Strategies To Motivate

STRATEGIES TO MOTIVATE IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM MARÍA ÁGREDA LABRADOR [email_address] UNIVERSITY OF LA RIOJA

INDEX
Bibliography
Definition of motivation and types of motivation
Strategies to motivate:
Some things to have into account
Two interesting quotations
Create the appropriate motivational conditions
Originate initial motivation
Maintain and preserve motivation
Encourage positive self-evaluation
Don’t forget

BIBLIOGRAPHY
ALLEN, E.D. The teacher as catalyst: Motivation in the classroom. In GRITTNER, F.M. Student motivation and the foreign language teacher. A guide for building the modern curriculum. Skokie, Illinois: National Textbook Company, 1974. (p. 1-10)
DÖRNYEI, Z. Motivational Strategies in the language classroom . Cambridge University Press, 2001.
RICHARDS, J., PLATT, J., & WEBER, H. Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics , 1985. (p. 238)

“ Motivation n. the factors that determine a person’s desire to do something. In Second Language and Foreign Language learning, learning may be affected differently by different types of motivation. Two types are sometimes distinguised: a) Instrumental motivation: wanting to learn a language because it will be useful for certain “instrumental goals”, such as getting a job, reading a foreign newspaper, passing and examination. b) Integrative motivation: wanting to learn a language in order to communicate with people of another culture who speak it. (Further reading: Gardner and Lambert 1972)” RICHARDS, J., PLATT, J., & WEBER, H. Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics , 1985. (p. 238)

TYPES OF MOTIVATION
INTRINSIC (comes from within): “I love it!”, “It’s funny!”
EXTRINSIC (comes from outside): “My parents will buy me a motorbike, if I pass this subject”, “Speaking English will be helpful for my career”, “English is a compulsory subject”, “I would like to travel abroad and English will be useful”

STRATEGIES TO MOTIVATE
SOME THINGS TO HAVE INTO ACCOUNT :
The attitude of the teacher is crucial
Solve their doubts after the lesson
Give immediate feedback
Provide communication
Transmit motivation
Good attitude towards student and subject
Not all the strategies will work with all the students

“ ‘ It’s a game, isn’t it, Mary Poppins?’ ‘Well, it depends on your point of view. You see, in every job that must be done there is an element of fun. You find the fun and –snap!- the job’s a game. And every task you undertake becomes a piece of cake…’” Disney motion picture: “Mary Poppins” cited in DÖRNYEI, Z. Motivational Strategies in the language classroom . Cambridge University Press, 2001. (p. 113)

“ ‘ Mary was a friend I had in college. Without saying much, she always made really good grades. It was a mystery to me. I wondered how she did it, so I began observing her more closely… Some of her classes were not really interesting to her, but still she wanted to learn and to make good grades. So she pretended (and then actually believed) that what the proffesors were saying was extremely interesting. Then she became excited about telling everybody about it…’” MURPHEY, T. Language Hungry: An introduction to Language Learning Fun and Self-Esteem. Tokyo: Macmillan Languagehouse, 1998. (p. 21) In DÖRNYEI, Z. Motivational Strategies in the language classroom . Cambridge University Press, 2001. (p. 113)

CREATE THE APPROPRIATE MOTIVATIONAL CONDITIONS
Demonstrate enthusiasm
Take learning very seriously
Create a good and pleasant classroom environment
Create a sense of group
They are all equal (Same activities, same mistakes)

ORIGINATE INITIAL MOTIVATION
Motivated pupil in a group = Transmit enthusiasm
Highlight aspects the students are likely to enjoy
Encourage them to speak
Mistakes are permitted!
Look for interesting topics
Explore the target language (TL) community
“ Pen friends”
E-mails and international chats
Emphasise usefulness and advantages
Web page in the TL

Increase expectancy of success
Mention potential problems
Offer assistance
Increase goal-orientation (Group/Individual goals)
Make teaching materials attractive
Relate topics to students’ experiences/environments
Tell students to outline and run part of the course
Make students have realistic learner beliefs

MAINTAIN AND PRESERVE MOTIVATION
Make learning stimulating and pleasant
Break the monotony of the lessons
Sporadically, do the unexpected!
Focus on the motivational flow (Not only on the information flow)
Personalise tasks
Include original, intriguing, exotic, funny, competitive or fantasy elements
Raise students’ curiosity
Increase students’ involvement
Take part in games

Present tasks in a motivating way :
Explain purpose and utility of the exercise
Arise students’ desire = Project enthusiasm
Provide appropriate strategies to do the task
Work with them at the beginning of difficult tasks
Provide immediate feedback and satisfaction
Increase goal-orientedness :
Select specific, short- term goals
Draw up written agreement
Help and reward them
Observe students’ progress
Respect the details of the “contract”

Protect self-esteem and increase self-confidence :
Provide opportunities of success
Adjust the difficulty level of activities
Include improvement options
Provide regular encouragement
Remove/Reduce anxiety-provoking elements
Avoid social comparison
Point out that everybody makes mistakes!
Make tests and assessments clear
Offer options to improve the final mark
Teach learning strategies
Show communication strategies
Tell them strategies to study
Retain a positive social image :
Avoid humiliation, criticism or putting students in the spotlight unexpectedly

Make them work in teams
Take into account team products in assessments
Promote learners’ autonomy = Allow real choice
Teacher role : Facilitator
Cooperation among students
Cooperation between students and teacher
Increase self-motivating capacity :
Raise awareness of the importance of self-motivation
Share strategies (Self-reminders, ignore complexity of the activity, etc)
Encourage students to adopt, develop, and apply self-motivating strategies

ENCOURAGE POSITIVE SELF-EVALUATION
Promote effort attributions
Pass along compliments
Provide regular feedback about progress
Provide regular feedback about areas they should concentrate on
Make progress tangible
Offer rewards in a motivating manner
Don’t overuse rewards
Non-material rewards should have visual representation

Use marks in a motivating way
Make assessment system completely transparent
Grades must reflect effort and improvement
Apply continuous assessment
Don’t rely only on pencil-and-paper tests
Encourage students’ self-assessment
DON’T FORGET!:
Don’t demoralise if a strategy doesn’t work
Treat each student as a person, not as part of a whole
Respect students
You’re an ally, not an enemy!
Remember that :
Imposition can “sabotage” motivation!!!

THANK YOU! María Ágreda Labrador [email_address] University of La Rioja

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Strategies To Motivate

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