Педагогические науки/3. Методические основы воспитательного процесса

Teacher Bondarenko I. Oleksandra

National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”, Ukraine

Motivation in the classroom

Motivation is defined as the internal and external factors that stimulate desire and energy in people to be continually interested and committed to a job, or to make an effort to attain a goal [1]. Classroom motivation is important, in order for effective teaching and learning to occur and although students ought to have some measure of motivation towards succeeding in the classroom, teachers need to be mindful of their own behavior, teaching style, design of course, teaching environment, nature of assignment, informal interaction with learners and appearance which can affect learner motivation.

And, of course, we have some other understandings and definitions of motivation. Here are some from Dwight David Eisenhower, Lloyd Dobens, Jim Rohn, Homer Rice and John C Maxwell. So, motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do [Dwight David Eisenhower]. The only lifelong, reliable motivations are those that come from within, and one of the strongest of those is the joy and pride that grow from knowing that you have just done something s well as you can do it [Lloyd Dobens]. Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going [Jim Rohn]. You can motivate by fear. And you can motivate by reward. But both of these methods are only temporary. The only lasting thing is self – motivation [Homer Rice]. The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation. And then, guess what? After you start doing the things, that’s when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it [John C Maxwell] [2]. If to sum up, we can easily say that if you are motivated you have a reason to do a particular thing [3].

If you are unmotivated you have no interest in or reason to do a particular thing. If you are demotivated you have lost your motivation. If you are re-motivated you become motivated again [4].

Earlier, we mentioned such notions as internal and external factors, which gives us the opportunity to move to consideration of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in the classroom. Now then, extrinsic motivation refers to behavior or that is driven by external rewards such as money, fame, grade, and praise. Extrinsic motivation arises from outside the individual. Intrinsic motivation refers to behavior that is driven by internal rewards. This means that motivation engages in a behavior and arises from within the individual because it is naturally satisfying to you.

Researchers into intrinsic motivation has identified three aspects of intrinsic motivation: mastery – the task that we find most engaging are those that are just difficult enough to challenge us, but not too difficult for us to achieve. It is extremely, satisfying and motivating to overcome a series of progressively harder challenges; purpose – we need to know what are we trying to achieve. This goes well beyond traditional objectives like making money, meeting deadlines and getting good grade; it’s all about who we want to be in life, and how we want to be remembered after we are gone; autonomy – if you give people the chance to decide for themselves what they do, when they do it, who they do it with and how they do it, they will be highly motivated and will produce superior results [5].

Four types of autonomy are:

1. Autonomy over task: choosing learners should do;

2. Autonomy over time: choosing when learners should do something;

3. Autonomy over team: choosing who learners work with;

4. Autonomy over technique: choosing how learners should achieve something [6].

Simple motivation techniques are:

· Humour,

· Winning points and stickers,

· Races,

· Making videos,

· Competitions,

· Competitive games,

· Praise,

· Project work,

· Making posters,

· Experiments,

· Creativity,

· Challenges [7].

References:

1. BusinessDictionary.com, 2014

2. British Council Coursebook “Certificate in Vocational English Language Teaching (CiVELT), Module 10 – Language learning in ESP: motivation, p.1

3. British Council Coursebook “Certificate in Vocational English Language Teaching (CiVELT), Module 10 – Language learning in ESP: motivation, p.2

4. British Council Coursebook “Certificate in Vocational English Language Teaching (CiVELT), Module 10 – Language learning in ESP: motivation, p.2

5. British Council Coursebook “Certificate in Vocational English Language Teaching (CiVELT), Module 10 – Language learning in ESP: motivation, p.10

6. British Council Coursebook “Certificate in Vocational English Language Teaching (CiVELT), Module 10 – Language learning in ESP: motivation, p.10

7. British Council Coursebook “Certificate in Vocational English Language Teaching (CiVELT), Module 10 – Language learning in ESP: motivation, p.15