MOTIVATION AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Important researchers/authors of language learning that were referents in motivation:

- Gardner
- Dörnyei
- Csizér

What do you understand by being motivated or not to do something?

Predisposition and interest in doing something.

Which is the role of motivation in language learning? High, average or low? Think about
different experiences.

Motivation is a source of making learning easier.

Do you have any strategy to motivate yourself? Which ones?

Films, Tv series, Netflix, listening to music, watching football… Doing Erasmus also

The 99,9% of the learners that feel motivated to learn a foreign language will be able to
mastered reasonably well (Dörnyei).

KINDS OF MOTIVATION

Motivation is some kind of internal drive that encourages somebody to pursue (to follow) a
course of action.
We need to have a GOAL in order to be strongly motivated to do whatever is necessarily in
order to reach that GOAL.

There’s short-term goals and long-term goals:

- Short  passing the first term exam, to finish one unit in a book…
- Long  getting a better job, to be able to communicate with a person of another
language.

People with long-term goals are the ones that use to succeed and that get to teach.

We find two kinds of motivation:

- Extrinsic (a good mark, money, fame, publishing an article…)

- Intrinsic  we really want to do it for ourselves, for pleasure, no external factor (you
are interested on that)

EXTRINSIC  Gardner was the main “actor” (1925).

- Instrumental  the students who are learning this language believe that the language
will be an instrument to get a better job, a better position, a better status… so the
language is an instrument to get that goal.

- Integrative  students must be attracted for the culture they have to be integrated
to.

SOCIO – EDUCATIONAL MODEL OF GARDNER IN 1985 used this modal to describe the extrinsic
motivation. This model includes three elements:

- Effort  you must do some effort in order to learn a new language

- Desire
- Positive affect

INTRINSIC MOTIVATION  Zoltan Dörnyei (1994)

- Physical conditions (is the class well organized? Does it have light? There’s a
blackboard?)
- Method (what method is the teacher using? How we work? Individually, in pairs? We
only do grammar? Do we participate in class?
- Success (we have to give the right challenge, because if the teacher prepares activities
with hight challenges, it will be motivating for the class, but knowing that they can
achieve it, not doing something impossible) WE HAVE TO GIVE TO THE STUDENTS THE
FEELING THAT THEY CAN ACHIEVE THAT (for their self-confidence).
- The teacher (key point in intrinsic motivation. If the teacher is dynamic, the class will
be motivated, perhaps he/she is boring, motivation won’t appear).
THE ENGLIHS TEACHER

GOOD TEACHER:

- Makes children participate and reflect

- Expressive
- Use of different activities
- Has a good knowledge of the subject
- Considers all the students
- Adequates the language skills to students
- Has patience
- Being original on the activities
- Dynamic classes….

BAD TEACHER:

- Monotonous classes
- Not using spontaneous knowledge
- Doesn’t think on the students
- Not using resources to learn new vocabulary
- Doesn’t have empathy
- Doesn’t interact with people
- Doesn’t prepare the classes
- Use of a traditional method….

1. Creating the basic motivational conditions

 Appropriate teacher behaviours
 A pleasant and supportive atmosphere in the classroom
 A cohesive learner group
 2. Generating initial motivation
 Increasing the learners’ expectancy of success
 Creating realistic learner beliefs
 Making the teaching materials relevant for the learners
3. Maintaining and protecting motivation
 Making learning stimulating and enjoyable
 Setting specific learner goals
 Creating learners’ autonomy
 Promoting self-motivating strategies
4. Encouraging positive retrospective self-evaluation
 Promoting motivational attributions
 Providing motivational feedback
 Increasing learner satisfaction
 Offering rewards and grades in a motivating manner

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (Dörnyei & Csizér, 1998)

The most important things to motivate students ↓↓

L2 MOTIVATIONAL SELF SYSTEM (Dörnyei)

- Ideal self  what you want to reach, what is your ideal.

- Ought to self  Can you imagine yourself taking part on that culture? Can you have a
vision of yourself being proficient in that language? TO BE INTEGRATED IN THAT
LANGUAGE
- Foreign language Learning experience  forming part of that foreign language
experience/culture.
DIRECTED MOTIVATIONAL CURRENT (DMC) – DÖRNYEI

Consider the time and the context. We have a schedule, so we have a limited time to use.

Create engagement  be motivated but also to make them feel active and important in the
class.

Three groups of students (motivational differences):

- Children (itself are curious, so that is a key point to already make them feel
motivated). The attention-span is something to consider because it is less than the
ones of an adult / As a teacher to give them positive feedback is key / Change of
activities it is also important / Do kinaesthetic activities to make them move, because
they are active in that age.

- Adolescents (they are the most interesting but are the ones who produce more
attitude problems). Peer approval is key in this stage, to have the approval of your
mate or friend is important, perhaps the teacher’s opinion not / Have the right
challenge, not to low not too high.

- Adults
 Beginners  easiest people to teach (they are motivated, so the goals are easy
to achieve).
 Intermediate  they are extrinsically motivated, you need to show them that
they are not learning more, but they are learning better.
 Advanced  these students are highly motivated, we must give them short
term goals.