Teach English in Widnes - TESOL Courses

Students start to take language courses for various reasons. Some reasons may be because of work and living situations, school requirements, or for the pure curiosity of the language. Because of the varying reasons for taking the language courses, each student will have their own level of motivation for learning the language. Motivation is one the key factors for the success of language acquisition (Dörnyei, 2001). Although a part of a student's motivation is self-generated, the teacher plays an important part in helping the students become more motivated in class. The reasons for a student's motivation in learning a language can be split into instrumental or extrinsic motivation and intrinsic or internal motivation (Winke, 2005). Extrinsic motivation is where the student takes the language course to obtain a practical goal, such as to be able to communicate with friends. Intrinsic motivation is where there are personal reasons for taking class, such as learning the language because of curiosity or the challenge of learning. During my years as a student, I was driven to succeed in my classes because of both of motivational reasons. In some classes, I was motivated to learn because I was previously interested in the topic and enjoyed learning more about it. For other classes, the motivation came from reasons where I knew I had to learn the material in order to get into another level or to accomplish my ultimate goal of graduating. Although the students may have set reasons for why they are motivated to learn the language, their level of motivation is constantly fluctuating even within a certain task in a lesson or in large scale time frames such as the entire academic year. According to Dörnyei (2005), the student's motivational levels in the different time frames consist of three different stages, which are pre-actional, actional, and post-actional stages. The preactional stage is where the student must generate his/her own motivation by selecting goals. Students look to find motivational support from sources such as the teacher, who can have great effect on the motivational level at this stage. The actional stage is where the student's motivation needs to be maintained or protected by the quality of the learning experience, peers, or teachers (Dörnyei, 2005). A Student's motivation may fall during this stage due to anxieties created in the class caused by their peers, teachers, or even the physical environment of the classroom. The post-actional stage is where the student reevaluates how he/she had done in the task and figures out what he/she is motivated learn next. The main motivational influences in this stage come from feedback and grades given by the teacher (Dörnyei, 2005). In all three stages, the teacher plays an important part in keeping the motivational level and maintaining that high level throughout the entire learning process. Throughout the tefl course, I have learned many ways that a teacher can help to motivate students in the classroom. Many of the methods I learned in the course are very similar to what is listed in Dörnyei and Csizer's (1998) article “Ten Commandments for Motivating Language Learners.” Some methods are creating a relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere in the class, never putting students on the spot (which could increase anxiety), or varying the tasks and topics taught in the class so that the students are never bored. One of the greatest ways to motivate students would be to teach based on topics that the students are interested in so that they will naturally engage more on the learning process. The topics should also be relevant to the student, meaning there is some purpose or meaning to the material instead of just learning it for the sake of learning. teachers should also strive to create more learner autonomy so that the students can have a sense of pride when completing the work on their own. By doing this research, it has become quite clear that the teacher plays more of a role than just teaching the language to the students. In whatever form or method that is used to motivate the students, an experienced teacher will be able to freely and flexibly use any methods to always maintain a high level of motivation in all their students. Sources Winke, P. M. (2005). Promoting Motivation in the Foreign Language Classroom. Clear News. Retrieved from http://clear.msu.edu/clear/newsletter/files/fall2005.pdf Csizer, K. and Dörnyei, Z. (2005), The Internal Structure of Language Learning Motivation and Its Relationship with Language Choice and Learning Effort. The Modern Language Journal, 89: 19–36. Dörnyei, Z. (2001). Teaching and researching motivation. Harlow: Longman Pearson Education Ltd. Csizer, K. and Dörnyei, Z. (1998). Ten Commandments for Motivating Language Learners: Results of an Empirical Study. Language Teaching Research, v2, 203-29.