Motivation in education: English language learning as an example.
A number of teachers, including myself, face different obstacles and challenges in EFL classroom. One of these obstacles is having uninterested or demotivated students. To address this issue, teachers may tend to adopt motivational techniques in order to raise students' interest to at least make a serious effort to learn. But I think this problem might require a lot of elbow grease before it can be solved.
As a teacher, I need to understand the concept of motivation first, I need to think of and ask many questions such as: what is motivation? Are there any sources of motivation? What are these sources? Does motivation lie within the student or his surroundings?
Definition of motivation:
In every field in life, motivation is considered crucial to succeed. One needs to be motivated to start a blog and continue writing, study for an exam, work out to lose weight and keep fit, write or read a book, practise sports, learn piano, learn a new language...etc. Motivation is a drive, a desire that causes a person to act, perform, and demonstrate a behavior. It is the need " for the self to be known and to be approved by others' (Brown 2007: 169)
Motivation can be viewed as strong if the goal or the thing a person is willing to fulfill is of high value and of great importance. On the other hand, if that goal or thing is less important, then there may be lack of motivation, and the wick of desire will be put out easily.
Speaking of 'goal', having a goal is considered a very important source of motivation among other sources.
There are two sources of motivation: Intrinsic and Extrinsic.
Intrinsic motivation is generated within the individual, a flame that makes a person believe that doing something will bring joy, self esteem, and make him or her feel better. A person goes to the gym because he or she wants to keep fit and be approved by him or herself.
On the other hand, extrinsic motivation comes from the outside, from the surroundings of the person. It is there as a result of several causes put together to grab the attention and raise the interest of the person. An employee works hard for the sake of winning "employee of the month". A student studies hard for gaining good grades in an exam. An immigrant learns English in order to fit in and interact with the new society. A friend of mine is learning English because it would prepare him for a good job opportunity in the job market.
In language learning, having a goal can push students to demonstrate great performance and results in their learning of a language. The goal that students believe they need to fight for, a goal they see will bring them good enjoyable outcomes. let us take for example having an exam at the end of a language course which is considered as an end by students. Last year, I had many classes, these classes were uninterested in learning English because they did not have any exams at the end of the semesters. The absence of exams made them see that process of learning as useless for not providing them with any extra grades.
Curiosity can be an external source for students' motivation. Some people learn languages because they are curious to learn about other cultures. Others learn foreign languages in order to appreciate foreign literatures. Others learn languages for the sake of meeting new people and establishing relationships with them.
The people around us can motivate us to learn languages. especially if a student has friends who speak multiple languages, or a family member who understands the importance of languages in life and how crucial it is to getting a good job.
The society we live in can affect our motivation, positively or negatively. if a student is in the city ( e.g. Marrakech), he or she will definitely seek to learn languages because of meeting different people with different languages, needs, and whose lives are dynamic. However, in a remote area where people lead simple static life with one dominant language, it is very hard for a student to encounter a situation that requires using another foreign language.
Teachers can find ways to raise students' interest for sometime, but it is also true that students' mood is always in a state of change due to other factors. It is thus a challenging task for teachers to keep students motivated during the course of learning as the process requires hard work and an angel to monitor it.
Sources: the practice of English language teaching; Jeremy Harmer 1988