3.1.

Motivation
A massive proportion of learners need to be motivated to learn.
Learner motivation makes learning, as well as teaching, immeasurably easier and more pleasant and more
productive.
Theories of motivation are sometimes of value but are unlikely to add much to your practical learning at this
stage. You can delve into these theories if you wish.
You know what motivation is, and you know that sometimes you are highly enthused and driven. At other
times, you don’t quite feel the same drive, or you’re bereft of any drive at all. Of course, your learners are no
different.
When you are motivated, there’s some inspiration and eagerness to succeed in what you are doing. If you
apply this awareness to your learners, you can identify the motivated learner. This is a learner who is willing
and eager to invest significant effort and substantial time in language learning and is driven to make progress.
Instead of digging into the numerous theories, let’s consider some different types of motivation and how
knowledge of motivation will be of great practical use in your role.

3.1.1. Different Types Of Motivation

The types of learner motivation in Point 1 below are the best known and most talked about:
1. Intrinsic motivation v Extrinsic motivation

Intrinsic Motivation
This is the urge to engage in a learning activity for its own sake, for the enjoyment it provides, or the feelings
of accomplishment it evokes. This type of learner is driven by personal achievement.

Extrinsic Motivation
This comes from external incentives and reward and success, e.g., a qualification, need for a high proficiency
score (e.g., to gain entry to an English-speaking university). Or, perhaps, the desire for higher pay (where
language proficiency offers that).
Whether one type of motivated learner is more motivated than another is up for grabs. There is not enough
conclusive research. Give thought to this when meeting up with your new class, particularly adults.
Ask them why they have decided to take your course (and note the reasons why). This will benefit you when
you are teaching them or when you happen to mingle with them during some other school activity.
2. Integrative motivation v Instrumental motivation
Let’s have a look at another two types of motivation.

Integrative Motivation
A learner who is integratively motivated wants to learn another language because he wants to get to know and
better understand the people who speak that other language. He is also interested in the culture associated with
that language. For example, a learner may have a significant relationship with a person or persons in another
country and wants to learn their language and learn about their culture.

Instrumental Motivation
A learner who is instrumentally motivated wants to learn another language for practical reasons, e.g., getting
into college, achieving a salary increase, securing a post overseas, etc.

3.1.2. Key Elements Of Motivation

Here are some key elements of motivation, drawn from our wide-ranging TEFL and Learning and
Development experience of over many years:

1. You Need To Be Motivated To Motivate Them

You must be motivated before you can motivate your learners. Don’t expect your learners to be motivated if
you are not.
Yes, there will be occasions when you find it challenging to overcome a temporary lacklustre feeling.
Tough though this is, you will need to get out of it, or your learners will quickly become deflated.

2. Most Learners Can Be Driven In Some Way Or Another

There may be the odd learner who appears to lack motivation but, generally, most learners can be motivated in
some way or another.
Perhaps there are cultural considerations. For example, he may not like you taking up his learning time when
the class is involved in fun activities. Alternatively, he may be finding the work too hard. Or, perhaps, he’s not
convinced by the whole communicative approach.
Therefore, you need to find out as much as possible about your learners from Day 1.
What are their likes and dislikes? How have they previously been taught? Did they communicate with you
during the lesson or were your lessons wholly teacher-centred?
If you cannot identify a reason for the drop in drive, make up some reason to meet with the learner after class
(away from his classmates). Try and determine the reason for his lack of, or decline in, motivation. It is
incredible how a little chat can help.
Once you trace the reason why, you can work out ways to help build up his motivation.

3. Motivation Should Be Multi-Directional

When you take up your teaching role, remember that motivation should be multi-directional. Don’t just think
that your purpose is only to motivate learners. You can also help to stimulate a colleague when she is feeling
down. You will reap the rewards from this in the future when she helps you when you are a bit lacklustre.

4. Motivation Doesn’t Last

Motivation doesn’t last. You need to keep at it all the time. Motivating others is a strenuous activity, but it’s
also rewarding. You cannot give up when you, your learners or any of your peers are feeling down. Dig into
your reserves and help as much as you can.
Remember this, again! The whole person comes to school, be it learners or teachers. They come with all
their personal baggage, e.g., worrying about a sick parent/caregiver, or upset due to a breakdown in
some special relationship.
So, the motivated person yesterday may not be the motivated person today. Help and show empathy
wherever you can.

3.1.3. The Relationship Between Motivation And

Language Learning
As research has shown, and as your learning and any teaching experiences probably confirm, motivation is
very strongly related to achievement in language learning. You will be in a position to strongly influence your
learners’ motivation to learn their new language.
You will need to ensure, for example, that your lessons have clear objectives and clear goals and that your
activities are varied and personalised for your learners. Also, ensure that you give feedback and assess on an
ongoing basis.
By doing so, you will be able to foster, stimulate, or even rekindle your learners’ motivation to learn.
If you can accomplish this, learning will happen regardless of whether your learners’ motivation is extrinsic or
intrinsic.
There’s little doubt about it.
Remember this: The most successful learners are not necessarily those who naturally find language learning
easy. It is often those who have specific motivational and attitudinal characteristics, for example:

 the need for achievement

 goal orientation
 perseverance
 tolerance of ambiguity

3.1.4. Recognising A Motivated Learner

What do you think are the characteristics of a motivated learner? How will you identify a motivated learner?
Think of motivated learners you have observed in the past. You may have thought: She’s always on the go,
wanting to learn. How does she do it? What traits and qualities did she have?
Or, perhaps, you have always been a motivated learner. What motivation traits and qualities do you have?
Reflect on this.
Time to reflect
Focus on a motivated learner you know – past or present. It could be yourself.
What traits and qualities does/did this person have?
Try and do this without looking at the next Section.
Take some time out to make a drink or sandwich and reflect on this question.
Then you can return to check your thoughts with what we think below.

Well done!
Research has shown that the motivated learner will typically display most or all of the following
characteristics:

 Perseverance; a ‘never-give-up attitude’.

 The learner is willing to face tasks and challenges and has confidence in her success.
 The learner finds it essential to succeed in learning, to maintain and promote her positive self-image.
 The learner needs to achieve, to overcome difficulties and succeed in what she sets out to do.
 The learner is ambitious, goes for demanding challenges, high proficiency, and top grades.
 The learner is acutely aware of the goals of learning, or specific learning activities, and directs her
efforts towards achieving them.
 The learner consistently invests a high level of effort in learning and is not discouraged by setbacks or
apparent lack of progress.
 The learner is not bothered or frustrated by situations involving a temporary lack of understanding or
confusion; she can live with these patiently, confident that understanding will come later. In essence,
she has a tolerance for ambiguity.

3.1.5. How To Influence And Drive Learner

Motivation
Always focus on practical ways in which you can influence and drive motivation.
Here’s what to do:

1. Personalisation
Learners are more likely to be interested in tasks that relate to themselves or their interests. Ask learners to
share their opinions, tastes, experiences and suggestions. This can be very motivating because they’re
connecting the learning material to their personal life experience and context.
We have taught boys-only classes in the Far East where the English Premier Soccer League was king, as was
David Beckham at the time. Every single boy in the class was passionate about football(soccer) and anything
to do with football, e.g., magazines, strips, soccer cards with their favourite player’s picture on the front and
details about him on the back, etc.
There was no need to motivate them when a lesson was built around, for example: What are the three
questions you would ask David Beckham if you met him? OR Draw your own football strip and tell your
group why you chose the patterns and colours on the strip and badge.

2. Realia
Your learners will be much more engaged when you use realia: real-life, authentic language materials.
Authentic materials are materials that are unscripted and unedited and are not explicitly developed for
language learning purposes. These could be, for example:

 Restaurant menus
 Extracts from newspapers, magasines: photos, advertisements, classifieds, crosswords, horoscopes,
features, etc.
 Travel tickets
 Recordings of casual conversations amongst native speakers
 Radio and TV news and weather broadcasts

Realia material can help to bring the language classroom to life.

3. Gamification
Gamification is where a teacher adds in-game elements to motivate her learners. Some teachers have been
doing this for many years.
As learners now grow up with video and computer games as part of their everyday life, the concept of
gamification is becoming more prevalent in the classroom.
In general, it mirrors several elements found in the video/computer games context:

 the excitement when participating, individually or in a team

 a fast pace
 rewards, and sometimes ‘punishments’
 time limits, often with a visible countdown (a big alarm clock)

For example, the teacher might set up a lexical recycling activity (re-meeting lexis they have learned recently),
where the groups of learners need to look at pictures and complete the gaps in sentences with the correct
recently learned word. The rules of the game could be:

 a countdown period for completion

 points for finishing earlier than others (but answers must be correct)
 marks for correct sentences
 points not given (or deducted) for incorrect sentences
  possible additional points added by the teacher for observed group organisation, e.g., the group
appoints a ‘checker’ to check the answers before they say they have finished

Generate a bit of tension and challenge, now and again.

4. Choice
Occasionally, let your learners choose what they want to do or how they want to do it. When they have
choices, they have a feeling of autonomy.
An example of autonomy would be to allow learners to pick from a list of topics to debate. Or you can let
learners choose partners with whom they would like to team up with for a specific activity or game.

5. Projects With Tangible Results

Projects are very motivational. Everyone can contribute. There can be many tangible results.
For example, the short and simple storybook, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, can be extended into a very
motivational project. Here are some of the many tangible results:

 The life cycle of a butterfly – mapping the stages, making drawings, making wire butterflies and
hanging them up in the room, raising butterflies from caterpillars in the classroom, observing and
noting their growth, identifying differences in the butterflies
 Learning strategies such as predicting, guessing, hypothesising, sequencing (putting the days of the
week in order or the life cycle steps in order), memorising (what he ate on Tuesday), researching
(what caterpillars eat and drink), etc.
 Art and design: making cardboard or cloth models of caterpillars, and making patterns and colouring
 Music, drama, and movement: singing butterfly songs and rhymes, reciting poetry and taking part in
performances for an audience, and moving like a caterpillar and butterfly

6. Warmers
When you engage your learners and inspire their interest at the start of a lesson, you are using a ‘warmer’.
This is very important; more than likely they’ll have just come from classes and situations where they have
been using their native language. So, a warmer will get them swiftly engaged and participating, and into the
‘English mode’ immediately.
Always try to make the warmer related to what they have already been learning or what you are about
to teach. That is, don’t use an unrelated warmer just for fun.
We have included several warmer examples in Module 7. Here is an example of a warmer with a
purpose:

Example
In the previous lesson, they have learned the structure: Would you prefer to…?
For the start of their next lesson, make up some two-set fun choices, headed up with: Would you prefer to …
The options could be anything:

 be a lion/be an elephant
 eat popcorn all the time/eat potatoes all the time
 be stranded alone on a deserted island/be stranded on a deserted island with someone who plays the
trumpet all day and all night

Then, the learners choose, and you can encourage them to tell the class why they chose one of the options.

7. Make Them Aware Of Their Success

An effective way to motivate your learners is to make sure that they are aware of their success. You can
convey this message by a nod, a tick on the page, or a smile. But a sense of pride and satisfaction may, of
course, also be enhanced by explicit praise or approval, or by a comment in the learner’s answer book.

8. Vary Classroom Topics And Tasks

Topics and tasks should be selected carefully to be as inspiring as possible. However, there are very few single
types of activities that interest everyone, so you should use a wide range of different ones over time. Even
within a lesson, you can organise a series of tasks that have learners doing different things to keep them
engaged.
For example, get your learners to listen to a dialogue about ‘School Routines’. Then ask them to complete a
worksheet and get them to compare their answers with a partner. Next, then have learners partner up to create
an original dialogue on the same topic. Variety is a primary key to success.

9. Create A Fun And Friendly Atmosphere

Entertainment produces enjoyment, which in turn adds motivation. Entertainment can be teacher produced,
such as jokes, stories, mimes, songs, or even dramatic presentations. It can be recorded, such as movies, video
clips, or television documentaries.
Other activities such as role-play and simulations that use the imagination and put learners in different
situations can be very motivating.
It is important to note, however, that some learners are inhibited and may find such activities intimidating at
first. As such, you especially want to avoid running learners up to the front of the class to ‘perform’
spontaneously.

10. Create Open-Ended Exercises

A cue that invites several possible responses is usually much more stimulating than one with only one right
answer. By aiming for this, the participants’ contributions become more unpredictable. They are also more
likely to be insightful, original, or even humorous. For example, If I won a million yuan, I would …