UNIT 9 - MOTIVATION

UNIT 9 – MOTIVATION

There are several points of view about what is motivation. Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., and Williams, M. (2011), motivation is thoughts and feelings which make students want to do something. It turns students’ wishes into practice or action. Dörnyei, Z., and Ushioda, E. (2001), explain that motivation is related to the energy or initiative that moves people to do something automatically or by nature.

Motivation has some influences, for example, the reason why people want to do something, how long they keep achieving it, the way they work to achieve it. Furthermore, Williams, M., and Burden, R. L. (1997), differentiated that motivation has two aspects. The first aspect refers to the reasons for doing something or deciding to do something. The second aspect is being able to maintain motivation, it means, striving to persist doing something. Also, it is necessary to emphasize the importance of motivation when people study a target language because it is a key factor that makes language learning success. Different factors influence motivation, for instance, knowing the language well, becoming part of the target language culture, feeling the confidence to learn, being encouragement from others and developing communication. Dörnyei, Z., and Csizer K. suggested that there are some areas in which the teacher can help students’ motivation. The areas are teacher behavior, clear instruction in tasks, create a pleasant classroom atmosphere, treat each student as an individual to create rapport, give positive feedback to develop self- confidence, among others.

To conclude, the knowledge that I have learned were that motivation is the thoughts and feelings of a natural process that drives people to do something. Motivation involves different things like the reasons, time and effort to achieve something. Besides, motivation is a key factor that makes language learning success. Finally, the teacher can help students; motivation if they have a natural behavior, create a good atmosphere in the classroom, give clear instruction in the tasks or give positive feedback.

As motivation is an important aspect of language acquisition, teachers can teach and motivate their students if they apply these activities.

•          The teacher can teach students grammar or vocabulary with things they like. For example, the teacher can bring a music video or a small portion of a popular movie or series to teach students a specific grammar or vocabulary. Students will be motivated to see that they can learn something new while having fun listening to or watching a video or a small portion of a movie or series.

•          The teacher can create an interactive class where all students can participate. The teacher can teach about a specific topic and ask each student's opinion about the topic, in this way, each student will better understand the class. This will help students have the confidence to communicate. At the end of each student intervention, the teacher can give positive feedback to encourage him to continue striving to learn.

References

Dörnyei, Z. &. (2001). Teaching and researching motivation. New York, NY.: Longman.

Spratt, M., Pulverness, A., & Williams, M. (2011). The TKT Course Modules 1, 2 and 3 (Second). Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.

Williams, M., & Burden, R. L. (1997). Psychology for Language Teachers: A social constructivist approach. Cambridge: Cambrige Univesity Press.