How to motivate language learners Zoltán Dörnyei (University of Nottingham)

THREE PRINCIPLES OF MOTIVATING LANGUAGE LEARNERS Principle 1: There is much more to motivational strategies than offering rewards and punishment

The ‘carrot and stick’ approach may work in the short run but rarely does it lead to real long-term commitment.

Principle 2: Generating student motivation is not enough in itself – it also has to be maintained and protected

Unless motivation is actively maintained and protected during the lengthy process of L2 learning, the natural human tendency to lose sight of the goal, to get tired or bored of an activity and to give way to attractive distractions will result in the initial motivation gradually petering out.

Principle 3: It is the quality and not the quantity of the motivational strategies we use that counts

A few well-chosen strategies that suit both us and our learners may be sufficient to create a positive motivational climate in the classroom. Indeed, some of the most motivating teachers often rely on only a handful of techniques!

10 USEFUL MOTIVATIONAL STRATEGIES 1. Whetting the students’ appetite: The key issue in generating interest in learning is to arouse the learners’

curiosity and attention, and to create an attractive image for the L2 course. 2. Increasing the learners’ expectancy of success: We do things best if we believe we can succeed. 3. Making the teaching materials relevant to the learners: Find out what your students’ goals are and what

topics they want to learn about, then build these into your curriculum as much as possible. 4. Breaking the monotony of learning: Make sure is that we don’t serve exactly the same meal every day. 5. Making the learning tasks more interesting: Tasks that offer some challenge, contain interesting topics or

include novel, intriguing, exotic, humorous or fantasy elements are always welcomed by learners. 6. Increasing the learners’ self-confidence: Two key aspects of confidence building are providing regular

encouragement and reducing language anxiety. 7. Allowing learners to maintain a positive social image: Don’t forget that for most school children the main

social arena in life is their school and their most important reference group is their peers. 8. Creating learner autonomy: Students are more motivated to pursue tasks that they feel some sort of an

‘ownership’ of. 9. Increasing learner satisfaction: Take time to celebrate any victory. 10. Offering grades in a motivational manner: Make sure that grades also reflect effort and improvement and

not just objective levels of achievement.

A VISIONARY MOTIVATIONAL PROGRAMME A novel avenue for motivating learners is to create in them an attractive vision of their future language-using self. This motivational programme consists of six components: • Creating the vision: The first step in a motivational intervention that follows the self approach is to help

learners to construct their ‘ideal lanmguage self’ – that is, to create a language-related personal vision. The term ‘constructing’ the ideal language self is, in fact, not entirely accurate because it is highly unlikely that any motivational intervention will lead a student to generate an ideal self out of nothing – the realistic process is more likely to involve awareness raising about and guided selection from the multiple aspirations, dreams, desires, etc. that the student has already entertained in the past, while also presenting some powerful role models to illustrate potential future selves.

• Strengthening the vision: Methods of imagery enhancement have been explored in several areas of psychological, educational and sport research in the past, and the techniques of creative or guided imagery can be utilised to promote ideal language self images.

• Substantiating the vision: Effective visions share a mixture of imagination and reality and therefore in

order for go beyond mere fantasising, learners need to anchor their future self guides in a sense of realistic expectations. This substantiating process requires honest and down-to-earth reality checks as well as considering any potential obstacles and difficulties that might stand in the way of realising the vision.

• Operationalising the vision: Future self guides need to come as part of a ‘package’ consisting of an

imagery component and a repertoire of appropriate plans, scripts and specific learning strategies. This is clearly an area where L2 motivation research and language teaching methodology overlap.

• Keeping the vision alive: ‘Warmers’ and other classroom activities can all be turned into effective ways of

reminding students of their vision and thus to keep the enthusiasts going and the less-than-enthusiasts thinking.

• Counterbalancing the vision: We do something because we want to do it and also because not doing it

would lead to undesired results. Regular reminders of the limitations of not knowing foreign languages as well as highlighting the duties and obligations the learners have committed themselves to can help to counterbalance the vision with a feared self.

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