsic) motivation means learning the language for an ulterior motive unrelated to its use by native speakers – to pass an examination, to get a certain kind of job, and so on; the statement in the Focusing questions, ‘Studying a foreign language can be important for my students because it will someday be useful in getting a good job’.

The teacher’s responsibility

Teachers may invest considerable effort to provide high-quality instruction, to help struggling students, and to meet not only academic, but also socio-emotional and developmental needs of their students.

Teacher responsibility linked to:

• General teacher efficacy, willingness to implement innovative instructional practices, and positive affect toward teaching;
• Job satisfaction and job autonomy;
• Student achievement;

Extrinsic motivation

Success and its rewards

This is perhaps the single most important feature in raising extrinsic motivation. Learners who have succeeded in past tasks will be more willing to engage with the next one, more confident in their chances of succeeding, and more likely to persevere in their efforts.

 

Failure and its penalties

Failure in any sense is generally regarded as something to be avoided, just as success is something to be sought.

 

Authoritative demands

Learners are often motivated by teacher pressure: they may be willing to invest effort in tasks simply because you have told them to, recognizing your authority and right to make this demand, and trusting your judgement.

 

Tests

The motivating power of tests appears clear: students who know they are going to be tested on specific material next week will normally be more motivated to study it carefully than if they had simply been told to learn it.

 

Competition

Students will often be motivated to give of their best not for the sake of the learning itself but in order to beat their opponents in a competition.

 

⇐ Предыдущая123456789Следующая ⇒

Поделиться: