How to bring about “Learning Motivation”?

[Rain]

In terms of learning effect, motivation plays an essential role in learning process. But how could we touch off learning motivation in a poor learning condition in which most students reject learning? Take learning English for instance. If you teach students who are completely not interested in English, what will you do before formal instruction? I wonder probably we could try to teach those students English through multiple media. For example, teach them English by means of movies or games. However, it occurs to me that students perhaps will pay the whole attention just on movies, games, or those activities trying to bring about their learning motivation except for the contents—the real purpose. And my another question is that how to teach students grammar through activities? What could we do to avoid putting the cart before the horse?
In fact, I tried to find some ways that I may cause students’ learning motivation. And there is a method making a deep impression on me. The method is slanted in favor of behaviorism. The author mentions rewards and punishments. For me I never agree with punishing students for learning capacity. What do you think about punishment? Is it really necessary during learning process?

[LarryLatham]

I would be extremely wary, Rain, of any method based on behaviourism. Students are not salivating dogs, or birds looking for seed.

I do empathize with your predicament, however, and hope you can get some help. In my experience, there is no teaching students who have no interest in learning what you offer.

Larry Latham

[Rain]

LarryLatham, thank you for your response!! But here, I wanna ask you how do you teach English gramma to those non-native English-spoken students? Grammar is such a boring and dull subject and most teachers may not really know how to instruct it and students have less interest in that insipid grammar...

[LarryLatham]

Ah, Rain, perhaps you have no passion for grammar! Maybe that's the key. I, myself, find grammar fascinating, exciting. The very last thing it is is a bunch of rules to be memorized. The very stuff of meaning, of communication is dramatized by grammar. The nuances of English, the basis for "reading between the lines" is there. Grammar is hardly boring, if you know it. Perhaps you could make a more concerted effort yourself to make its acquaintance!

Larry Latham

(If you love the grammar, you can make your students love it too.)

[doggy]

I am a teacher in teaching music(actually I take it as my part-time job)and I find one thing interesting that students will be eager to learn(or to practice)if we teachers encourage them more.It's evident that encouragement is more important than punishment,isn't it?
Besides,a class with not too serious elements is also vital to students.It sounds that I'm catering to students,but all of us were students in learning before,we know exactly what studeans want and what they don't want,right?

[Rain]

Hi! Doggy, Thanks for your comment. You're right. You remind me of one thing that is encouragement!! That's true. CONFIDENCE is really essential for learning. I guess perhaps I need to build up students' self-confidence first before I try to instruct them somehitng. Probably building up one's self-confidence is a useful way to bring about students' learning motivation, isn't it?!

[Rain]

Dear Larry Latham,
You're right!! I agree with you that I need more passion for grammar!! But you know what, I don't dislike grammar; however, just don't know how to teach Chinese students English grammar in a interesting and easy way, such as learn it through games or activities... But I do believe that if I love the grammar, I can make my students love it too. Anyway, I really appreciate your response!! I will make a more concerted effort myself to make its acquaintance!!!

[LarryLatham]

To be honest, there probably is no easy way, Rain. The fact is that English grammar is somewhat different from Chinese grammar (although not totally different). (But the problem with Chinese students, in my experience, is that they often don't believe Chinese language has a grammar...at least, when I ask them about it, they reply, "Grammar? Chinese doesn't have grammar...you just say what you mean!"). Of course, English is the same, but it's hard to convince students of that.

But interesting? That can be done, if one has the passion. Good luck, Rain. Where are you teaching?

Larry Latham

[serendipity]

Dear Rain -

I actually disagree with Larry's approach. I don't think that you've got to force yourself to love grammar and grammar teaching to inspire enthusiasm among your students, but that you'd be better off finding some issue in language learning that you already love and feel strongly about, and set out getting this across, irrespective of what it is that you *ought to* teach.

For me, for example, one such issue is technical English. I love investigating technical issues and finding out how machinery works, and communicating this to others, and the vocabulary necessary, that just falls into place. In some lessons, the students and me, we end up jointly designing fantastic machines, drawing huge diagrams on the boards, just getting carried away by each other's creativity and resourcefulness.

Words like "valve" and "washer" and leverage" and "powersupply" they keep coming up again and again, and by the time the course is over, they've become like dear acquaintances to us, because they've proven useful over and over again, in our quest to communicate thoughts and ideas.

Another issue where I have a real strength is everything related to culture and travelling. I feel that a knowledge English has enriched me beyond expression in this particular field, and I'm proud that I've been able to impart a passion for travelling, to the extent that some of my students have actually decided to spend a year abroad, just to find out if they can cope.

And then, when they return, I have them go into the classes of younger students, just to pass on their experience and to promote cultural openness and diversity.

It really makes me feel as if I'm doing more here than to widen students' horizon, you may find this funny, but sometimes I really think that by teaching English, by contributing to humanity learning a common language, I contribute towards world peace - and what could be more rewarding than that?

[serendipity]

You said:

"I guess perhaps I need to build up students' self-confidence first before I try to instruct them somehitng. Probably building up one's self-confidence is a useful way to bring about students' learning motivation, isn't it?! "

I think it's got to be the other way round. The knowledge of having learnt something and of having mastered something can boost people's confidence - it's something that sets them apart and something that nobody can take from them.

I think you've got to demonstrate to them what English can do for them, and how it will enhance their personality to be able to communicate with people all around the world. It's got to be a worthwhile goal for them to be fluent, and then they'll overcome the obstacles.

[bstwhitepigg]

As an English-major student, I can completely understand that English grammar is quite different form Chinese grammar, and quite difficult to Chinese student. I had a hart time on learning grammar, and in that period of time my English teacher didn’t care about our learning motivation; what push me to learn grammar is the exam. When I was interested in English, I’ve already learn about the complete grammar system. I don’t want to see our next generation understand grammar through many tests or punishment. I think if you can evoke student’s interest in English at first place, and that would not be too hard to teach them grammar. If students truly love English, they will surely want to speak in English; then, they will want to understand grammar spontaneously.

[LarryLatham]

I actually disagree with Larry's approach. I don't think that you've got to force yourself to love grammar and grammar teaching ...

Actually, Serendipity, you and I do not disagree. This is precisely what I meant...but perhaps put badly. There is no forcing yourself to like something passionately. You cannot do that. But I often find that if I begin to study something closely and in depth, my interest in that thing grows and grows. It is not so hard to become passionate about something you know well.

Larry Latham

[serendipity]

Well, I guess I've had to study too many things intensely that I didn't care about, and that I gobbled up just in order to get a passing grade while staying distant at heart - English grammar being one of them.

What I remember about it is pages upon pages of essentially meaningless exercises aimed at eradicating imperfections on my part, without me - or my native speaker friends - minding these imperfections all that much.

I still shudder at those "transfer into passive voice" exercises, for example, and these "put into all possible tenses" and "change the if-clause into another type" kind of worksheets. I never understood why someone would want to say a sentence in all possible tenses, when one and only one would be appropriate, and why each and everyone of us would have to master that particular skill.

I know now that grammar is the last domain of the English teacher who's lost his or her near-native fluency over the years. Easy-peasy, and you can trick yourself into believing that you're actually teaching, when all you do is repeat patterns, and test people on material that's easy to structure, difficult to master, and that's ideal for tests which appear objective.

No, I could not, for the dear life of mine, come up with something that would make me all enthusiastic about grammar.

If you are, Larry, then you have my never-ending admiration. How on earth do you do it?

[LarryLatham]

Twelve years ago, if you had told me I would be interested in, or even show skill in English grammar, I would have been incredulous. I hated English classes in high school and university. Especially anything that had to do with grammar. Nothing could be duller; more boring. You said it well yourself, Serendipity:

I still shudder at those "transfer into passive voice" exercises, for example, and these "put into all possible tenses" and "change the if-clause into another type" kind of worksheets. I never understood why someone would want to say a sentence in all possible tenses, when one and only one would be appropriate, and why each and everyone of us would have to master that particular skill.

But about ten years ago I went to Taiwan to live (my reasons why are a long and separate story) and because I have a family to support, I had to work. Clearly the easiest thing for me to do in those circumstances was to teach English (or so it seemed), and getting a job was not very difficult, as I am a native speaker with an advanced university degree.

Ten minutes into my first lesson I realized that I didn't know what I was doing. My students were two young women in their twenties who wanted to improve their prospects for finding better jobs. I knew I desparately wanted to help them, and yet it was clear to me I was unqualified to do that. All I could do was read the workbook we were using and possibly help them find the "right" answers (at least I could more easily read the book than they could). By the end of the hour, I was in dispair. I knew I hadn't earned my money in that hour, and was determined to try to prepare myself to be a better teacher.

To my great good fortune, the National Taiwan Library, located in Taipei about a 15 minute bus ride from my school, has an excellent section on English language and language teaching. I quickly learned to spend all my free hours there studying English. To my even greater good fortune, the subsection on English grammar contained a slim volume which for some reason attracted my attention. It was called The English Verb, and it was written by an Englishman named Michael Lewis in about 1986. The moment I sat down at one of the tables there in the library to look at it and started to read, I knew it was unlike any grammar book I had ever encountered. I began to peruse it carefully, and for the first time in my life began to sense that I could truly understand, not simply memorize, something about the mechanics of my native language. It is an amazing little book. Michael Lewis is an astonishing intellect and brilliant observer of English grammar and why it works the way it apparently does. Far from being boring, this book is fascinating. For the first time ever, I started to actually like grammar. To make a long story short, I purchased a personal copy of The English Verb, and eventually several others of his, along with many others by different authors with differing points of view because I got hooked: English grammar is really interesting if you know how to look at it. And your everyday experiences with the language (teaching, listening, reading books and magazines, talking to people, going to movies) allow you to confirm or deny the hypotheses (yes, hypotheses, not rigid rules) you form about what is true or false about the grammar you read about in textbooks. It is possible to become passionate about grammar. I wouldn't go so far as to suggest that everyone will become passionate about it, but then I never would have thought I would.

So that's my story, Serendipity. I don't know if Rain can do as I did, but I do know that grammar does not have to be dull.

Larry Latham

[Ailun]

I agree with the author's opinion because an article from a news
website says learning motivation is from content itself not multiple
medias. Once multiple medias disappear, then students' learning motivation is gone as well. Medias play the role of helper not the pantagnoist-- the contents. Movies and games are just means to lure and catch students' attention. Medias can enhance only the interest† of learning process, and they should not replace the real role-- the contents.