Final Assignment Teaching English as A foreign Language

Summative task: Topic 70. Motivating students. TEFL 12O Hs.

How could an ESL teacher tackle a demotivated classroom and turn them into inspired, collaborative and creative learners?  

Motivate, inspire and engage are three main focal points without any doubt in the mindset of a successful language instructor. Most of the education theories, emphasizes on the concept of building a bond between the students and their mentor, taking into accounting different approaches, techniques and pragmatic involvement. Our brain learns due to three reasons, when something stimulate us, generate a status of gaining momentum and it resembles an exemplary behavior or situation to be followed. We can define motivation as the desire to attain goals through a go getter vision and attitude. This term derives from the Latin word Movere, meaning “To move”. It is a sort of biological drive that every single person has inside. It could be compared with the fauna and flora, they are all motivated to find food and survive. As human beings, we own the same type of genetic impulse to live, make progress, to learn. We want to experience new things, grow as individual and as a group. At first, we learn at home and then we continue with this adventure in school. At this stage, the embodiment of the caregiver appears as a fundamental role to contribute in the kids´ development learning process. It may be easy because children enjoy school, at least for the first five years when it is new and exciting. However, here it comes the coaches´ defiance. That is to say, all of a sudden children face up a new reality in which, they start questioning school and many of them conclude that it is boring and sometimes complex to keep on going or catch up with higher education. Hence, two new concepts arise that are intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation is doing something for the sake of personal satisfaction. The primary motivator is internal (i.e. you don’t expect to get anything in return). You are intrinsically motivated when you do something simply because it makes you feel good, is personally challenging, and/or leads to a sense of accomplishment. For example, a student may be intrinsically motivated to read because it satisfies their curiosity about the world and brings them a sense of calm. Intrinsic motivation is doing something “just because.”  

Extrinsic motivation is doing something to earn a reward or to avoid a punishment. The primary motivator is external (i.e. you expect to get something for completing a certain task, or you want to avoid a consequence for not doing something). For example, a student studies for a test because they want to earn a good grade. Or they mind their behavior because they don’t want to lose their recess. Students choose behaviors not because they enjoy them or find them satisfying, but in order to get something in return or avoid an adverse outcome.

Some studies have shown that outer incentives are weak reinforces in the short run and negative in the long run. But, it sometimes can beneficial as a hook to get students invested in learning. The most important insight is to balance the usage of both types of motivation. In addition, we should be able to apply the 10 commandments for motivating language learners as follows:

1. Set a personal example with your own behavior.
2. Create an amusing, relaxed atmosphere in the classroom.
3. Present the task/topic properly.
4. Develop a good rapport with the class.
5. Boost the learner´s self- confidence in linguistic.
6. Make the language lesson enthralling.
7. Encourage learner autonomy.
8. Customize the learning process.
9. Increase the learner´s goal- orientedness.

10. Habituate and involve learners with the target language culture.

As a conclusion, Motivation levels in students can be raised by an educator who pays attention to his students and is interested in their self- improvement. Good Mentors for English as a second language must be empathic and functional to the learners needs. Besides, the challenge is to focus on constructing a path in which choices, collaboration, communication, critical thinking and creativity in the classroom, come up with the epiphany of inspired and motivated students. These skills are the base for talented, educated and supporting human beings that will make a difference in present and tomorrow´s society.

...