Філологічні науки/1. Методика викладання мови і літератури

Лашук Н.М., Гречок Л.М.

Чернігівський інститут економіки і управління, Україна

HOW TO MOTIVATE STUDENTS

The word "motivation" is typically defined as the forces that account for the arousal, selection, direction, and continuation of behaviour. Actually, it is often used to describe certain sorts of behaviour. A student who studies hard and tries for top grades may be described as being "highly motivated", while his/her friend may say that he is "finding it hard to get motivated". Such statements imply that motivation has a major influence on our behaviour. Another way to say this is that motivation is goal-directed behaviour. Motivation has long been a major problem for most teachers of English.

Motivation in the ESL classroom is easily one of the most important factors as we are sure most teachers would agree with us. The main reason we are coming to this point of view is that most of our students have low motivation to learn English. In addition to that, while most of them have a vague sense that whether "English will be useful for my future" or not, they don't have a clear idea of what that means, nor is that a very strong motivator; it's too vague and too far off. It is a complex phenomenon and includes many components: the individual’s drive, need for achievement and success, curiosity, desire for stimulation and new experience, and so on. These factors play a role in every kind of learning situation.

Many factors determine whether the students in your classes will be motivated or not motivated to learn. Student motivation is influenced by both internal and external factors that can start, sustain, intensify, or discourage behaviour. The teacher has to activate these motivational components in the students but that is the precise problem. How can it be done in every class every day? Let’s consider some aspects of ESL teaching.

The Error Correction. It is always asked whether we should correct all students’ errors, whenever they occur. The reasonable answer is that if we stop at every single error and treat it with no room for errors to take place, this will lead to a gap of communication and students will be too much afraid of making mistakes. Hence, due to being too much obsessed with making errors, students will be too much reluctant to participate. Thus, teachers should be aware of when to correct errors and how to do that without any hurt and humiliation. By employing appropriate strategies, the teacher can help learners to evaluate themselves in a positive light, encouraging them to take credit for their advances. There are three areas of such strategies: promoting attributions to effort rather than to ability; providing motivational feedback; increasing learner satisfaction and the question of rewards and grades[2]. In a learner- centered classroom, it should be better to correct errors, which students make unconsciously, whenever there is a gap of communication or when not treating the error will result in a misunderstanding of the idea expressed. Correction of pronunciation is good when you do phonetic exercises, as well as a correction of grammar when doing a controlled grammar exercise. But this works less when students talk to each other. Mistakes can be corrected only after a student has finished his speech. Interrupting a student is inadmissible. Another question is whether or not to offer correction in each and every class. Concerning the ways of how to correct errors, there are several techniques which the teacher, who is seen as the monitor, should choose from them according to the type of the error and task where the incorrect form of language occurs. Among these ways of correction we can state: self correction, peer correction and teacher correction.

Stories and songs in teaching. Creating stories with the students is another way of improving your students’ motivation and developing speaking and writing skills. Actually, creating stories is grounded in the students’ ability to create a story from their personal experience. In creating stories some issues are revealed such as: a) fluency, b) whether the students have enough language to create the story, and c) accuracy. Teachers are able to demonstrate techniques of using songs in different ways: to teach grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation because the students like songs and they motivate the students to learn the English language in an interesting way. Teachers can elicit students’ ideas about the song through activities such as prediction, mind maps, word splashes, etc. Students discuss questions such as the feelings in the song, what will happen next, etc. and write their responses in an interesting manner. Students may write and present how the song makes them feel and then draw a picture of their feelings while listening to the song. Teachers respond to this presentation and ask questions. Then, feedback is provided from the group. You should choose songs your students like, or can relate to.

Adults need to talk about adult things; kids need to talk about kid things. For example, we use Lenka Kripac’s song “Everything at Once” for learning the construction as…as; Fool’s garden’s song “Lemon Tree” for learning the Present Continuous Tense, etc.

Internet technologies: podcasting. Podcasts offer language teachers and students a wide range of possibilities for extra listening both inside and outside of the classroom. Supplementing the scripted listenings with the real life authentic conversations you can find on many podcasts is an attractive option for language teachers (not to mention their students) Chosen carefully, extracts can provoke stimulating discussion, and also bring a range of different voices and varieties of English into the classroom, and podcasts can be selected because their theme ties into the curriculum[1].

Learning a foreign language is different to learning other subjects. Therefore, language teaching should take account of a variety of factors that are likely to promote, or even militate against, success. Language is part of one's identity and is used to convey this identity to others. As a result, foreign language learning has a significant impact on the social being of the learner, since it involves the adoption of new social and cultural behaviours and ways of thinking.

Література

1. Stanley G. Podcasting: Audio on the Internet comes of age [Електронний ресурс] / Graham Stanley. – Режим доступу: http://tesl-ej.org/ej36/int.pdf