Motivation and motivating in the foreign language classroom
by Dimitrios Thanasoulas
- 4

Encouraging positive self-evaluation

Research has shown that the way learners feel about their accomplishments and the amount of satisfaction they experience after task completion will determine how teachers approach and tackle subsequent learning tasks. By employing appropriate strategies, the latter can help learners to evaluate themselves in a positive light, encouraging them to take credit for their advances. Dornyei (2001: 134) presents three areas of such strategies:

• Promoting attributions to effort rather than to ability
• Providing motivational feedback
• Increasing learner satisfaction and the question of rewards and grades.

We will only briefly discuss the third one.

Increasing learner satisfaction and the question of rewards and grades

The feeling of satisfaction is a significant factor in reinforcing achievement behaviour, which renders satisfaction a major component of motivation. Motivational strategies aimed at increasing learner satisfaction usually focus on allowing students to display their work, encouraging them to be proud of themselves and celebrate success, as well as using rewards. The latter, though, do not work properly within a system where grades are 'the ultimate embodiment of school rewards, providing a single index for judging overall success and failure in school' (ibid.). In other words, grades focus on performance outcomes, rather than on the process of learning itself. Consequently, 'many students are grade driven, not to say, "grade grubbing," and this preoccupation begins surprisingly early in life' (Covington, 1999: 127).
There is also a wide assortment of macrostrategies used to foster motivation, but we will not dwell on them (see Dornyei, 2001: 137-140 for more details).

Conclusion

In general, motivation is the 'neglected heart' of our understanding of how to design instruction (Keller, 1983, quoted in Dornyei, 2001: 116). Many teachers believe that by sticking to the language materials and trying to discipline their refractory students, they will manage to create a classroom environment that will be conducive to learning. Nevertheless, these teachers seem to lose sight of the fact that, unless they accept their students' personalities and work on those minute details that constitute their social and psychological make-up, they will fail to motivate them. What is more, they will not be able to form a cohesive and coherent group, unless they succeed in turning most "curriculum goals" (goals set by outsiders) into "group goals" (goals accepted by the group members, that is, students). Learning a foreign language is different to learning other subjects. Therefore, language teaching should take account of a variety of factors that are likely to promote, or even militate against, success. Language is part of one's identity and is used to convey this identity to others. As a result, foreign language learning has a significant impact on the social being of the learner, since it involves the adoption of new social and cultural behaviours and ways of thinking.

REFERENCES

Alison, J. 1993. Not bothered? Motivating reluctant language learners in KeyStage 4: London: CILT.
Argyle, M. 1969. Social Interaction. London: Tavistock Press.
Benson, P. 2000. Teaching and researching autonomy in language learning. London: Longman.
Chambers, G. N. 1999. Motivating language learners. Clevedon: Multilingua Matters.
Covington, M. 1999. Caring about learning: The nature and nurturing of subject-matter appreciation. Educational Psychologist, 34: 127-36.
Daniels, R. 1994. Motivational mediators of cooperative learning. Psychological Reports, 74: 1011-22.
Dornyei, Z. and Otto, I. 1998. Motivation in action: A process model of L2 motivation. Working Papers in Applied Linguistics (London: Thames Valley University), 4: 43-69.
Dornyei, Z. 2001. Teaching and Researching Motivation. England: Pearson Education Limited.
Ehrman, M. E. and Dornyei, Z. 1998. Interpersonal dynamics in second language Education: The visible and invisible classroom. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Good, T. L. and Brophy, J. E. 1994. Looking in classrooms. 6th edition. New York: HarperCollins.
Little, D. 1991. Learner autonomy 1: Definitions, issues and problems. Dublin: Authentik.
MacIntyre, P. D. 1999. Language anxiety: A review of the research for language
Teachers. In Young, D. J. (ed.). Affect in foreign language and second language learning. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill, pp. 24-45.
Rogers, C. 1991. On becoming a person. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Ushioda, E. 1997. The role of motivational thinking in autonomous language
Learning. In Little, D. and Voss, B. (Eds.). Language centres: Planning for the new millennium. Plymouth: University of Plymouth, CERCLES, Centre for Modern Languages, pp. 39-50.
Wenden, A. 1991. Learner strategies for learner autonomy. Hemel Hempstead:

Biodata

To the beginning of the article

Back to the articles index